My first-grade teacher beat my left-handedness out of me. My second-grade teacher was a sadist. My third-grade teacher was entirely forgettable. When I arrived in fourth grade after moving from Minneapolis to Altadena, CA, my class was learning multiplication tables, a topic of which I was completely ignorant. Finally, in seventh grade I…
My first-grade teacher beat my left-handedness out of me. My second-grade teacher was a sadist. My third-grade teacher was entirely forgettable. When I arrived in fourth grade after moving from Minneapolis to Altadena, CA, my class was learning multiplication tables, a topic of which I was completely ignorant. Finally, in seventh grade I had some interesting teachers, and an outstanding math teacher in eighth grade. Sixty years later, I keep in touch with him. Then in high school, I had excellent teachers. This was back when Max Rafferty was California Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Pasadena schools were among the top three in the nation -- Evansville, IL, Palo Alto, CA, and Pasadena, CA -- all founded by George Evans. I attended the same school where all the black and Japanese and Latino and ... students attended. I had a choice of six languages: Spanish, French, German, Latin, Russian, or Mandarin Chinese. I chose Russian. Max Rafferty's daughter Kathleen was in my Russian class (and so was Sirhan Sirhan, whom I counted a friend at the time). I had two years of calculus instruction. By black chemistry teacher was so outstanding that Caltech recruited him to be, at first, liaison to secondary education, and then with more responsibilities. They've named a building after Lee Franke Browne.
The parents of a student at the all-white school across town decided that black students at my school were getting an inferior education and filed a suit now known as Spangler v. Board of Education. That resulted in a Federal Judge named Manuel Real running Pasadena schools for twelve years. The "obviously superior" all-white school offered two languages (Spanish and French) and math courses ended with trigonometry. Pasadena schools never recovered. My alma mater (John Muir High School, where Jackie Robinson graduated) almost lost accreditation ten years ago.
John and David Pennington are absolutely correct. Here's my view of American education:
Pre-school is intended to prepare for kindergarten.
Kindergarten is intended to prepare for elementary school.
Elementary school is intended to prepare for middle school.
Middle school is intended to prepare for high school.
High school is intended to prepare for college.
College is intended to prepare for grad school.
Grad school is intended to produce professors and their serfs and indentured servants.
My son-in-law was required to earn a Master's Degree in Education in order to get a California teaching certificate. He refers to it as a "Master's Degree in Drivel." His dad was a teacher too. He said "I love teaching but I hate the union I'm required to join."
Even though learning to read and write Chinese takes four years, instead of learning to read and write English in one year (in a competent school), Chinese elementary-school students are studying Algebra. My native-Chinese colleagues from Beijing and Shanghai told me that even in first grade, their last "period" at school consisted of cleaning their classroom and taking out the trash. Along with CCP indoctrination, they are actually taught some responsibilities.
My first-grade teacher beat my left-handedness out of me. My second-grade teacher was a sadist. My third-grade teacher was entirely forgettable. When I arrived in fourth grade after moving from Minneapolis to Altadena, CA, my class was learning multiplication tables, a topic of which I was completely ignorant. Finally, in seventh grade I had some interesting teachers, and an outstanding math teacher in eighth grade. Sixty years later, I keep in touch with him. Then in high school, I had excellent teachers. This was back when Max Rafferty was California Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Pasadena schools were among the top three in the nation -- Evansville, IL, Palo Alto, CA, and Pasadena, CA -- all founded by George Evans. I attended the same school where all the black and Japanese and Latino and ... students attended. I had a choice of six languages: Spanish, French, German, Latin, Russian, or Mandarin Chinese. I chose Russian. Max Rafferty's daughter Kathleen was in my Russian class (and so was Sirhan Sirhan, whom I counted a friend at the time). I had two years of calculus instruction. By black chemistry teacher was so outstanding that Caltech recruited him to be, at first, liaison to secondary education, and then with more responsibilities. They've named a building after Lee Franke Browne.
The parents of a student at the all-white school across town decided that black students at my school were getting an inferior education and filed a suit now known as Spangler v. Board of Education. That resulted in a Federal Judge named Manuel Real running Pasadena schools for twelve years. The "obviously superior" all-white school offered two languages (Spanish and French) and math courses ended with trigonometry. Pasadena schools never recovered. My alma mater (John Muir High School, where Jackie Robinson graduated) almost lost accreditation ten years ago.
John and David Pennington are absolutely correct. Here's my view of American education:
Pre-school is intended to prepare for kindergarten.
Kindergarten is intended to prepare for elementary school.
Elementary school is intended to prepare for middle school.
Middle school is intended to prepare for high school.
High school is intended to prepare for college.
College is intended to prepare for grad school.
Grad school is intended to produce professors and their serfs and indentured servants.
My son-in-law was required to earn a Master's Degree in Education in order to get a California teaching certificate. He refers to it as a "Master's Degree in Drivel." His dad was a teacher too. He said "I love teaching but I hate the union I'm required to join."
Even though learning to read and write Chinese takes four years, instead of learning to read and write English in one year (in a competent school), Chinese elementary-school students are studying Algebra. My native-Chinese colleagues from Beijing and Shanghai told me that even in first grade, their last "period" at school consisted of cleaning their classroom and taking out the trash. Along with CCP indoctrination, they are actually taught some responsibilities.
Your son-in-law makes an excellent point: the Teacher’s Union!👍💥
I guess nuns weren’t so bad for 12 years, looking back 50+ years.
Thank you for sharing!