Kids To Get the Best CS Teachers $15/Hr Can Buy 157
theodp (442580) writes "Billionaire-backed Code.org, enthusiastically tweets U.S. Dept. of Education Chief Arne Duncan, is 'providing tremendous leadership in bringing coding & computer science to our nation's schools.' Including bringing kids in Broward County Public Schools the best computer science teachers $15.00-an-hour can buy, according to a document on the school district's website. One wonders how the Broward teachers feel about Code.org apparently coughing up $38.33-an-hour for Chicago teachers who attend the required Code.org professional development, which ironically covers equity issues. Duncan's shout-out comes days after Code.org claimed in its Senate testimony that 'our students have voted with their actions [participating in an hour-long, Angry Birds-themed Blockly tutorial starring Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates]: that learning computer science is this generation's Sputnik moment, that it's part of the new American Dream, and that it should be available to every student, in every school, as part of the standard curriculum.'"
sputnik moment? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, that's cynical and wrong. It's people looking to lower wages of software developers as well as justify immediate requests for more H1Bs, all while taking away the focus on improving our nation's weak skills in the basics of reading, math, and science.
(Note that cynicism is orthogonal of correctness.)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Or is Seattle saying McDonald's cashiers are worth the same as coders?
Hello from Seattle AC! I couldn't have said it better myself.
Re: (Score:2)
Back when I got my BSCS in the '70s CS and all other engineering students were allowed to take any upper division business classes they wanted to no matter if they had the prerequisites or the 3.5/4.0 GPA required for business majors to take the same classes. In other words, the business department comsidered a sophomore in engineering to be superior to a senior in their own department.
At that time a BSCS required work equivalent to a doctorate in buisness. Even with the dramatic reduction in the requireme
summary is of course very misleading. (Score:5, Informative)
For those who don't feel like clicking on the linked documents, they aren't talking about teacher salaries, what they earn teaching. The pay also isn't set by code.org.
When a Chicago teacher spends a couple of hours doing professional development (taking a class or seminar), Chicago pays their teachers $38/hour for the time they spend at the seminar or wwhatever professional development they choose to do. Boward pays their teachers $15/hour for professional development. Those rates are for time doing prof dev, NOT teaching students, and it doesn't have squat to do with code.org - the districts pay for prof dev is the same for any class the teacher wants to take. (Of course it needs to be approved as professional development, a skydiving class probably wouldn't be approved for payment.)
Re: (Score:1)
This is essentially a report that says local cost of labor are off by more than 100% in those two areas for the same job. Seems like too many teachers in one place, not enough in another.
Re: (Score:2)
Might also reflect the cost of living.
I earn a lot less than others in my field in the bigger cities, but then I also was able to buy a home for 1/3 of the monthly cost of renting one in the bigger cities. And that's in "somewhat small-ish Germany" even.
Re: (Score:1)
That's the domino effect... if pay is low, and costs are low, people are happy, but that's still an error to anybody who wants the economy to be leveled out.
Re: (Score:1)
The pay for the teachers is voted by the local bureacrats. There are some market pressures of course, but also political ones. It may have more to do with politics than economics.
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, but you can't force a teacher to sign a contract... there's a line between persuade and force. So, if the pay is too low, no teacher will sign.
Re: (Score:1)
It sounds like monopsony better explains the differential, but like I say, there are always some market pressures of course.
Re: summary is of course very misleading. (Score:2)
nah, how many jobs pay you to take online class? (Score:2)
If teacher salaries were much different, that would be one thing, but that's not the case. How many employers pay ANYTHING for time employees spend taking classes? Chicago treats pays PD time at about the same rate those employees are paid for doing their job. Broward pays just as much for the teachers' normal job. They just figure PD, someone taking a class they choose to take which may benefit the employer, is paid as if it were half work-time and half personal. I figure that's about right. I'd be t
Re: (Score:2)
Not very long ago... 20 years or so, all employers paid technical empolyees to take classes. The classes were even often taught at the companies location. Local colleges would send full professors to teach classes that started just after the close of business so that they were convenient for the workers. It was normal to give employees time off during the day to take day classes. The employees were oftern paid for time and the employer allways paid for the tuition, books, and lab fees.
