American children - VICKY

[The Walker]

I saw the posts about children. It is true American children are much different from Asian children, especially Philippine children. The first thing to remember is that most Asian children are third world children. Only Japan, parts of South Korea and Taiwan are really up to first world standards. My homeland is definitely not up to first world standards by any measure. Asian children can be as independent as children of poverty can be and also so dependent on the family unit since there is no one other than family to protect you. The shameful child sex trade of Asia bears this out and that some parents would knowingly send their children into this life merits hanging in my opinion.

Of course Don's children are grown but still we get along very well. I love them and they love me. My special introduction into American children comes from the grandson. When we first met he asked if I was going to take away his "Papaw" and was not too sure about me. But he soon got used to me although I think he resented sharing his Papaw with me for a little while. Now we sit and chatter for long spells and share snacks and read books together. He is very independent for a young child and very forward and self-assured. He likes to be the boss when he can get away with it which is most of the time. Still, my husband does not spoil him in things that matter. The grandson knows exactly how far to go with Papaw and what is not allowed. He knows never to touch the gun cabinet which is locked anyhow and what he may and may not touch in the den. He used to be a little too forward with me until Don had a rather serious talk with him. I was afraid to discipline him even a little which is what most new stepmothers let alone step-grandmothers feel I think. Now he knows that what I say is law too but I had to learn to tell him no myself and not to call on Don to do it for me. Since I have never had children of my own skipping motherhood and going straight to grand-motherhood was a big jump. His mother was a big help too. Whenever he gave me some "sass" Don's daughter would get onto him right away and make him apologize.

I can only imagine what it may be like to step into an American family with teenagers living there and having to deal with that. Adjusting to America is hard enough but dealing with children who may resent you and challenge you would be very hard.

Philippine children would never be allowed to talk back to their parents the way American children do. The father in the family would cane them very well if they did. And this aversion to school would not be tolerated in any good family. Education is of high importance in the Philippines where a woman with a bachelor's degree may have to be a checkout girl at a store and glad to have the job.

Just my observations.

-VICKY

[Lori]

... in response to American children - VICKY, posted by The Walker on Mar 18, 2002

My daughters have respect for me. They are not allowed to disrespect me. Though they ARE encouraged to speak their minds, give an opinion, and ask questions. In some cultures children are not allowed to do this. But in my house I believe open communication is the best way to go.
Also for Steve---My daughter is on the free lucnch program (not for long though ---She has a 3.6 grade average. She is she and respects her teachers. Also is first chair violinist and an aspiring cheerleader(we find out this week if she is selected. So please do not put all financial aid children into one caragory. I believe that SOME teachers assume if a child comes from a certain home that they behave in a certain way.  Chilren often treat people the way they are treated. I am sure you can find a few good students out of that catagory of "Free lunch kids".
I know the schools are full of punk kids and I really feel for the teachers. We really need to pay our teachers more. That would bring in top quality people and thats what we need in the public schools.

[The Walker]

... in response to Re: American children - VICKY, posted by Lori on Mar 19, 2002

I'll be darn glad when these cows get their early calving over. I'll have a break before real calving begins. Right now I'm waiting for one of my best cows to deliver and I am sleepy. Oh well.

My grandson is a good kid, really. He is well behaved for the most part but has that impish streak all American boys must have. When he first met Vicky he had to sort her out to see what he could get away with. Vicky was unsure about what to do. She didn't want to upset me or him and had no maternal experience of her own to guide her. I had a talk with my grandson in her presence and it settled most of it. But I had to make sure that Vicky would say "no" in her own person and stick to it. Things couldn't be better now. My grandson can sing Tagalog nursery songs and loves his "Mamaw Vicky" to death. The two of them spent some time crying together while I was gone too and that sort of cemented their relationship.

