Saturday morning newspaper conversation

[mrsbrown]

I love the internet and my laptop. It means I can read the 'paper in bed AND converse with people about the ideas and thoughts I have been prompted to have by reading an article.

This Saturday's topic is prompted by this article about giving money to charity, or, as the article put it, philanthropy.

Mhy instantaneous response to some charities, is "why isn't the government providing sufficient money for services for; disabled people, poor people, children's hospitals etc" so I don't give those charities my money, and vow that I will write to the government asking for more money on their behalf instead. but I don't.

Charities that raise money to give books and uniforms to school kids are similar - schools shouldn't have uniforms and should set themselves up so kids don't need textbooks either. Textbooks usually just a means for the teacher to slack off and fail to think about how to make a topic interesting to students. So I don't give money to those charities.

[Clarification] My experience with using, buying (and selling) high school textbooks suggests that schools don't often think about the costs to families of these items. They have been variously; unreasonably expensive, unused in class, or changed from one year to the next, making them worthless. I think when I say "kids don't need textbooks" , I should have said, "kids don't need to own textbooks" . Saying that teachers using textbooks are slack, was a piece of unreasonable hyperbole, and I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

The big disasters? They should be coordinated by a central agency (just one) and should be paid for from the government aid budget. Take my taxes - please!

Then there's the small stuff - wells, chickens, goats etc. in poor countries or countries adversly affected by global warming. I'm more comfortable with the multitude of aid agencies and all the different ways they have of getting your money off you and the countries and causes they promote. So I occasionally give money to those.

Comments

[hometime.livejournal.com]

Um, I'm offended by one of your statements there. Textbooks are a tool, to be used in the appropriate time & place. I don't teach with textbooks generally because until this year there was no good quality textbook covering the IB biology course that was a) affordable (for the school, not the students; our school library buys textbooks & loans them out to the students, but this means that buying a class set of a new textbook can be several thousand dollars); and b) light enough for them to carry around & bring to class.

However, there are times when textbooks are an invaluable tool. Students have to do a certain number of repeated exercises to learn certain skills- the teacher could make up a question sheet, or they could use the prepared list of exercises in the textbook, already prepared and graduated in difficulty, so that as the students' skills progress they attempt harder questions. Certain tasks MUST have repetition to concrete those skills. That means repetition over a period of time- when I teach chemistry, we do a short mixed problem sheet at the beginning of almost every single lesson. I prepare those sheets myself- however, this type of preparation is why I've been working myself into the ground & have now gone part-time (and also why my classes have consistently better results than most of the other classes- up to 20 percentage points at times- and thus why there is a queue of students trying to get into my classes). IF THERE WAS A COMMERCIAL TEXTBOOK THAT TAUGHT THINGS THE WAY THAT I DO AND i DIDN'T HAVE TO PREPARE SO MUCH, HELL YES I'D GO FOR IT. That is NOT being slack, that is being the best teacher that I can be, for my students.

I also question the comment that schools shouldn't have uniforms. I know that you feel strongly on this issue, but many parents and students prefer a uniform for lower and middle year levels, as it removes the social pressure of wearing fashionable clothing, and makes it less obvious which students come from wealthier or poorer families.

[enrobso.livejournal.com]

Well said you!

I was going to say something similar based on my own gut feelings, but I'm glad to defer to someone who works at the coal-face.

[mrsbrown.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you were offended. I have more of a problem with the fact that we need charities to provide students with the stuff they need to learn, than with the use of textbooks by teachers.

Yes, textbooks are invaluable. Do they need to be owned by students? Do they need the same one all year? Do they need to change as often as some schools change them? Is the $100 textbook twice as useful as the $50 textbook? In my experience as a parent, I'm not convinced that the schools have asked these or other, cleverer questions, before recommending a particular textbook.

I'd like to think that welfare provisions were targeted and sufficient and that school funding, and the imaginative use of the funds by schools (like buying class sets of text books) meant that charities to buy these things were unnecessary.

Having charities to fund school uniforms and textbooks says to me that the welfare system is inadequate and schools are structured in a way that differentiates between the haves and have nots.