Technical employess u
Re: (Score:3)
Well considering that this is just a minor benefit in any teachers salary I would disagree. This is just an indication that the teachers union Chicago cared more about this minor benefit than the teachers union in Boward.
At the end of the year the Chicago teacher, who attended the exact same seminars as the Boward teacher just took home a hundred or two more.
And the Boward teacher might make thousands more as a base salary (we do not know), or maybe they have better health insurance.
Or maybe they do make 50
Re: (Score:2)
Well considering that this is just a minor benefit in any teachers salary I would disagree. This is just an indication that the teachers union Chicago cared more about this minor benefit than the teachers union in Boward.
If you're a science teacher, professional development is not a "minor benefit". Do you want a teacher coming in to class and teaching your kids the same thing he learned in college 20 years ago? I know a lot of science teachers who put a lot of effort into keeping up with their field. They read journals, go to lectures, and attend conferences. It really makes a difference when you're teaching kids in the upper grades who are planning to go to college.
We've learned a lot in biology since they sequenced the h
Re: (Score:2)
Well regardless of how much time any teacher spends keeping up with their field, most of that is not going to translate into new curriculum.
Not too many ground breaking developments in grade 10 chemistry in that last few decades.
Re: (Score:2)
Well regardless of how much time any teacher spends keeping up with their field, most of that is not going to translate into new curriculum.
Not too many ground breaking developments in grade 10 chemistry in that last few decades.
You're not a chemist. Right?
Human DNA was sequenced in 2003. Since that time, our understanding of the human genome has been turned upside down every year. Do you know what a histone is? Patients get DNA tests to find out which drugs their cancer will respond to and which drugs will just make them worse. Chemists are figuring out the shapes of proteins and designing drugs to fit. http://cen.acs.org/articles/92... [acs.org] Old theories of human evolution turned out to be right or wrong.
This is what chemists who are n
Re: (Score:2)
And it must of been a very long time since you have had any schooling in high school or university.
The curriculum is tight, and specific. Not only is that new discovery not at all going to help you pass a chem exam, but there is no time to teach it.
Even in university chemistry/physics, they only teach the basics, the stuff that was all carved in stone centuries ago by long dead guys. And they do not even have half a day free time to get into current science news.
Re: (Score:3)
And it must of been a very long time since you have had any schooling in high school or university.
The curriculum is tight, and specific. Not only is that new discovery not at all going to help you pass a chem exam, but there is no time to teach it.
Even in university chemistry/physics, they only teach the basics, the stuff that was all carved in stone centuries ago by long dead guys. And they do not even have half a day free time to get into current science news.
It depends on the school (and the teacher). If your goal is to pass the test, you have a problem.
If the students will go on to science and medicine, they already know enough to pass the exam. It's the current stuff that helps them understand what they will need to know in life.
For example, in New York City, Rockefeller University has a Christmas break lecture series in which Nobel laureates give high school students briefings on the current research in their field.
You talk about how easy it is to be a high
Re: (Score:2)
"I admit that if you have schools whose goal is to get students to pass standardized tests, rather than to understand science, then you don't need a science teacher who is current in the field, or even a science teacher. All you need is a proctor who can teach students to memorize textbooks and short answers, from workbooks published by Pearson or McGraw-Hill, based on 10-year-old material."
I suggest you try that. Get back to us when it fails miserably. And 10 year old curriculum is common. You don't nee
Re: (Score:2)
And do you understand the difference between chemistry and biology?
DNA, the human genome, evolution, etc. are taught in Biology.
Chemistry, not so much.
If you don't want your kid's science teacher to lack knowledge then I would suggest reducing their work load in other areas. Implementing cutting edge discoveries into the curriculum isn't exactly a priority to administrators or a requirement of the standards.