Both my girls graduated from Ivy league schools and we value education ourselves. Let the weaker go to the wall. The fools who waste their time at school will do manual labor for those who didn't. I guess we still need garbage truck drivers. We have a college savings account set up for my grandson already (you just about HAVE to start as soon as they're born) and he is a good little scholar in kindergarten. I have enough of his schoolwork plastered all over my home to know. Pictures and paintings and practice writings.

Oh, by the way, the average American teacher makes about $42,000 a year for nine months of work. Not too shabby. I have found public schools to be almost worthless, even here. My grandson attends private school. Why we have people with a simple teaching degree in charge of classes after 6th grade I have no idea. Math majors should teach math, science majors, science, etc. You wouldn't want an engineer teaching surgery would you? Or a surgeon teaching engineers how to build a dam? The private school he attends is k thru 12 and they regularly place in the upper 5% of standardized test scores, waxing the public schools. There is too little learning and too much social engineering in public schools. I used to constantly catch errors in teaching when my girls were in schools and we finally got fed up and put them in private schools, a major expense for a military family - believe me, especially when you move as much as a military family does, but they deserved no less. They weren't raped in school, or molested by a teacher or janitor. They weren't shot at, never saw a gun or a knife in school, weren't beaten up by older girls over boys, had teachers that taught the same subjects for years and KNEW the course matter themselves, and were never bullied or sexually harrassed or had to worry about gangs in the halls. They were both accepted into their first choice universities and both graduated with honors.

The parents of private school kids take a keen interest in their children's education since they pay for it directly. And they have a far greater voice in the way the schools are run. No creationism fanatics lobbying the school board, no "make time for Yah-We" nuts, no teachers trying to use the students as pawns/lab rats in their masters-of-education thesis. Heck, even the food is pretty good, for a school. Public schools combine the worst properties of the Inquisition, East LA, a failed lab experiment, liberal social-mongering, socialism, and a factory. For those who think the public school system isn't so bad, look at who beats public school kids. Just about everybody, including home-schooled kids. Religious schools beat them (even given their creationism leanings) non-demoninational private schools beat them, home schooled kids, kids from every other G-7 nation. Public schools in America are broken and it is time to replace them. Since we cannot go back to simple, sensible 1950s era schooling attitudes, we'll have to scrap the entire system and start from scratch.

-Don

[SteveB]

... in response to Re: Re: American children - VICKY, posted by The Walker on Mar 22, 2002

I agree, public schools are a mess, probably the fault of many factors.  However, one topic you spoke about just isn't true.  A smart math person etc,,, doesn't necessary make a good teacher.  You assume anyone can be a teacher.  Well, it is an art and a talent.  I can pick out the students that will make great teachers.  They already help the other students to learn.  It's not how much you know, but what you can teach.  Statistics.  LOL..... Average salary,,,,,they throw in administrator salaries in those average teacher stats.  We have about 50 teachers in our middle school.  I am one of the highest paid in the group.  I have been teaching for 23 years and make less than $35,000.  A starting(new) teacher in our district will make about $24,000.  Most 4 year college degrees bring a starting salary of $30,000-$40,000.  With-in 5 years, this new teacher must spend summers or evenings working towards a masters degree.  9 months?  Sorry Walker, our job is like yours, we work until the job is complete...grading papers at night,,,,writing curriculum,,,figuring grades,,,,calling parents,,,attending ballgames,PTA meetings,,,,etc....The biggest factor and one no one talks about,is the emotional wear and tear of the job.  50% of our kids are on free and reduced lunch, this means they are often poor and come from one parent homes.  A lot of these parents are tired.  They are acting as mom and dad.  Taking care of the house and working.  If there are several kids in the home, the eldest acts as the second parent, too often the kids are on there own.  So, we are the only role model some of these kids know.  You talk about responsibility,,,,,,having many kids looking towards you for guidance,,,,wow,,,,,YES,,,public school is important for this country,,,if we don't fix the problem we will become like most other countries,,,citizens who have $$$$$ and those that don't.....Let's not assume that it's only necessary for the strong to surive,,,,,sorry for long post,,,,I must add,,,,why haven't others responded to this topic,,,,its important to us,,,we are older and this will effect our new families....

