Comment from Nordette aka Verite
Time April 21, 2010 at 9:14 pm

LOL. Rather insightful.

Comment from Bryan
Time April 21, 2010 at 9:54 pm

Yeah, that pretty well sums it up! I well remember the days when I was held responsible for the grades I got, and was punished accordingly; Now, Thanks to the wonderful “No Child Left Behind” claptrap, the child has nothing to worry about. If they get bad grades, the Teacher made a mistake and must be punished! The frightening part is that the Teacher is not even allowed to actually teach, they just get the students ready for the next test! The only thing that our super intelligent president is worried about? They are over weight!! The fact that they can’t read or write, not a problem! Just get them under their present weight so they can fit in a Armani suit! CHANGE, yeah, right!

Comment from Ezra Christensen
Time April 22, 2010 at 4:05 am

@Bryan Your final remarks are a misinformed. a) Michelle Obama is the one heading up the push against childhood obesity issues, not Barack, b) Mr. Obama has pushed for significant increases in pre-K education funding, which have one of the best ROI’s of education spending when it comes to reading/writing, c) recent Dept. of Ed. RFP’s include projects aimed at finding different ways to test student achievement/teacher competancy that do not rely on NCLB tests, and d) compared to other industries, the teacher turnover (read dismissal) rates in much of the country are abnormally low. Even though the target of parent’s anger for poor grades may have changed over the years, you cannot tell me that ~98% of teachers are doing their jobs to a satisfactory level.

Comment from Joe Bagadonuts
Time April 22, 2010 at 1:35 pm

@Bryan - you earlier comments are askew. This has nothing to do with NCLB. This was going on long before that. This is a result of the “self esteem” generation and the schools’ fear of hurting any kid’s feelings. Remember, every one is a winner, and everyone gets an award, regardless of their performance.

Sadly, parents buy into that and put the burden for little Jimmy’s performance on teachers. Same thing with discipline. I can’t count how many times parents legitimized a child’s wrongful actions. It’s this demonstration of a lack of accountability that is the problem.

Comment from CarlE
Time April 22, 2010 at 1:49 pm

Bryan, Ezra is correct in his initial statements, but Obama’s Race to the Top is pitting school systems that can afford grant writers against those that cannot; and, ignores the fact that while dismissal rates are low the rates at which new teachers do not stay in the profession is high and the difficulty filling many positions in upper grades math, science, and special education leads school systems to retain people for fear of not being able to replace them with someone. There are far too many now working in those areas that are teaching out-of-field because of the shortage. It has been in a few news articles recently that teacher prep programs at colleges and universities are woefully deficient.
Joe B. the self-esteem b.s. has less to do with it than both teaching for testing and administrators with little or no classroom experience requiring the use of scripted programs and insistence on ‘fidelity to the program’ instead of allowing teachers to provide a broad based education. Attempting to relate learning to the students’ real world goes against maintaining ‘fidelity to the program’ and has to be done when no one is looking.

Comment from anya
Time April 22, 2010 at 2:59 pm

@ joe… would you prefer to go back to beating kids on the hand with a ruler if they make bad grades? this IS a result of no child left behind…the focus is on state funding through test scores not on teaching kids.

And as an aside,The kid of stuff kids are learning in high schools today would have been college level material 20 years ago! Which is not necessarily as good a thing as it may appear at first glance.
There was an article recently about how it SEEMS as if the learning is more advanced, but that in reality its more of a surface skimming of lots of subjects without a foundation in basics.

Comment from rocker2344
Time April 23, 2010 at 2:06 am

wow then my parents must think it is 1960 (just lost my car for the f i got on my report card)

Comment from Lynn
Time April 23, 2010 at 2:36 am

The school is into the self-esteem thing? Wrong. The schools and the teachers would love to teach…but it seems everyone except the schools and teachers are professionals when it comes to education (so the public thinks). It\’s also a generation of parents that don\’t want their baby\’s feelings hurt…

Comment from reader
Time April 23, 2010 at 3:23 am

This cartoon looks remarkably similar to a french cartoon published in 2009 by Emmanuel Chaunu
http://www.apprendre-en-ligne......hp/2009/06

Comment from Chris W
Time April 23, 2010 at 4:53 am

The problem isn’t because of Bush’s no child left behind, the problem existed before then. The problem has to do with an outdated system of teaching that doesn’t utilize any of the science or psychological knowledge that we have about learning. Studies have shown that the predominant style of teaching, lecturing, is the most ineffective way to teach.

As Carl Rogers has shown, teaching styles that involve the whole person are best. The whole person meaning that not only is the cognitive aspect of learning there, but the emotional part as well. The students need to be given autonomy, the freedom to learn about things that they want to learn about, the freedom from teachers imposing their views instead of guiding and to express themselves creatively. Not only has it been shown that students enjoy learning in these conditions -it’s an evolved impulse for us to learn, so it should be alarming when we find so many children don’t want to do what comes natural to humans, but they do better in school and we have even seen that on average a students IQ is raised by 9 points! And this is just from individual experiments not from having people engrossed in this atmosphere.