I can (should) agitate for change in the welfare system, but more schools and teachers should be careful to consider the impact of their policies and textbook decisions on all of their students, not just the ones who have enough money to buy stuff. And maybe the structure of our teaching system could do with a shakeup too.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see what schools use the books and uniform charity the most?

[hometime.livejournal.com]

That is not the way that your original statement was worded, and what I take offense to.

While I wholeheartedly agree that education needs more funding (as does welfare), please be careful in your wording of those throw-away lines in the future. One of the strongest feelings from teachers is that there is a lack of public recognition of the work that we do, and the considerable skills that we possess. Put-downs from the public like "a means for the teacher to slack off and fail to think about how to make a topic interesting to students" have an end result- over time teachers become disillusioned and leave the system. In other words, if you treat your teachers like sh*t, the end result will be that the good teachers will leave, and you'll end up with sh*t teachers.

Most people don't realise that when governments talk about increased funding for eductaion, this generally means money for special projects (new buildings, putting fast internet cables into schools etc), not more money to run schools.

And those questions about textbooks are asked, at least in my school (which has a huge range of socio-economic backgrounds, everything from refugees to embassy kids).

My school does provide textbooks for students through the school library, but this comes at a cost:
1. Class sets of textbooks are updated very rarely- the textbooks being used are mostly at least 15 years old, and some are over 20 years old. Should students be using these antiquated books when there are newer books out there, with better information, and easier to read (there have been significant changes in the layout & readability of textbooks in recent years)? But a class set may be many thousands of dollars to update (130 yr 11 chemistry students x a minimum of $50 a book; 800 maths students x $50; 75 yr 11 biology students x the $90 book which would be perfect for them).

2. That money comes out of our general running costs, which is why the roof in my classroom still leaks and there is dead possum ooze in the lightfitting- we can't afford much non-essential maintainance.

I do require my yr 12 IB students to buy the $50 study guide, and they LOVE and use those study guides. They carry them around constantly in the weeks leading up to their exams. I'd love for them to have the new $90 textbook, but I can only suggest that they buy it themselves, because we can't afford to purchase it through the school library.

So yes, schools do need more money, but don't use that as a reason to kick teachers in the pants. The majority of teachers are working well over a normal workload (and no, the school holidays don't compensate for that at all- the maths is that to cover the extra holidays is the equivalent of an extra 3 work hours a week- see my notes on workload in previous post). The biggest issue within the teaching system is recruiting and keeping good teachers. The drop out rate within the first 5 years of teaching is huge, and the main reasons cited are:
a) workload
b) lack of recognition from the public.

As previously stated, if you treat your teachers badly and put them down, you'll end up with sh*t teachers. Please do not make blanket statments about things like slack teachers.

[(Anonymous)]

Well I don't think it would have been my old school. It was a outer eastern suburbs school, most of the parents comfortable but not rich, but with a large smattering of poor and very poor. And since a high percentage of the parents would have been tradesmen, circumstances of the familys were prone to change very rapidly if there was a recession, or personal situation preventing a parent returning to work.

The parents group ran monthly second hand uniform sale, and a large yearly second hand textbook sale. This enabled the school councilor to write chittys for those who really needed it which could be slipped in quietly. (I only know cos my mum ran a couple of the book sales, and I was heavily involved in the data processing). I think there wasn't much stigma attached to having second hand books, because it was viewed as a sensible thing everyone could do (and selling books as a good way to make money - which did mean we had to know who all the twins were to catch kids stealing books and selling them). There were firece bunfights for books, and people que-ed for hours to get in.

I think also having a parent or teacher coming around asking what the following years textbook would be, and if older editions would be suitable too, decreased the number of times teachers arbitarily changed the textbook without weighing up the expense to parents against the added value of the more recent material. It also enabled the school to buy up some class sets of textbooks which were going out of print. We had some classes where 2 editions of a book were listed as suitable so everyone could buy what they could get.