steveb

[The Walker]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: American children - VICKY, posted by SteveB on Mar 22, 2002

I agree, not everyone can become a teacher. In fact, about 50% of those now teaching should not be. But to say that teaching is difficult is also not true. I have taken too many kids from no knowledge of the subject to a point they can trust their lives with the knowledge I give them to believe that. If you, yourself, are confident in the subject matter, if you have mastered it yourself, teaching it to others comes naturally for most people. The problem with public schools is that they change textbooks and lesson plans and who teaches what faster than a Filipina changes her mind about shoes. I had a very few enlightened teachers and I saw a bunch of schools growing up. Those who were great teachers knew the subject because they had majored in it in college and they had taught it for years. On in particular was Norton Plymale, heaven rest his soul. He had a master's in biology from Ohio State and worked in the field for a career. He 'retired" to teach high school biology. Didn't need the money, just wanted something to do. He would take us onto the athletic fields and we would pick up a weed and he would give us phylum, species, etc., on down to common names and any medicinal or other uses for the plant. From memory. He showed us where biology fit in the everyday world, especially our bodily processes and made it interesting. He used to give 300 question "pop" quizzes but give you the first 100 wrong free. His finals were over a thousand questions long and took two days of double periods to finish. But no one seemed to really complain much. Old "Snortin' Norton" was just that way. I had a chemistry teacher who worked in his field before and after teaching. His degree was in chemistry. You can't take a teacher with nothing more than an almost worthless ed. degree and hope they can learn organic chemistry well enough to actually TEACH it. I say again, once past 5th grade a generalist teacher is worthless today. Any time a teacher needs a "teacher's text", fire them.

Oh, and I didn't just teach gun and knife work in the service. I specialized in electronic warfare and electronic counter measures, as well as gun and knife stuff. But for someone who doesn't know, gun and knife work is harder to teach than college courses. You have to know anatomy to be able to find choice spots such as kidneys, for the absolute best way to silence a sentry.

And the figures for teacher salary came from Education America's website, a teacher's thing. The average US teacher was paid $41,820 in 1999-2000. New York averaged highest at $52,000 and change a year, and South Dakota lowest at $29,000 and change. So if your salaries are far lower, talk to your own trade groups about it. American teachers are among the best paid in the world. With the tax differential and exchange rate, they are paid almost 50% more than the average Canadian teacher in real US dollars.

Teacher's "low" salaries are a fiction and have been for some time. Public school teachers average $38,000 here. Most of them work as painters and such over the summer vacation and do other things during spring break (1 week) and Christmas break (2 weeks plus) to further bump up their incomes. They average over $50,000/year I imagine with everything. And this is for people who cannot even accurately average their own grade books when you catch them at it. I have a small facility for figures (I can do artillery adjustments in my head after long practice). Many teachers have this really complicated formula for grading so that the parent can't check to see if they really know what the heck they're doing. I sat down at parent/teacher conferences at the beginning of the year and asked them to explain it to me. Then when I had conferences later that year I looked at my kid's grades and averaged them out, mentally. In about 80% of the cases the teacher's averages were wrong. When I challenged them they said I was mistaken so I made them average it out again right then and there. I came to do this after looking over my kid's tests and seeing that they were scored inaccurately. Then I got into the habit of saving the tests and comparing the scores on the paper with those in the gradebooks and finding they did not match. So I gave up and put my girls in private schools. I could not teach them everything as I was gone quite a bit. And when I was gone my wife had to do double duty. So we put them in schools we could trust to educate them, fairly and accurately. And I checked them the same ways. Private schools ALWAYS came out better, by an incredible margin. Also, in a private school you can trust the teachers to let you know at the first indication of a child's difficulty. In public schools I had to literally drag any problems my kids were having out of the teachers with tongs. My younger daughter got an F in third grade once. She did not turn in any of her work for an entire grading period. She did it, we make sure our kids did ther work at home and that it was correct, but we found it in her locker; she never turned it in. Did her teacher call us once in the nine weeks to ask why she had not turned in ANY homework? NO! Why? "It is not required under the contract." My wife had even sent her letters and finally called her (when she didn't answer letters,) asking how the younger one was doing in the new school. "Oh, if they have any problems, we'll call you." Liars. We got our kids the heck out before they were ruined. That was the last in a long line of straws.

