Replying to Spooky Phijkchu #spooky.131 They rightfully get frustrated when a kid comes home with a mountain of homework they have to essentially re-teach
What do you mean? We don't give homework anymore :)
politics
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
lol.... I hate that catching on
Same with fully virtual lesson plans
There's a balance that's not that hard to strike
I'd have lost it
Not reading the rest of the discussion, but math basically can be broken into two camps, computation heavy and proof heavy
proof heavy stuff I would caution about teaching students earlier, they need more mathematical maturity to do
computations for calc stuff, easily can be done by grade 6, maybe earlier if you set up the fundamentals correctly before that
Mathematical maturity, you can have that at 12
but usually you gain that through years of practice and gaining intuition
I think it is fundamentally hard to teach math optimally. What is being done is not working, but part of the issue is the people teaching early math are not math people
you end up with teachers with english degrees who themselves hate math teaching math to 1-6th graders
if someone who does not understand why math is cool is teaching math, the students pick up on that and hate it more
You don't even need to explain when it will show up, but that does help
You literally just need someone who likes math and understands the bigger picture teaching it
Math is inherently fun if you structure it that way (it is essentially just a puzzle)
no school does that because 95+% of teachers are not from a math background at an elementary level
And by the time it is highschool where you will have people with a math background, kids who otherwise might have liked math have been selected out of it by poor early education
This is more a funding issue though, since if you had a dedicated math guy teaching math at elementary schools, I bet you math results would go up
(or math guys)
I have been thinking vaguely about how math education works lately, because of teaching during my TA work
Not exactly the same as this because I am dealing with math majors in their 3rd/4th year of a university math program, but still, I really do think you can systematically fix a lot of issues by just having the right people teaching the material
When half of what spooky said about the 15% applies to yourself, and yet you have a bachelors degree.
Half of the spooky opinions don't seem grounded with anyone who does actual work in the education system.
Every class of 300 students, you're talking about throwing away 45 of them. For every school, to every class that graduates, would be an astronomical number of kids being "Thrown out." Literally, the population would be more stupid and worthless by throwing them out. I don't think I could name 45 kids from 3 years of high school that I believed should have been thrown out just for being "stupid."
Teach as in tutoring I assume
Thats kind of not a fair comparison, because the kids who are put into tutoring are more likely to be the bottom of the bellcurve
In my area the problem was the union and the teachers themselves who kept and pushed for classes to stay online and not at school. Even after Covid was ended and kids were supposed to go back to school in person the teachers and union made another push and almost protested to keep everything online. However the state, school district, and parents wanted their day care system back. It required the teachers to basically do zero work and get paid for nothing (which most of them still do). But even before Covid this was a trending problem that existed almost two decades prior.
I was in regular algebra 2 and there was one girl like that of constantly asking questions. Next year I moved to honors thinking I wouldn’t have to hear those people and the teacher having to re-teach material for a week longer because of it…still had the same problem in honors, but at least there were some intelligent kids who helped them out outside of class which is probably why they were able to pass. Plus the teacher also refused to re-teach material (as they should) and moved on, you either picked up the slack or were going to fail.
Replying to TinyBomby #tinybomby Those teachers deserve death
Sadly the district I know struggles for literally to get any teachers so those teachers keep their job and even after abusing disabled kids the union protects them and transfers them to another school if it is really bad.
Replying to (Not Spooky) Spark Dragon #sparkdragoon Every class of 300 students, you're talking about throwing away 45 of them. For every school, to every class that graduates, would be an astronomical number of kids being "Thrown out." Literally, the population would be more stupid and worthless by throwing them out. I don't think I could name 45 kids from 3 years of high school that I believed should have been thrown out just for being "stupid."
Is there at least 1, who would have been a net benefit to the other 300 to remove?
Replying to Spooky Phijkchu #spooky.131 Is there at least 1, who would have been a net benefit to the other 300 to remove?
Yes at least 1, I can think of at least 5 in one class and probably per class there may be 5 but 15% is ridiculous. Future classes after me probably would have a higher percentage but that is a fault not on the kids themselves
The thing of teachers not getting paid a lot is ridiculous and untrue
You’re talking half the amount of work days compared to any other job
Many teachers take that second job because they have the time and it’s extra income to keep up a lifestyle
Replying to (Not Spooky) Spark Dragon #sparkdragoon Yes at least 1, I can think of at least 5 in one class and probably per class there may be 5 but 15% is ridiculous. Future classes after me probably would have a higher percentage but that is a fault not on the kids themselves
great we agree, every school/district will be different
if you were lucky enough to be somewhere where only 5-10% were detriments then that says a lot about the quality of families/educators there
I definitely don't want quotas where we arbitrarily cut the bottom/top 15%
the students who are clearly gifted and the students who are clearly not suited to be there shouldn't be
the majority is in the middle
The 1 to 5 people I can think of are people who actually got arrested at school or were expelled.
Replying to Spooky Phijkchu #spooky.131 great we agree, every school/district will be different if you were lucky enough to be somewhere where only 5-10% were detriments then that says a lot about the quality of families/educators there
The quality isn’t there for what I expected for a school, and the teachers are not either, (several over recent years being exposed as pedophiles), as like it was said, 4/5 are there for an easy paycheck and do no work. It really depended on the union and the administration to get good teachers.
It’s also a big problem when the teaching colleges and universities are pumping out more and more teachers who have zero ability to handle a classroom and or desire to teach. On top of teaching them wacky teaching strategies that no kid can understand.
Several teachers in the one district when the first day of school starts they “pick out,” one student to basically bully and shit on for the entire year. That kid obviously becomes one of the bottom 15%.
It’s well known they do it but the union protects them and every time the kid acts out for being bullied only furthers the teacher’s view of them being a bottom 15%
Replying to TinyBomby #tinybomby I absolutely believe that we need better teachers above better curriculum or whatnot from the government. Better teachers can make do with anything they're given.
Idk how youd incentivize this without shoveling money at them for years and wait for it to get better so I doubt.
There was a substitute who literally slammed an elementary student’s face into a desk and knocked out teeth, who got paid leave and kept their job. The student just stood on top of their desk and told the sub no about something.
Replying to (Not Spooky) Spark Dragon #sparkdragoon There was a substitute who literally slammed an elementary student’s face into a desk and knocked out teeth, who got paid leave and kept their job. The student just stood on top of their desk and told the sub no about something.
literal death. Public execution.
That student gets singled out because of the teacher first singling them out. It’s circular and repeated
The sub was the son or related to someone on the school board so it was known when the first news article about it was published that they were going to be fine. Plus the news takes bribes from the school district to keep events like that hush hush.