Our uniform also was not elaborate. Sturdy well made pants of skirt, shirt or polo shirt, jumper, and in summer shorts of dress. No blazers, no ties, no regulation school socks, no hats. There were rules about acessories, but they left considerable latitude for personal choice, and were generally loosely patrolled. (eg bright pink socks would be in trouble, but you could get away with blue, white or black socks or stockings or combinations in any length and most styles). Having cupboards of secondhand uniforms on site meant a kid who was shivering in a shirt could be lent a jumper for the day. First case uniform infringements were dealt with quite mildly, although repeat offenders were likely to be in trouble - but I think mostly the trouble would have been ringing the parents and asking if there was a problem with the uniform.

The uniforms were actually very hard wearing, and cost less than modest mundane clothing would have for the equivalent period of time. They meant that kids knew what to wear each morning, had all weekend to get it washed, and had some garments that were climate appropriate (we had no summer or winter rules - any portion of uniform could be worn at any time).
The uniform reduced bullying about clothing labels (we had free dress sports classes though, so a lot of that happened there), ensured kids were wearing something practical (except for free dress days, when most kids wore something stupidly impractical), and also ensured teachers could quickly tell if kids from another school were on the premises, or if junior school kids at the milkbar across the road were out of bounds, or not ones they were responsible for.

I hope the above shows that although you've obviously had some bad experiences with textbooks and uniforms, they can work to benefit if handled sensibly.

[teffania.livejournal.com]

Wot hometime said. I'd be offended If I were a teacher.

Our school had a house with 4 (formerly) homeless kids enabling them to stay in school. I never knew who they were thanks to school uniform, and the way the parents group made the second-hand uniform and booksale commonplace, not jsut for charity cases.

Additionally, should someone be forced to have a third rate education (no textbook to answer what their apathetic or hopeless teacher can't answer) just because their parents haven't chosen to send them to one of the schools that can afford passionate and skilled teachers? No matter how much we increase the status of teachers, there is always going to be some teachers that don't meet the mark. Textbooks give a second source of information, and allow a second rate education in cases where otherwise a third rate education could be the best hoped for. With the great teachers they will just be a set of practice questions that had been double checked more than hometime's sheets. But for those who get unlucky in the teacher lotto, they are the chance at learning anything.

[hometime.livejournal.com]

Thanks.
I'd also point out that most teachers subsidise students to a certain extent- I have a tub of pens & pencils (that I buy myself) students can borrow- they usually return them, but I don't comment if a student keeps them. I also quietly provide exercise books or paper on occasions. Plus I spend a lot of money on extra resource material (books, DVDs, scientific journals) which my school can't always afford.

[celsa.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, I just bought a whole stack of high school maths texts at a garage sale. I hope they will help me colour in the blank areas in my rather scant maths knowledge. I cringe to hassle other people with my embarrassingly basic questions, and a person I can learn from without going into anxiety induced brain-lock is quite hard to come by. I found that high school texts - class sets for the most part - were good because I could isolate myself to read through them (or by reading through them) and gain a good understanding of the material in advance. It might just have been me, but I found that the opportunity to read ahead really short-circuited my own short-circuit... if that makes any sense.

My thoughts on teachers is that I would rather have a good teacher who did not know the subject matter thoroughly in advance and used appropriate reference material to "learn together" with the students in an exploratory way than to have a teacher who really knows the material but can't teach to save themselves.

I suspect mrsbrown, like me, is deeply unhappy with a system that thinks that requiring a text book makes up for a teacher having minimal teaching ability and minimal knowledge of the material. If both those key qualities are lacking in the teacher, a textbook can only provide, as teffania says, a third rate education option.

I'd argue that text books certainly have uses. Hmm. I should go and use mine.

[hometime.livejournal.com]

And no matter how good the teacher is, once students reach a certain level there is a certain amount of study and questions that they have to do on their own, and textbooks are the best source for that individual study. Why? Because that's what they are designed for.

Well done for developing study habits which allow you to work around your blank areas!

I did write a huge long rant here, but I've cut it back...
Textbooks cannot replace good teachers. Because they are not designed to do that! They are supposed to be a resource, support material, information integrated with learning exercises. The government needs to look at why they are not recruiting and keeping high quality teachers. Teaching has a huge burn out rate within the first 5 years, primarily due to long working hours and poor recognition from the community.