Re: (Score:2)
And do you understand the difference between chemistry and biology?
DNA, the human genome, evolution, etc. are taught in Biology.
Chemistry, not so much.
If you don't want your kid's science teacher to lack knowledge then I would suggest reducing their work load in other areas. Implementing cutting edge discoveries into the curriculum isn't exactly a priority to administrators or a requirement of the standards.
You just don't know much about chemistry.
When I go to the American Chemical Society meetings, one of the largest sections is the Division of Biological Chemistry.
http://abstracts.acs.org/chem/... [acs.org]
What do you think chemists do all day? Add hydrochloric acid to zinc?
(Actually, if you wanted to find out what chemists do all day, you can read an issue of Chemical & Engineering News.)
There are high schools in places like Cold Spring Harbor, where the parents and the school board include many scientists, who u
Re: (Score:2)
Incidentally about half of the recent Nobel prizes in chemistry
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobe... [nobelprize.org]
are for cellular biology.
Your advice is very good for teaching students how to go through life filling out tests.
It's not very good for teaching students how to accomplish something useful in science.
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't often just classes on the field the teacher works in, it is often classes on pedagogy, using new technology to enhance their teaching, learning new software like a course management system, etc.
And yes, teachers should be paid while they are attending these courses, as well as for any course they are required to maintain whatever professional licensing they have.
Re: (Score:2)
in the upper grades
This is a key line that needs to be in any discussion on teachers salaries/qualifications. A 1st grade teacher simply does not need the same qualifications as an AP science teacher.
Re: (Score:2)
A 1st grade teacher doesn't need the same qualifications but they do need qualifications in teaching science.
Science magazine has had lots of articles about the new ways to teach 1st graders about science.
For example, teachers gave out stones and seeds. They asked the kids what the difference was between the stones and seeds. Then they planted them and waited for the seeds to sprout while the stones did nothing.
The point was that 1st graders don't distinguish clearly between animate and inanimate objects. T
Re: (Score:2)
plus $300 if a newer teacher does 6 hours (Score:2)
Ps, teachers in their first three years also get an additional $300 bonus if they complete professional development (including code.org) equivalent to six credit hours.
(OT) Professional Development, Chicago-Style (Score:3)
Here is what Education Hell looks like [joebower.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Nope but new football stadiums take higher priority and of course job creators.
Eternally true (Score:3)
Money talks and bullshit walks.
Re: (Score:2)
Ha.. i can just imagine the motivational speech at the begining of the year.
"Pay attention and do well in class or else you could end up like us teachers".
The problem with not paying enough is you will not attract tallent. Paying too much will attract lousy teachers who just want the pay so the opposite might not be ann answer either. But when your teachers compete with fast food workers on salary, you will end up with whopper floppers asking if you want fries with your math home work.
Re: (Score:3)
Paying too much will attract lousy teachers who just want the pay
Is this why CEO salaries are at record highs?
Re: (Score:3)
What does CEO salaries have to do with teacher pay?
CEO salaries are tied to performance bonuses and stock options. Their base pay is typically a fraction of what their yearly salary ends up being if their company is profitable. You cannot really pay teachers that way because schools do not issue stocks or make a profit. But a lousy CEO typically doesn't make near the salary that would be considered record high.
Re: (Score:1)
CEO salaries are tied to performance bonuses and stock options.
... said bonus targets often being ignored and options repriced so that the CEO cannot lose, as the board does not want to lose its so called "talent". Happy to finish that for you, by the way, as market apologists like you often leave out that last part.
Re: (Score:3)
You have a cite for this? Because there is a legal term for what you just described- embezzlement and it is usually illegal. Not only that, if the company's board of directors authorized it, they open themselves to share holders and could face a lawsuit over a complete misuse of their fiduciary obligations.
Executive bonuses are generally a fraction of a percent of profit. Sometimes they go a fraction higher if profit inc
Re: (Score:2)
What does this have to do with teacher pay? Oh, and in the US, the shareholders have to vote to allow any golden parachute options so it is the owners of the company authorizing it.