Sorry, teaching is a noble profession. It is too bad contracts and unions and trade groups and professors of education (a useless title) have seen fit to abandon their duty. The few really good and competent teachers in almost any public school stand out like sore thumbs. If you are one of these, I applaud you. You are head and shoulders above the average in your profession. You are like an honest lawyer, few and far between.

[Ray]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: American children - VICKY, posted by SteveB on Mar 22, 2002

(pardon the misspelling in the subject line)

Steve,

You asked why others haven’t responded to this topic? Mostly because it’s off topic for this forum. But I do agree that it is important so I’ll throw my $.02 in anyway.

First, I don’t believe that Don said that Math majors automatically make good teachers and he didn’t assume that anyone can be a teacher. I agree with him 100% that Math teachers should have a Mathematics degree and Science teachers should have a Science degree. Of course all Math and Science majors are not able to teach, and neither can all good teachers teach a subject in which their knowledge is next to zilch. In my opinion, a BA in Education probably has one of the easiest curriculums there are, outside of Phys Ed maybe. The Math and Science courses that they are required to take are garbage classes. You can’t teach high school Math if you don’t understand the subject matter and I’ve seen too many high school Math teachers that don’t know squat about Mathematics. Sure, you can stand up there and motivate the students to read the book, but most of them aren’t going to know any more that their teacher when they graduate. To me it’s only common sense that you need to be competent in the subjects you teach, period!

When I was taking night classes toward my Engineering degree, I was enrolled in an English Comp class. By chance, my daughter’s Junior High English teacher was also enrolled in the class. They made him take remedial English courses because he couldn’t pass a new English competency test that was required of all teachers. I had to help him with his work because the dude just couldn’t write. BTW, my daughter only had to write one single-page essay in three years of Junior High. I had to teach my kids Mathematics and English myself because they weren’t learning squat in school.

I would say that maybe half of public school teachers are doing a decent job and the other half are a bunch of worthless cry-baby idiots. Most of them seem to be more interested in electing Democrats to public office than in the education of their students. They go out of their way to resist any meaningful change to the screwed up system we have now. I think the good teachers are underpaid and the rest are overpaid. I think the tenure system sucks and only tends to perpetuate the problems we have in the schools. I would support some kind of a cash bonus system for truly excellent teachers and the inept ones should thrown out on their ears. And furthermore, the teacher’s union can kiss my ***!

Now I’m sure that you must be one of the good ones Steve, so you can ignore my ranting if it doesn’t apply to you :-)

Ray

[Jimbo]

... in response to Re: Re: American children - VICKY, posted by The Walker on Mar 22, 2002

I agree that public schools in America are broken and probably beyond repair so they need to be replaced.  But America is about opportunity for all and even if that opportunity has been diminished for those in public K-12 education, it remains strong in the area of business.  If a poor kid can get enough out of his substandard public education and not allow himself to be rubber-stamped through the system without learning anything, he can be quite successful by learning a trade and leveraging that knowledge into a business.

The notion that everyone must attend college in order to be successful is nonsense.  I know of many plumber or auto mechanic business owners who make more money than MIT graduates, let alone your average college graduate.  The opportunity for success is still there; people must find their own way in life.  College would certainly open more doors for an aspiring entrepreneur, but it must be weighed against the cost of the 4K-120k tuition.  That's not the right choice, or even an option, for some parents.