The current curriculum alienates students from their intuition and experiential awareness and their critical thinking skills greatly diminish, because of instead of trying to find the answer they have been taught to find the “right answer” the answer that the teacher wants them to give. Children are naturally unmotivated when alienated from their own education with no control over what they learn.

ps
Combating obesity in children is a great idea. Without proper nutrition people don’t function properly (I’m sure we all know about Omega-3s) and improper nutrition not only leads to children doing poorly in school it also leads to problems relating to others. For example, simple carbohydrates from refined grains leads to nervousness.

Comment from Randy
Time April 23, 2010 at 11:13 am

Except that teachers would be held accountable their impact on an entire class, not an individual’s poor or excellent performance. I do agree coupling salaries to student grades is problematic, but seriously there is plenty to be angry about in state run schools. They will not become responsive until parents and students that can’t afford private school have meaningful school choice,

Comment from reader2
Time April 23, 2010 at 12:13 pm

Another problem is more teachers in public school are teachers because of the easy money and not the will to teach.

Comment from Ike
Time April 23, 2010 at 11:48 pm

@ reader2

I know! I\’m so tired that these teachers receive six- and seven-figure paychecks! Time to take these no-good educators down a notch.

Seriously, nobody goes through 8+ years of college and student loans to become a $30K-per-year teacher without wanting to do so. Doctors may go through 8+, too, but at least they make the big bucks.

Comment from C Q Denmark
Time April 24, 2010 at 2:05 am

That pretty much sums it up…personal responsibility for the children you choose to bring into this world and for yourself.

Comment from polwig
Time April 24, 2010 at 9:12 pm

Awefull, can’t only imagine how bad it is going to get in a future.. no responsibility… “not my fault”, “not my job” type of society… what happend to common sense and responsibility?

Comment from Jay
Time April 25, 2010 at 6:50 pm

@polwig- “Awefull” - Remember when they taught spelling in school? Those were the days…

Comment from PocketRebel
Time April 26, 2010 at 4:46 am

Seriously… this is nearly identical to a Chaunu cartoon from last year. Coincidence? By the way, regardless, pretty amazing that the situation is the same in both France and the US. Oddly suspicious is the fact that it’s called “Teachers in 1960 and 2010″ which is more like the French cartoon, which as a teacher in each panel. This one doesn’t show a teacher in the 1960 panel.

Comment from PocketRebel
Time April 26, 2010 at 4:47 am

Sorry, “has” a teacher in each…

Comment from Victoria
Time April 26, 2010 at 11:03 pm

@Ike

6 and 7 figure salaries for a teacher?!?!?!?!? Where do YOU live??

Making upwards of 100,000 in Illinois as a TEACHER (NOT an administrator) is VERY difficult to do. Only a very, very small percentage of teachers receive this sort of salary. Most sit around 50-60K.

Does anyone here actually know what it\’s like to teach? It has got to be one of the hardest jobs ever — especially with the \"not my fault,\" \"not my job,\" no responsibility attitude. When your kid is goofing off in class, calls me a b****, and yells at ME for moving his seat because he thinks it\’s social time and not class time….and I call home — Mom asks, \"What did YOU do wrong?\" — I can tell the world is hopeless.

20-something and 30-somethings…..CHANGE THIS WITH YOUR YOUNG CHILDREN, PLEASE. Don\’t start a society of people that are seriously entitled like the current generations.

Comment from Peggy
Time April 27, 2010 at 1:28 pm

Right on, Victoria! Teaching is the hardest job I’ve EVER done. Every night, weekends. The money out of my own pocket.
Kids who have never been enouraged to read a book;
Your situaton sounds like my school - our entire school district. We teach ‘character counts’ - kids think it is OK to steal, depending on who from; punching solves arguements, and yes, teachers are bitches and faggots.
Parents have never read a book to their kids.
I’d like to see parenting classes required in high school; child deveopment stages and why read to your kids.
I teach context and vocabulary about almost everything we discuss because they have none. THEN we teach the standard which we MUST pass for NCLB.
Parents. When are they going to be held accountable as part of the solution?

Comment from David K
Time April 27, 2010 at 10:11 pm

Compulsorily education is rather questionable and ought to be, it’s one of the few policies the government has carried out with both the colonizers and the colonized. Schooling, education … needs to be closely linked to an objective, however; like so many things have been lost in the USA, They just keep on going because of institutional inertia. without purpose and intention no amount of hard work will be likely to realize quality epically in raising & teaching young people.

Considering the money being spend in the sector and the results being achieved by it. I doubt it’s the teachers, perhaps more so the institutional bureaucratic establishment, the text book publishers are surely a leach on the process of educating young people. Yes new books are needed, have college students write them and publish them in the prisons so even the folks whom are locked up can get informed and knowledgeable about live, society and the sciences.