A CEO cannot crash a company to the ground. There has to be some element he cannot control or controlled wrongly which is to say the bottoming of the company cannot be at his direction. If he did, it would be a violation of his fiduciary duty and could make him completely liable for the losses as well as possible criminal charges
Re: (Score:2)
Paying too much will attract lousy teachers who just want the pay so the opposite might not be ann answer either.
So what if you attract them? It's your HR team's job to only hire on qualified individuals who are passionate about teaching.
"Will attract the wrong people" is a lazy excuse.
It will also attract the right people!
In fact... it will just attract people.
Re: (Score:2)
Pasionate about teaching? How about passionate to pay your bills and own a home?
If someone with that kind of background can get a better job to better him or herself then why bother putting up with the hell students and parents and tax payers put them through? YOu can be passionate about cooking too. Does that mean you want to work as a fry cook? Hell no. People ahve kids and responsibilities.
There are more positions opened than those who are great at it because the pay isn't enough.
I can say software engin
Re: (Score:2)
How about only take the top 10% of people who enter the college of education and pay them like similarly degreed professionals. This will get performance. The teaching field needs to attract talent not push it away, otherwise we could use a similar argument for CEO pay or whatever it is you do.
Our country seems to be at war with teachers and primary care physicians. Teachers are burning out an leaving in droves and primary care docs are committing suicide at the rate of 1 per day in the USA. Soon we wil
Some will jump at that and do well (Score:2)
Now, is it what we should pay teachers? No, teachers should earn more than that. But a starting teaching position for someone with only a BS would be reasonable at that wage.
Re: (Score:2)
Grad students make less, true, but postdocs typically get a bit more than that, closer to $20-25/hr. Not exactly stellar pay considering how many years you have to put in to qualify for a $20/hr job, but it's still better than what you'd get as a K-12 teacher.
Instead of whining.... (Score:5, Informative)
... why not look at what Code.org has to offer?
This is not a sampling, and it is free to all.
K-8 Intro To Computer Science Course (15-25 hours) [code.org]
Re: (Score:1)
... why not look at what Code.org has to offer?
This is not a sampling, and it is free to all.
K-8 Intro To Computer Science Course (15-25 hours) [code.org]
Sorry that is NOT programming. By the logic of code.org I was programming a computer while playing PacMan way back in 1982 on my Commodore VIC-20. I was programing back then but not while playing PacMan. Computer programming and the people writing the programmes used to be respected and well-paid. Today it is a race to the bottom.
Looks like programmung to me. (Score:2)
Sorry that is NOT programming.
The second lesson introduces basic programming concepts to navigate a maze.
You construct your program using graphical building blocks. But you can expose the equivalent JavaScript code.
15 an hour??? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you can teach coding, you can get a job making more than 15 an hour. You're only going to get awful teachers at that salary.
Re: (Score:1)
Just get yourself hands-on and dive in (Score:2)
Honestly, just get yourself hands-on, and dive in!
Download a netinst for Debian stable.
Install it.
Install gcc, g++, ddd, vi/emacs, make, git, and play.
Try things. Learn by hands-on, error messages, research, stackoverflow, and time. ...There are so many good Internet resources out there in terms of tutorials, source code of existing GPLd programs and projects, of all areas of Computer Science. So again, honestly, just get yourself hands-on, and dive in.
payback? (Score:2)
Isn't that the county of hanging chads? Sounds like payback to me.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
http://www.theguardian.com/tec... [theguardian.com]
.
Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree (Score:1)
Broward county teachers who have a bachelor's degree average $41,000 salary for the nine-month school year. Summer school and professional development like code.org are options to make extra money.
Re:Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree (Score:5, Informative)
Broward county teachers who have a bachelor's degree average $41,000 salary for the nine-month school year.
