Here is the class she is being forced to take.
Here is a test she managed to scan in:
Honest to god people. Your teachers are not innocent, nice, well-intended people. They start off at 18 year old children who don't want to try hard in life and choose an easy degree. Remember that next time the teacher's union demands more money as they fake-claim that it's for the children.
I don't care who you are or what your reasons are. I just want a valuable final product. Only in government does failure bring in a raise - in the real world you need t show fabulous success to get that extra pay.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't education be part of the real world too?
Driving around listening to the radio, they said that in 1980 50% of High School seniors could recognize roman numerals and understand what the number was represented. Now it's something like 15%.
ReplyDeleteI look at cars, and computers, and houses, and all have gotten better since 1980. Heck, even flying is 10 times cheaper (admittedly its not better). Only government gives worse product for more money.
Captain,
ReplyDeleteI am new here,and I was just wondering how you would classify your political views:manosphere?race realist?conservative?libertarian?
Thank You.
The worst part? I worked out all of those in my head....
ReplyDeleteI had to think for about 20 seconds, but I can solve all of those in my head in less than 1 minute. What class is that a test for?
ReplyDeleteCaptain,
ReplyDeleteThis is just another example that the education system is not about educating, but rather about taking your money.
Long ago when I attended high school and even longer when in elementary school, when I was given a test such as the one posted, I was insulted at the low levels of expectation. In fact, on more than one occasion I had told my teachers what I thought of the mathematical pablum we were being fed. Their reactions taught me a great deal. Most (typically women) would become haughty and refuse to admit error or learn. They seemed shocked that a student would dare to point out the truth and correct them. The remainder (typically men) would listen and examine what was pointed out to them. Errors would be acknowledged and corrected. Those who refused to admit error had the lowest expectations, and those who would admit error had the highest.
Given this pattern and that growing up female teachers outnumbered male teachers, it became quickly evident that the school system was not about learning nor was it about education. It was about the appearance of learning and the appearance of education, which meant that it was solely about taking your money. If you wanted to learn, you had to do it on your own.
I have no reason to believe that the situation has changed for the better. If anything, the example test demonstrates that expectations in math are even lower and the quality of teaching has deteriorated beyond anything I can imagine.
Furthermore, assuming the correlation between male and female teachers holds (which admittedly it might not), I am going to predict that there are fewer male teachers in the public school system today than there were thirty years ago. But maybe I’m wrong.
I was always amazed by the number of teachers who had to take to CBEST more than once. That test covered everything up to about 8th grade, and there are currently plenty of CA teachers who STILL have not been able to pass that test. http://www.ctcexams.nesinc.com/PDF/CBEST_OPT_Math.pdf
ReplyDeleteIt was sad to see full grown adults, mainly women, having nervous breakdowns before a simple test like this. Even more disturbing was the fact I was done in about an hour, then later heard from other people that they didn't have enough time to finish. Sad, really sad. Not that anyone cares, but the number of CA teachers who are still not technically qualified, but are working in a full time capacity, is frightening. Used to be a Substitute had to at least have a BA, now if you have some college, a pulse and are willing to dress up and play teacher, you're in.
About half of teacher ed majors fail out at the university where I teach, because if they fail the C-BASE three times, they're dropped from the program.
ReplyDeleteI deal with this with my kid, whose progressive teachers don't group the kids by ability, but rather throw them in a classroom and teach the lowest common denominator. I got called into his school last year because my boy was refusing to help the other kids in his 'pod' with math work because he could do the work in 2 minutes and had 20 more to sit around and do nothing. I got called in because by refusing to do the teacher's job for her, my kid was making the other students 'feel bad about themselves'. I asked the teacher if she had read "Harrison Bergeron." She hadn't.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that the goal of math classes in early childhood education is not to be able to do the problem (easy) but to be able to teach the concept to a small child without a background in mathematics (not easy). The purpose of this assignment is probably to think about the concepts. Why is 1/4 + 1/4 equal to 1/2? Students will struggle with the concept so you have to approach this in many ways with them.
ReplyDeleteI am a high school math teacher and can do advanced math in my sleep, but I still have to think about how to break it down to the student's level.
By the way, there is no way that this is a "3rd grade" math assignment. 3^0 is a fairly advanced concept.
When I was in college, I worked as a teaching assistant in the math department. Part of my job was to grade tests like this. For an elementary education major, this is a hard test.
ReplyDeleteI would have gotten one incorrect answer on this test in 3nd grade at age 8 (would not have known how to handle the zero exponent).
ReplyDelete#11 looks dangerous. I feel like solving that one could tear a hole in the universe or something.
ReplyDeleteThe college in question requires majors to have passed college modeling and statistics, and has a stronger core requirement than many universities. The math ability of the education students is not the issue.
ReplyDeleteWhat the course and test are about is detailed understanding of basic math concepts to better explain them to the young, who may have many IQ levels and learning styles. These are standard in US programs.
As they progress as teachers most Education majors in math go on to take mandated continuing courses into the PhD level to better make suggestions on pedagogy improvements.
As Libertarians have pointed out before they began a world push for mass education, the US is reaching saturation levels for education. Now they're trying to get things out of the way for life-long learning, e-courses and so on to bring the knowledge levels to a high degree over the next generation. See www.libertarianinternational.org
Re Borepatch BA's had the sub-genius or better IQ in the 70's of today's average PhD, and people are sitting in HS classes with special teachers that would have been sent to institutions years ago.
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