That is what the 60’s was like? Really? I get the impression that things were not so hard in fact; the USA has just come out on top of WWII. The Economey was popin and lockin into mass production of consumer goods and folks were dropin lsd and tuning out.

in 2010 you’ve got poor schools with inept and rigid institutional structures, a good place to start is with deschooling society by Ivan Illich another is this former NY teacher of the year.. The idea that young people need to be separated from society into their own pockets of their age group is bizzar social conditioning form the industrial revolution. I don’t see the rust belt being revitalized epically with China’s appetite for manufacturing.

What would be a educational system fit for the 21st century ?

Comment from rhonda
Time April 28, 2010 at 1:50 pm

I think when it comes to education , we need to go back to go forward. The high school drop out rate was low and test scores were higher when I was in school and no I was not beaten for bad grades. Our schools didn’t use corporal punishment.

Comment from Rick C.
Time May 1, 2010 at 6:41 pm

I teach in Massachusetts. An addendum to the cartoon on the right might read: “These grades are terrible (B+)!!!”
The current generation; children of entitlement and “white privilege” is one that continually positions too many teachers in situations requiring explanations of and reasons for behavioral consequences and justification of grading practices. More often than not, parents “end run” teachers and go directly to the principal to “convey their concerns.” Today’s schools are increasingly forced to institute programs and practices to compensate for parenting practices that do not build character or moral reasoning abilities in their children. Ownership of one’s choices, responsibility and consequences of one’s actions, a lack of boundaries between parent and school and fear of litigation permeate too many schools. As a result, these factors often influence our decision-making process. We are increasingly challenged and stressed as a result.

Comment from Ted Gibbons
Time May 6, 2010 at 10:41 am

It is not what you know as much as who you know. We get our education from Sit-coms and Talk-back and treat stupidity like an achievement.

Comment from geoff
Time May 6, 2010 at 1:05 pm

Ted Gibbons: “treat stupidity like an achievement.” Yep. As someone wrote a while back: “proud to be dim.”

Comment from Marc @ Cormier
Time June 18, 2010 at 1:25 am

Seems Daryl’s “inspiration” was a cartoon from France, from 2009

http://pedagogisme.p.e.pic.cen.....ratq1o.jpg

Comment from Amilam
Time June 18, 2010 at 8:16 am

Personally, I’d like to see more dedicated streaming of students like we see in countries with superior education (ex: Singapore). I knew plenty of classmates that had no interest in attending classes, but were too young to drop out. So they had to sit in the library all day and sleep. These kids need to be funneled into a more robust work-study program. The bottom line is that no everyone can or should go to college and one can live a very successful life without doing so. Let these kids try their hands at the workplace and receive an education that has an immediate application.

Comment from Jamye
Time June 18, 2010 at 11:51 pm

“And as an aside,The kid of stuff kids are learning in high schools today would have been college level material 20 years ago! Which is not necessarily as good a thing as it may appear at first glance.”

This is absolutely incorrect. As a science department head, I can verify that our science curriculum content for high school is equivalent to middle school science content just 10 years ago. Our standards are so much lower now than they have ever been, and the kids are still failing to reach them.

Comment from energy monitoring
Time July 7, 2010 at 4:39 am

Take it from the son of a high school science teacher (who also negotiated with the school board over such luxuries as textbooks and lab equipment), this cartoon is spot on!: (thanks alina11)

Comment from Julie
Time July 9, 2010 at 5:35 am

You are missing out by not showing \"Dry Bones\"
Political cartoonist from Israel

Comment from Nancy
Time July 17, 2010 at 7:28 pm

I agree, a lot of student put blame on teachers, but that isn\’t a fair accusation; I am a senior in high school and I have earned my grades. When I have a bad grade, I talk to my teacher about it and I ask how I can fix it. I take on the responsibility and if I feel a teacher is at fault, I ask about it. I have many friends that do the same.
It is not at all fair for students like me and the million others that are on the right path to have to have the generalization put on top of us as well.

Comment from Manna
Time August 4, 2010 at 12:39 am

If you want to teach for the sake of a rewarding experience, have a child, because you sure won’t be paid for your efforts in America. People who have the will to teach are currently attracted to other jobs that pay better, to higher degrees that lead to teaching at colleges and universities, and to different fields altogether. Teaching pays crap. People think that teaching happens from 9 am until 3 pm, and not in the summer; not a full-time job. Do you think a teacher comes to school in the morning and thinks to himself, “Hmm, I wonder what I’ll do with my 7th graders today.” If a teacher is going to be able to teach, there are hours of preparation, planning, the gathering of materials and other whatnot to do every single day.

Comment from College Student
Time August 16, 2010 at 4:28 am

\"“And as an aside,The kid of stuff kids are learning in high schools today would have been college level material 20 years ago! Which is not necessarily as good a thing as it may appear at first glance.”

This is absolutely incorrect. As a science department head, I can verify that our science curriculum content for high school is equivalent to middle school science content just 10 years ago. Our standards are so much lower now than they have ever been, and the kids are still failing to reach them.\"

Some of what he said is true, maybe not for science, but about math. I did my math homework in high school and I made it to the high school equivalent of Algebra II and still had to take a low level math class in college, level 20, which is basically pre-algebra all over again. It wasn\’t until the second time through that I was actually able to understand what was happening.