Are you sure they are able to teach with only a BS? I don't know about your area but where I live new teachers can only teach with a master's degree in education. Oddly enough we are even rejecting people who have a PhD in the field they would like to teach, and telling them only a master's in education will do.
yes, their pay scale does pay MA/MS more, or exper (Score:2)
Yes, their pay schedule has three columns:
BA/BS
Masters (related to field)
Masters (unrelated)
$41,000 is in the middle of their scale for a BA/BS.
I too am curious where you live because a masters in education is generally preferred for a school principal. In most states in the US, teachers need either an education related bachelor's, an unrelated bachelor's plus a six-month teaching certification program, or (rarely) another certification with no degree.
Re: (Score:2)
name the states, please (Score:1)
You've been asked twice already to say where this policy supposedly exists. What states are you talking about? I don't want to call BS on your post if some stupid state where liberals don't think about the consequences of their policies actually did something so dumb.
Re: (Score:1)
You've been asked twice already to say where this policy supposedly exists. What states are you talking about?
I'm sorry, but there are people on slashdot who are desperate to figure out who I am. If I give away what state I currently live in, and the other state I have seen this policy in, that would make it that much easier for them to figure it out. I will only say that the 1,000 mile distance is mostly in an east-west direction, with very little north-south movement.
I don't want to call BS on your post if some stupid state where liberals don't think about the consequences of their policies actually did something so dumb.
As I mentioned in another post, at least one of the states has actually faced reductions in state funding for education, which has resulted in f
Re: (Score:3)
As I mentioned in another post, at least one of the states has actually faced reductions in state funding for education, which has resulted in fewer people staffing the dept of education to evaluate teachers for licensing. That doesn't sound like a particularly liberal ideal to me, being as liberals are associated with throwing money at problems with wild abandon.
When I think of government throwing money at problems with wild abandon, the first image that comes to mind is the Bush Administration sending $12 billion to Iraq in pallets of shrink-wrapped $100 bills and handing them out to contractors and others that nobody can identify. http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com] I've heard GWB called a lot of things but not a liberal. Maybe wars don't count, but I can think of a lot of other dubious programs that conservatives have thrown money at with wild abandon, like chasti
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but there are people on slashdot who are desperate to figure out who I am. If I give away what state I currently live in, and the other state I have seen this policy in, that would make it that much easier for them to figure it out.
I don't know if you're serious about this or just joking, but FYI, it's pretty hard to hide on the internet: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but there are people on slashdot who are desperate to figure out who I am. If I give away what state I currently live in, and the other state I have seen this policy in, that would make it that much easier for them to figure it out. I will only say that the 1,000 mile distance is mostly in an east-west direction, with very little north-south movement.
If you are afraid to give evidence to back up your assertions, then why are you making those assertions in the first place?
If you were serious about contributing to this discussion, you could have said that there were two states that had this policy and linked to evidence of that policy, without ever saying that you lived there. But instead, you were more interested in making it a personal thing about "I experienced that and I am so important that if I told you what state I live in I would have to shoot you
Re: (Score:2)
If you are afraid to give evidence to back up your assertions, then why are you making those assertions in the first place?
Why am I uniquely required to back up my assertions to such detail? People make assertions on slashdot with great frequency that do not require them to share data that relates to their personal lives, and are not required to share why they made them.
If you were serious about contributing to this discussion, you could have said that there were two states that had this policy and linked to evidence of that policy, without ever saying that you lived there.
Well, I happened to say that I lived in two states with such policies. Perhaps you didn't know this before, but you don't get to take back or edit comments on slashdot. We can debate whether I presented it in the best way, but the past is what it is.
But instead, you were more interested in making it a personal thing about "I experienced that and I am so important that if I told you what state I live in I would have to shoot you."
I made
Re: (Score:3)
You've been asked twice already to say where this policy supposedly exists. What states are you talking about? I don't want to call BS on your post if some stupid state where liberals don't think about the consequences of their policies actually did something so dumb.
Since the commenter won't answer your question, here goes: Google points me to the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2013 State Teacher Quality Yearbook [nctq.org], which says that: "Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, New York and Oregon all require a master’s degree or coursework equivalent to a master’s degree" (p. 87).
