[IAEP] [support-gang] "young graduates doing good because the economy did them wrong, data shows"

[Caryl Bigenho]

Hi All....

I will try to bring this a little bit more back on track....

You have probably all heard the old saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't teach." and the related, "Those who can't teach, become administrators."  

Unfortunately too many of the latter just keep on teachin' .  Yelling at kids, handing out worksheats, showing "movies" every day that have little to do with their subject area. Unfortunately, the unions protect them.  But fortunately, the unions also protect the good teachers from the really bad ones who also became really bad administrators.  

Those bad administrators often also fail to support fledgling teachers, giving them impossible teaching situations which lead to discouragement and, sadly, to them leaving the profession before they have a chance to fall in love it it and become fully effective in the classroom. 

The current emphisis on test scores, embarassingly encouraged by prominant public officials, I won't name names, but you all know who I mean, just compound the problem. 

What is the answer???  Who knows. But filling classrooms with folks who really are just doing it to put bread on the table isn't it. Some may turn out to be great teachers and love teaching.  I hope there are a lot of them. But because of the problems listed above, it isn't very likely.

I haven't seen the 2 documentaries about education in the US yet: Waiting For Superman, and The Race To Nowhere, but hope to soon. They are certainly sparking a lot of thoughtful debate about the current state of education in our country. This is very good.  

As educators, which in a way all of us associated with OLPC and Sugar Labs are, we should be following this debate with great interest and looking for ways we can be a part of the answer.

Caryl

P.S. If you haven't seem Sugata Mitra's TED talks, they are a must and very relavant to what we do.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html   (from 2007)

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html   (from 2010)

Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 13:16:46 -0500
From: jrghoull at gmail.com
To: support-gang at lists.laptop.org
Subject: Re: [support-gang] "young graduates doing good because the economy did them wrong, data shows"

"Do you remember the Simpson's episode where Homer says "[If y]ou don't
like your job, you don't quit; you just come in every day and do it
really half-assed"?"
I actually haven't really kept up with simpsons for something like the past decade. 

regardless, I went in every day on time and left on time. Any task I was given I did to the bestof my abilities. They made me do interviews, and, thinking that they were just going to give me 
a job since I had already been there a year, I hadn't taken it as seriously and didn't sell myself the way I should have. As a result, no job. I certainly did not take the job half assed, nor do I see
how you would take that away from what I said above. 
As for people going into the public sector...you've got to be one of a hand full of people not celebrating this. Not being able to get a job in a bad economy does not mean that someone 
is undeserving of a job, or for that matter lazy, or incompetent. Again, I don't see where you'regetting this from. 
In a great economy that might make sense, but not in todays. We have something
like 10% unemployment across the country, which means that if you pass by 10 people on the street, statistically speaking one of them is unemployeed. And its really hard for people just graduating to get a 
job too, especially when they have little to no job experience. 
Them going into the public sector will mean that non profit NGOs will be able to get people that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to get. And some of them will stay, which will be great for those
organizations that normally wouldn't have such talent. 
On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 1:22 AM, Martin Dengler <martin at martindengler.com> wrote:

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 11:54:35PM -0500, Abraham Goldstein wrote:

> I was actually just thinking of a scene in an

> old simpsons ep the other day that covered this very topic.

[...]

> I'm possibly/probably going to wind up as a teacher [...] but if my

> internship at the bank had turned into a job, then I would have done

> that for as long as I could have



Do you remember the Simpson's episode where Homer says "[If y]ou don't

like your job, you don't quit; you just come in every day and do it

really half-assed"?



My first thought in reading that article was "great, now even more

people that can't convince any company to hire them will be getting

paid by the rest of us -- why are we celebrating this?!".  I thought I

was being overly harsh so I didn't say anything but after reading your

thoughts I'm not sure.



Martin



>

> On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 11:22 PM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com> wrote:

>

> >  Mike...

> >

> > Don't forget you can supplement that 30K/yr with a fun summer job.  My

> > husband worked as a seasonal park ranger in Yellowstone while we were both

> > full time teachers. I got to be a "stay at home mom" in the summers.

> >

> > Of course, the parks are all getting their funds and staffs cut so those

> > jobs won't be so easy to find.  Also... seasonal rangers are at the bottom

> > of the NPS pay scale and live in places HUD would condem!

> >

> > Caryl

> >

> > ------------------------------

> > Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 23:13:57 -0500

> > From: jrghoull at gmail.com

> >

> > To: support-gang at lists.laptop.org

> > Subject: Re: [support-gang] "young graduates doing good because the economy

> > did them wrong, data shows"

> >

> > @ caryl

> >

> > A job is a job is a job. We can idealize it all we want, but unless you

> > live to work, most people just want to get by. It would be nice if some of

> > them stick, and i'm guessing that some of them will. But others

> > simply want the best materialistic things in life that they can get. And in

> > a capitalistic society, it makes sense for them to be doing just that.

> >

> > post script: i'm actually going to wind up as a 4th grade teacher. Kids are

> > awesome, and I think i'm going to enjoy it, but its going to suck making

> > only 30k a year.

> >

> > On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 10:36 PM, Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com>wrote:

> >

> >  My 2-cents worth...

> >

> > It is sad if these folks are taking nonprofit jobs because that is all they

> > can find. Working in this area should be a "vocation" in the truest sense of

> > the world, not just a job to do until the economy recovers and something

> > "better" comes along.

> >

> > Caryl

> >

> > ------------------------------

> > From: me at ninastawski.com

> > Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 19:29:07 -0800

> > To: support-gang at lists.laptop.org

> > Subject: Re: [support-gang] "young graduates doing good because the economy

> > did them wrong, data shows"

> >

> >

> > I would. For us, crazy Russians, purposeful work means everything ;]

> >

> > Although I think the rest of the world is not too much lost to greedy

> > corporates too :)

> >

> > On Mar 2, 2011, at 9:49 AM, Adam Holt wrote:

> >

> >  Recession Turns College Graduates to Public Service Jobs

> >  Excerpt: Applications for AmeriCorps positions have nearly tripled to

> > 258,829 in 2010 from 91,399 in 2008 [too bad Congress is now trying to cut

> > the whole thing...]

> > The sudden [public service job] surge in 2009, though, suggests that the

> > absence of traditional private sector jobs forced many of the country’s best

> > and brightest into lower-paying, if psychically rewarding, work.

> >

> > Since the recession began three years ago, the private sector has shed 7

> > percent of its jobs. The federal government, meanwhile, has expanded its

> > payrolls 3 percent...

> >

> > “We had to think deeper about our careers, and different kinds of

> > careers..."

> >

> > Workers in management jobs at companies, for example, earn about 22

> > percent more <http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20081022ar01p1.htm> than their

> > nonprofit counterparts...

> > http://nytimes.com/2011/03/02/business/02graduates.html

> >

> >

> > *Clincher: Who here would take a 20% pay cut to do purposeful work?*

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