NPR: Teens aren’t challenged or prepared.

Morning Edition on NPR did a segment about a survey showing that teens don’t feel that school challenges or prepares them.

The NPR segment isn’t very interesting, but the discussion on the Teacher forum on Reddit is.  Here is the post that introduces the NPR segment.

Last week, there was an NPR Report about how teenagers feel about school.

This quote captures it:

‘finds that many teenagers do not feel challenged in school. They worry they’re not being prepared for the future.’

Is this a student response to the grace, compassion and “50% is the lowest grade” policies that Admin keeps pushing?

Are teachers going to get blamed for teenagers not feeling challenged or prepared?

When do parents get blamed for not wanting their teenager to be challenged or prepared?

What follows is 600 comments from teachers explaining that they are not allowed to teach in a rigorous and objective manner.  This comment sums it up.

Modern pedagogy exists as a shell game, to try and hide the obvious fact that a large share of the failure of the education system rests squarely on the racket of professors, businesses, hucksters, admins, and lobbyists that have grown fat off of the pedagogy “equity” snake oil they’re selling

For normal people, ‘pedagogy’ means the study and methods of how something is taught.

Teachers generally want to teach.  With experience, we know how to teach, but nothing in the educational system encourages a teacher to be ethical and rigorous.  We hate that.

Differentiation is the act of presenting a lesson so students who are unprepared and unmotivated can learn it and the smart and motivated students remain challenged.  The teacher is supposed to be all things to all people.  Tracking is the idea that students of similar ability, are placed in a class which can be conducted at their pace to keep them all challenged.  Since it makes sense, it has fallen out of favor with the educational establishment.

Grace is an informal term meaning that students should be given a break.  The result is that nothing students do has much consequence.  Homework can’t be counted for points, tests can be re-taken, no assignment can be given less than a 50% or students can’t fail.

Restorative justice means that students are not punished for misbehavior.  If a student swears at a teacher, the student talks to the teacher, and they come to a consensus.

There are many more examples that come from university academics and are imposed by school administrators.

Competent teachers are conservative from exposure to actual students who need significant consequences.  Teachers may or may not vote for a Republican, but they certainly reject progressive policies in education.