Re: (Score:2)
Ooops. I misread the GP post, so my answer did not address the real question of whether they would reject a Ph.D. as being equivalent. Sorry about posting an irrelevant answer.
One thing I will say is that getting a Ph.D. prepares a person for research, but most Ph.D. programs don't include anything about how to teach the material to high school students, so it's reasonable that a state would want to know not only do you know the technical material, but also do you know how to teach it, maintain classroom d
thanks. If any require a masters in education (Score:2)
Thanks for that. When I have a strong signal on my phone, I'll download it and see if any require a masters in education, as the gentleman/lady claimed.
Re: (Score:2)
Ph.D. != qualified to teach (Score:3)
It sounds like a perfectly reasonable requirement to me. Having a Ph.D. doesn't qualify you to be a plumber or auto mechanic, so what makes you think it qualifies you to be a teacher?
Things are somewhat different at the university level because you're assuming that the students are basically adults that have already learned how to educate themselves, and the instructor is there simply as a guide. Plus there are grad students and a tutors around specifically to help them when your guidance is so piss-poor t
Re:Ph.D. != qualified to teach (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds like a perfectly reasonable requirement to me. Having a Ph.D. doesn't qualify you to be a plumber or auto mechanic, so what makes you think it qualifies you to be a teacher?
It's more like you're an Electrical engineering graduate, and a potential employer need some diagrams to be made of potential electrical circuits, BUT they (rejecting your qualifications), insist that only someone with an art/sketching degree is qualified to to put together electric circuit diagrams for their projects.
Because you have deep knowledge of science or engineering or mathematics or the subject matter, and teaching is a basic skill: just like speaking in public is a basic skill, and an expert in the subject is the most able to provide in depth guidance and genuine learning about the subject.
The education major who has rudimentary knowledge of math themselves --- trying to teach high school Calculus, perhaps, will not be able to answer student questions or encourage/facilitate/promote any learning that goes outside the teacher's very narrow box, of the teacher's own study of the subject matter.
If someone is going to teach Biology, I would take the guy who has a P.H.D. in biology, and the proper enthusiasm and skills, over the guy who doesn't have a clue about the subject, but just took courses to learn how to teach.
You don't need a 4 year degree in Public Speaking, to be allowed to speak at a conference.
You don't need a 4 year degree in Education, to know how to teach, and you will probably do a better job, since you actually know extremely well, the field that the subject matter you will be teaching is in.
I prefer QUALIFIED experts in the field they will teach about, FILTERED to include only people who are subjectively good at teaching.
Re: (Score:2)
You obviously have no experience teaching children, and probably not even much teaching at a college level. You're not going to be able to impart Ph.D. level concepts to grade-schoolers or probably even high schoolers. A bachelors-level education in the field is more than enough. The hard part is managing the attention of a classroom full of kids many of whom have little interest in being there, so that they can learn the subject well enough to at least pass basic competency tests.
Re: (Score:2)
If someone is going to teach Biology, I would take the guy who has a P.H.D. in biology, and the proper enthusiasm and skills, over the guy who doesn't have a clue about the subject, but just took courses to learn how to teach.
Are these my only choices? Personally, I'd choose the guy who actually CAN teach, rather than somebody with credentials saying he took classes in something... teaching or biology or whatever.
You don't need a 4 year degree in Public Speaking, to be allowed to speak at a conference.
You don't need a 4 year degree in Education, to know how to teach,
Yes, and you don't need even a 4-year degree in biology to teach high school level biology. A Ph.D. is massively overqualified. Sure -- if that person is a good teacher and wants to teach high school, that's fantastic. But I'm more interested in having a good TEACHER who is good at TEACHING biology, than someone wit
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When you're talking about educating children though it's a completely different ball of wax. Children aren't just miniature adults, they're inherently different creatures, important aspects of their brain have still only begun to develop, and you can't expect them to educate themselves with minimal guidance as you would an adult.