Those parents shouldn't consider that their children are destined for a life of financial strife just because liberal democrats seek to deny them the choice to opt out of failing public schools.  The promise of opportunity in America is alive and well in the area where America leads the world - business.

Jim

[SteveB]

... in response to Re: American children - VICKY, posted by Lori on Mar 19, 2002

The school I teach in has 50% or more of the kids on free and reduced lunch.  I have been a coach, teacher and an administrator.  So, I have seen many kids succeed, from many different backgrounds. The majority of these kids don't see education as a way out of poverty. Their parents aren't teaching them it is the way out.  The kids in American schools are out of control. They come from homes that have no respect for teachers.  YES, I can pick out several students at our school, students from all backgrounds, that are model kids and students.  After 23 years of teaching Lori,  I can say I see less good students and more undisciplined ones.  More money for the schools will not change this attitude.  This is a government problem.  A major problem that isn't talked about.  Welfare has been around so long now that it has created a class of people who have forgot how to work and take pride in there work and themselves.  If they can get there kid in a Special Ed.program, we give them more money.  We feed them breakfast and lunch.  I have sat in on meetings where as many as 25 team members, made up of people from various social agency's, were trying to figure out how and where to place a child.(IEP)  I believe the parents have a responsibility for there child, not the government.  I am glad your child is doing well in school.  I think it's because you have taken responsibility for her up-bringing, not depending on the government or TV. BTW, I don't think the schools are full of punks, as you put it.  I think the schools are full of kids that are running the home, and the parents are allowing the inmates to run the asylum.  Sorry if I was offensive towards you in previous post.

Steveb

[Eman]

... in response to Re: Re: American children - VICKY, posted by SteveB on Mar 19, 2002

It's a broader cultural problem of wrong values, ethical confusion, materialism, etc which touches so many things, large and small. While there have occasionally been some harsh comments made on this board about feminism, American women, etc. we need to recognize that any such problems of that kind do not exist in isolation. They're only products of the prevailing culture and mentality. There was a discussion a while back about why do we seek a spouse overseas. I think people were trying to emphasize the positive aspects of their attraction to asian culture, etc. which is wonderful. But I think for many there is also this negative aspect, which ultimately derives from the failures of American culture and the influence that has on the relationship scene.

[SteveB]

... in response to American children - VICKY, posted by The Walker on Mar 18, 2002

You're observations are correct about american children.  My wife Juliet grew up in a small village in Bohol.  When I was there visiting, I noticed the children walking back and forth to the school.  One day they were running home in the rain for lunch.  We feed them lunch here, lots of U S kids are on free and reduced lunch.  They are the very ones that ignore education.  We have spoiled them, making it hard to be around them lots of the time.  They have this animal house attitude at school.  If a teacher is weak when it comes to discipline, they treat that person like dirt.  It doesn't say much good,  about our culture, when teachers have to be mean and crabby, in order to make the students mind and behave.  Our founding fathers set up free public education, so every person could have the chance to make him/herself a better life.  Public education is failing,  many of our best students are going to private school, and the poor ignore it.  This is gradully creating a 2 class society, the haves and have nots.  It worries me.  If you have kids or grandkids, please don't allow them to treat teachers with disrepect.  Sorry for ranting.....

Steveb

[BrianN]

... in response to American children - VICKY, posted by The Walker on Mar 18, 2002

This is where it always really sux.  Have step children and they tell you "you ain't my daddy" or "you ain't my momma".  All the while you know they're going down the tubes of crap morality, with no values, no respect for elders or authority.

You've got a heck of a good system of support there Vicky.  Much better than many am/aw women experience as step-parents together.  I must say, that you're experiencing the upper 5% of quality, when it comes to relationships like this.

Keep it up, do the best you can, and 5, 10, 20 years from now, they'll look back on all of this, as a good thing; while you knew it all along.

Good luck to you.