Are Teachers Headed For Obsolescence? 570
dstates writes "One Laptop Per Child reports encouraging results of a bold experiment to reach the millions of students worldwide who have no access to primary school. OLPC delivered tablets to two Ethiopian villages in unmarked boxes without instructions or instructors. Within minutes the kids were opening the boxes and figuring out how to use the Motorola Zoom tablets, within days they were playing alphabet songs and withing a few months how to hack the user interface to enable blocked camera functionality. With the Kahn Academy and others at the high school level and massive open online courses at the college level, are teachers going the way of the Dodo?"
Ha, you threaten teacher jobs and see what happens (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, you try to implement something that threatens teacher jobs and just WATCH what happens, sparky. I was once part of an effort to design some online courses (just a few, mind you) for a local school district and learned the hard way to watch my step when treading anywhere near teachers. Unfortunately, my superiors made the STUPID mistake of pitching the program to the district as being a potential money-saver (since fewer teachers would be needed to oversee the online courses than traditional classroom courses). The teachers mobilized like a fucking Roman Legion.
Now, for those of you dumb enough to think that teachers are sweet old schoomarms with low salaries and little power...well, you just keep thinking that. But I know that they broadsided us like the a school bus. Suddenly, those sweet schoolmarms were on every newscast, decrying the courses as a poor substitute for classroom education, something that "cheated the students," as Satan incarnate basically. Their union was all but threatening to break legs. School district elected officials were told in no uncertain terms that the sweet schoolmarms were ready to bend them over and do bad things to them with a slide rule at the next election. We learned the hard way what happens when you threaten the schoolmarms' jobs in ANY way.
Needless to say, our online course plan was SIGNIFICANTLY modified. Most notably, provisions were added to make it clear that the online courses were to be treated exactly like classroom courses, with a teacher getting assigned to each one just as if he/she were in the classroom each day teaching it as a traditional course (even if they basically had to do nothing)--complete with the same class size limitations as a traditional course. Even though this all made no sense with online courses, it's what we had to do to get them implemented. Not a single teacher job was to be lost, nor salary reduced, nor workload increased (only significantly decreased).
Teachers and their unions are masters at playing the emotion card. And they are PR masters too. We're talking teachers, some of whom were making north of $80k a year in this district (and this was in an area with a relatively low cost of living, mind you), who were able to convince everyone that they weren't getting paid enough and needed raises (4-6% annual raises, EVERY YEAR). You fuck with them at your own peril.
The fun they had! (Score:4, Interesting)
Asimov wrote a short fictional story about this in 1951 [wikipedia.org]. It' about a kid who finds an old-fashioned paper book in the attic. In the story, there are no classrooms, kids all learn from computer terminals.
Short answer: No. (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps even more importantly, a good fraction of education lies in not just learning facts, but in doing: in learning how to research a topic so as to produce a compelling argument, in learning how to solve problems, in learning how to perform laboratory experiments. These experiences are irreplaceable.
But perhaps most crucially: most people just aren't self-motivated enough to educate themselves. And even for those that are, it isn't easy to do it yourself.
Re:Ha, you threaten teacher jobs and see what happ (Score:5, Interesting)
They didn't all make that (I believe the average is $52k in my state). But quite a few of them did. You can imagine what 30 years of 4-6% yearly raises and bonuses for tons of other stuff (incl. a $9,000 a year bonus for becoming nationally certified) would get you to from an already generous starting salary. Teachers were actually some of the better paid people in the county I was in.
Re:Are Teachers Headed For Obsolescence? (Score:4, Interesting)
Teacher no... The 19th century teaching methods Yes.
The problem with a lot of the current teaching methods, have focus on a lot of humdrum skills that are being replaced by computers. There needs to be more focus on creativity, and research and less on raw fact remembering.
Re:Ha, you threaten teacher jobs and see what happ (Score:4, Interesting)
Here is what I anticipate something along these lines in the next 10+ years.
1) Students are required to learn via computer.
2) Reduce the number of Course hours by 2 and extend Art, Music, Sports, Ect time by two hours.
3) Students who progress test poorly via computer are forced to have extended after school tutoring with 4 kids per teacher for two hours extra of school per day of your grades slip below a B or you TEST anything below a C.
4) The hours that students report to tutoring is in blocks. Teacher has 8 blocks allowing for 32 dumb students.
5) Kids that get an F require 2 Hours of EXTRA tutoring 1 student per teacher.
Kids are motivated to stay in C+ range because they don't want to be required stay after school later and miss out on sports or whatever they do at home.
Teachers are still on staff for tutoring basis but not as many and hopefully only the ones that work well with students who have learning issues.
If a student wishes to OPT for Tutoring they can do so.
Re:Two Things (Score:3, Interesting)
bad teachers on the other hand will be replaced the day that someone videos a teacher scribbling half legible stuff on the board while students try to copy it down.
Nonsense. Public school teachers are not replaced for something as trivial as being unable to teach. At my daughter's school (Chaboya Middle School in San Jose, California), her science teacher received so many complaints about her unintelligible accent, that she assigned each student a chapter to present, and the kids taught themselves. She is still employed.
Salaries aren't the whole picture. (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't forget, the teacher's union got teachers awesome perks.
Retirement, bonuses for continuing education, health benefits, etc ... all paid for by the school system.
- Mother was an accountant for a school system.
It's like the cops who complain at the crappy pay they get, but what you don't hear publicly, is all the perks and shift differentials, holiday pay, and also an awesome retirement. If a cop works a Sunday night that is also Christmas, he'll make a weeks pay in one night - and all he has to do is pull over drunks.
Both of those professions allow you to retire after 20 years with full pay. So, you're out of college at 22 or HS at 18 in the case of a cop, and you're "retired" at 42 - pretty young. Ready to go off for a second career to retire at 65 with TWO retirements.
Being a teacher can be a sweet deal: less than 40 hours a week, Summers off, holidays out the yin yang,.... I'd do it but I hate children: they should be eaten and not seen.
Re:80k for living in NYC? (Score:2, Interesting)
What stats would you accept? It doesn't sound like you would accept anything that doesn't sit well with you.
And 80K is not bad pay, even in NYC. You can't afford an apartment on Park Ave., but you can do quite well living in the boros. This isn't based on any stats, this is based on people I know personally today and dated in the past. Teaching is a thankless job, to be sure. But the perceived low pay is the not the highest complaint that teachers have either. But I think anything I tell you will fall on deaf ears. Your mind is already made up.
So, kindly, stay out of my ass. I had a burrito for lunch ( early as I am not sure when the power will go belly up ) and I don't think you really want to go there.
Personally, I think both parties are full of crap. Not that it is any of your business, but I supported Obama. And plenty of teachers support Romney.