Case in point. I looked up some research-based standards for science education. Children of different ages can only understand certain concepts at certain ages. If you try to teach them something that they're not yet capable of understanding, you'll fail, they'll fail, and at worst you'll convince them they're not good at science.
For example, it's difficult for kids even in middle school to understand molecules and atoms. It's too abstract. It makes sense when you think of it. Science is based on observatio
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There may be some rare 2- and 3-year-olds who can read. I'd like to see a report of those kids that isn't self-reported by parents.
I'm talking about teachers who go into a classroom and teach a group of children. It's impossible to teach normal 2-year-olds to read in any meaningful way. Teachers know this.
Same with chemistry. This is what the science teachers say. You can get kids to parrot answers, but they won't understand what they're talking about.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't buy that my children and I are simply genetically superior to nearly the entire human population. You can try to convince me otherwise, but it seems more likely an industry group with an interest in making a false claim is spreading a myth than it is that my children and I are really that far about the rest of the human race on the evolutionary scale.
You sound awfully conspiratorial.
I guess this is an example of the articles you don't like. http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinf... [apa.org]
I haven't met your children and I don't know if they could read at the age of three, or merely recognize words on flash cards. It certainly would be very impressive if they could read a book at the first grade level. But I'd need more than your own self-report.
Teachers say that all childhood skills have developmental stages, and if you try to teach a kid to learn something before he's
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We understood molecules and atoms in elementary school. Perhaps it's because our teachers weren't 'taught' that we couldn't understand atoms and molecules in elementary school.
The ins and outs of DNA are a bit much for 6 year olds, but they mostly do understand inherited traits to a degree and might as well know it;' because of this thing called DNA that they can learn more about later.
Re: (Score:2)
We understood molecules and atoms in elementary school. Perhaps it's because our teachers weren't 'taught' that we couldn't understand atoms and molecules in elementary school.
I don't know what you could teach elementary school students about molecules and atoms. You could tell them that there are these little particles that look like Tinker Toys (do they still have Tinker Toys?) that hook together and make up matter. You can't see them so you'll just have to take it on our authority that they exist.
That's not much of a science lesson. In fact, it's an anti-science lesson. You're teaching kids to accept things on authority. Why shouldn't they take the Bible on authority? Why shou
Re: (Score:2)
Have you personally repeated every significant experiment in physics, or are you just accepting them on authority? (noting that some of the experiments would be quite expensive and illegal today).
We were able to read about the experiments and observations that lead to the atomic theory. We could watch some of the experiments being done on educational films (the ones where you could actually hear the '50s in the announcer's voice). We could do some experiments demonstrating scientific understanding (limited
Re: Ph.D. != qualified to teach (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"How can you observe a molecule?"
You observe chemical reactions? That makes the concept of a molecule pretty concrete. Or you could learn about crystals.
We were taught (in a public school) about the structure of DNA around age 12, along with transcription, RNA protein synthesis, etc.
I remember around age 8 knowing about the life cycle or stars, supernova, black holes, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Good luck getting a PhD without giving classes to students.
Plus secondary school students are not little children.
Re: (Score:2)
Still there is not a lot of money. Especially for someone with a CS degree can walk from the teacher job and land a 55k a year job the following week.
Teacher pay needs to be adjusted. Science and math teachers should be paid as much as they would with other professions with those said degrees. Of course the tax payers including hte TEA Party would scream SOCIALISM at such an outrageous waste of tax payer money but it says a lot. Why do it when you have the student loan company and landlord hassling you for
the teachers make more than the $55k (Score:2)
> Still there is not a lot of money. Especially for someone with a CS degree can walk from the teacher job and land a 55k a year job the following week.
They could, but that would be a pay cut, probably.
$41k base for 9 months
$10k for summer school
$4k retirement matching
$4k additional insurance benefit
$59k comparative
The insurance part represents the fact that private employers pay for about 50% of insurance premiums, while school districts typically pay 80%-100%. The value of that depends
how so? compensation vs. compensation (Score:2)
How so? I'm comparing compensation at two different jobs.