I work part-time because the workload was killing me, and yet I still spent 37 hours at school this week, didn't have a single uninterrupted recess or lunch break, did work at home in the evenings, and face many hours of marking this weekend (note: I'm paid to work 26 hours a week). I set myself very high standards about what I will do in the classroom- I want the best for my students, and for some topics that may involve using a textbook. For other topics it may involve written notes, handouts/worksheets, models, experiments, video clips, cut & paste activities etc... ALL are valid tools to use.

mrsbrown, if I give my students an exercise to do from a textbook, that does not make me a slack teacher who has failed to engage my class. It means that I am teacher who is using a resource, for the job that it is designed to do. Whatever you may think about the charities or the educational system, please do not make derogatory remarks about a whole group of people, many of whom are working hard to provide the best educational experience that they can.

[enrobso.livejournal.com]

I've already added my agreement to hometime's comments on educational charity, but in a more general sense, I disagree with just about everything you say in this post, mostly because you seem to have adopted this very Victorian stance of choosing which causes are "worthy" and which ones aren't.

I don't generally have a lot of money to be philanthropic with, but my approach is "Will this money benefit someone else more than it will benefit me?"

An example: Some years ago I spent $29.95 on the DVD of the Steve Martin remake of The Pink Panther, (which should have taught me a lesson about going shopping after I've been at the pub, but I digress,)so how can I possibly use "You claim to be digging wells in Africa, but I know $25 out of the $30 that I give you is going to be used to pay the rent on your office building in Geneva." as a reason for not giving money. At least $5 is going to benefit someone who needs it instead of providing me with an extra drink coaster.

I get regular requests for money from the Make A Wish Foundation and I usually try to throw a few bob their way. I try not to think about the number of kids in sub-Saharan Africa whose lives could be saved for the price of one trip to Disneyland.

I long ago realised that I can't singlehandedly save the world, but I like to think I'm contributing one brief moment of happiness at a time.

Maybe that makes me a soft touch, but I will go to the grave knowing that my buying that DVD meant that someone else didn't have to suffer through it.

[sjkasabi.livejournal.com]

I distinguish between ad hoc giving to charity, and my planned charity contributions. Though I guess you could say that really, I plan to give a fair bit of money away in an ad hoc fashion.

I generally give money to anyone who directly asks for it in person. If I have enough on me, which I don't always, because one of the ways I try to avoid spending money impulsively on crap is to avoid carrying much of it, I try to give enough to at least buy a hot drink or a cheap sandwich, even when it does look kinda like the money might be going on drugs. Because who am I to judge, or to deny that that person needs the money more than me?

If a charity makes it easy for me to give money to them on a one off basis, and their request arrives at a time in my pay cycle where there is slack in the budget, I usually give them something. Since I'm not keen to hand out credit card details to cold callers this usually means I buy raffle tickets. I did once win a thousand dollars worth of travel, about ten years ago - from the 3MBS FM fundraiser.

On the other hand, when it comes to regular, planned, money giving, Amnesty International gets it. I figure I can give ad hoc to emergency appeals, I work in the health and welfare sector so I'm doing what I can in other ways there, I try to be as green as possible, I can give blood, but really, there is nothing at all I personally can do about shocking stuff like human rights abuses in China, capital punishment in the US, or the tolerance of the international arms trade everywhere, except by paying Amnesty International to do something about it for me. And that stuff really pisses me off. So that's where my planned charity budget goes.

I really would vote for a government that wanted to tax me more to deal with some of the essential issues that donated dollars are filling the gaps for; I'm happy to pay more tax to live in a fairer society. But without disputing that there are things that should be better funded or better organised or both, there are plenty of charities that actually receive substantial funding from various levels of government - effectively acting as their agencies - and also fundraise so they can do more of that work. And there is always more that can be done. So to some extent, giving to charity is a way for people to vote for what they think more money should be spent on. Since charity donations are tax deductible, you are, in fact, forcing the governmnet to forgo your tax revenue everytime you make a deduction (and no I don't think it would work better if it was all tax-deductible donations with no government tax dollars going into the sectors that used to be the province of church and charity. I think the backbone of tax-funded services is essential in a modern secular society, but letting people's preferences flesh out the rest of the beast in a tax-free way provides choice as well).