Are you complaining that I compared 48 weeks of work in the private sector vs 46 weeks working as a teacher? True, the teacher gets a little more vacation time, but at least some people claim teachers work longer hours, so that should roughly balance out.
Are you complaining that I'm comparing zero tolimited retirement matching in most private sector jobs to the more generous retirement benefits teachers get? That's an important part of the compensa
Re: Broward pays $30/hr for bachelor's degree (Score:2)
That's what average means, thanks . (Score:2)
> > teachers who have a bachelor's degree AVERAGE ...
Thanks for adding the additional detail.
Re:A sputnik moment?? (Score:5, Insightful)
We are in times where someone who makes a billion developing a social app or game is considered to have done something important.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
I do hope that people read this and see how desperately we need numerous reforms. Ask a kid today "How much money is too much money?" and the overwhelming majority will claim there is no such thing. Even when disproportionate earnings becomes detrimental to society, because "me" is all that matters according to what we teach in classrooms and media. Plenty of parents try to teach higher morality, but success is surely limited by pressure from government and media.
Socrates had it right in the Allegory of
Re: (Score:1)
I don't call myself an intellectual, but I am a curious sort, so I googled "Socrates Allegory of the Artisan". Oddly, the only explicit result was a slashdot post by s.petry dated about Aug 2013 which I quote:
Start quote:
"Consider Socrates and the Allegory of the Artisan. The duty of the Republic is to ensure that a good artisan remains a good artisan. Pay him too much, and he will no longer produce works. He will not only stop producing, but spend his time and money meddling in other peoples affairs. Th
Re: (Score:1)
I'm not sure that works anymore. 1999? Yes, broadcast.com was sold for a billion.
Now, Million Dollar Home Page was worth uhm, what was that number again?
Re: (Score:2)
"Sputnik moment" I do not think it means what they think it means. I turned 5 years old just a few days before Sputnik was launched. My father, who was in the invasion fleet on the way to Japan when the only nuclear bombs used in war were dropped, was working at the Hanford plant in southeast Washinton making plutonium for more nuclear bombs. For a family outing we went out and watched a simulated nuclear explosion.... That is what my life was like when Sputnik showed up in the sky.
Sputnik meant that sudden
Re: (Score:2)
"Show me a kid who knows how to add in hardware."
Adding in hardware IS easy. This is how I do it:
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/... [newgrounds.com]
Re: (Score:3)
THIS [youtube.com] is how you really do addition in hardware.
Re: (Score:1)
Back when I was working security 4 years ago, I was netting nearly $26k a year and there's no requirement of college education and I would have been making $27k by now with the COLAs that were in the contract. And that's without overtime.
$30k for teaching is shit money, you wind up on paper working 8 hours a day, but to actually finish all the work that you're expected to finish, it's going to involve working for free. What's more, you are typically required to have 5 years of post secondary education on to
Re: (Score:3)
If you do the math that works out to over $30k a year. Not shabby at all, especially for a teacher.
We are talking about Broward County, FL. A place with a population exceeding 1 million, and an above average cost of living; fair market rents exceeding $13000 a year, for a 1-Bedroom apartment.
At $30k a year.. you can just about cover taxes, shelter, food and water, for one adult and some basic necessities.
Re: (Score:2)
Well any decent IT Security does not have to worry about script kiddies.
In fact, if you are right, their work will be more sought after.
Re: (Score:2)
And if you teach chemistry, they'll learn to build bombs.
Teach physics, and they'll learn sabotage.
Teach economics, and they'll learn exploitation.
Teach music, and they'll keep the neighbours awake practicing.
Teach phys-ed, and they'll mug people.
Teach sex ed, and they'll all get pregnant / society collapses / the gays?
Teach art, and there's a rise in forgeries.
Teach math, and cryptography will no longer be secure.
Teach persuasive writing/speaking, and then there will be a surge in suicide-cult leaders.
Re: (Score:2)
Well at high school, computer science/coding/typing are all pretty synonymous.