Speaking Out about Education- Part 5/6

September 15, 2010

It is wrong to shame teachers as the ABC news segment in Part 1 shows, when a child does not perform well in class.

Instead, teachers should be embarrassing students for not doing homework, studying for tests or reading the assignments.

This is the way most parents in China act. If embarrassing the child works, the child deserves being treated that way.

The reason you do not see children getting in trouble in this video clip taken in China is that most of the Chinese children have learned that they have to do as they are told to avoid being embarrassed. 

Our daughter graduated from high school this year (2010).  From third grade, for the next ten years she had straight As.  She graduated with a PGA higher than 4.66 and was accepted to Stanford University. 

Her mother and I taught her early that homework came first and we expected her to read instead of watch TV. She never had a TV or video game in her room.  She had books checked out from a local library to read.

As a family, we watched TV two or three hours on the weekend—never during school days and homework and at least an hour of reading had to happen daily.

– to be continued

Return to Speaking Out About Education – Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Speaking Out about Education- Part 4/6

September 14, 2010

In thirty years, two parents accepted my invitation and one of those parents, sounding like Marie Meyer in the ABC news segment, started to verbally bad mouth with me in front of my students.

I had to call administration to remove that parent from my classroom.

She thought I was being too hard on her son and on my students by demanding that they stay quiet and pay attention.

When a student started to have a personal conversation and I sent him to the office with a referral, that parent exploded saying her son was right and that I was mean.

In China, self-esteem is not considered a factor. 

Instead, students are often embarrassed by their parents if they do not succeed.

My opinion comes from thirty years in the classroom.  I believe that the problems in America’s public schools belong mostly with the parents and the students.

If the student goes home and says that he or she did all her work at school so there is never any homework and the parent never checks, which most don’t, whose fault is that?

– to be continued

Return to Speaking Out About Education – Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Speaking Out about Education- Part 3/6

September 14, 2010

While teaching, I made more phone calls and wrote more referrals for unacceptable behavior than any teacher at the schools where I taught.  I know this because administration pointed it out and it wasn’t meant as a complement.

When I heard what Meyer says in the ABC news segment in Part 1 of this series, I got angry, which motivated me to write this series. 

How do you explain the results I had as a teacher?  According to the district I worked for, my students showed improvement annually on state standardized tests.

  • Stop Blaming Teachers for Everything – Parents are Responsible too.

Some of my students won awards for poetry and short stories, while my Journalism classes placed in the top in regional, state and international competitions.

My standards were high. Class work and homework made up the majority of my grading formula.  Tests and quizzes never represented more than 15% of the grade. 

When students earned failing grades on a progress report, I called every parent I could reach and told them about the homework hotline and invited them to come to class and sit with their student to motivate them to work. 

Most of those phone calls to parents resulted in no changes. Those kids still didn’t do the homework or class work.

– to be continued

Return to Speaking Out About Education – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Speaking Out about Education – Part 2/6

September 13, 2010

One year, a vice principal at the high school where I worked pulled me aside and in confidence urged me to lower my standards so more students would pass my classes.

The the failure rate  in my classroom sometimes reached 50% and was often hovering around 30%.  Few earned ‘As’.  Many earned ‘Ds’ and barely scrapped by.  While I was being tough on grades and demanding of my students, many of my colleagues were not.

The reason why standards were low among most teachers was due to pressure from admisntration and parents who wanted their children to feel good about themselves—which means boosting self-esteem artificially.

  • What the narrator leaves out is that the self-esteem movement started outside of the schools and spread to the schools like a virus. The schools were forced to comply or else. Source: Free Republic and Self-Esteem

However, wanting kids to have high self-esteem is a double-edged blade. 

When I graded the lowest failing grades with a minus ( – ­) sign showing that a student had done next to no work in class and no homework, I was called into the office by one of the other vice principals.

She ordered me with the threat of administrative action to drop the minus sign behind the failing grades, which I did.

She said, “They (the students) feel bad enough as it is. Why do you have to make it worse?”

– to be continued

Return to Speaking Out About Education – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Speaking Out about Education – Part 1/6

September 12, 2010

This series on education is a rant. I’m angry at something I watched on ABC news and I’ve included that news clip in Part 1. If you don’t want to hear what I have to say about education in America, avoid reading this series.

I taught in Southern California schools. The schools where I taught still have low rankings when compared to similar public schools in California.

Although I worked with students from the low end of the socio-economic strata, the district said that my students, on average, improved annually.

At the end of this ABC segment on YouTube, Marie Meyer, a parent, says, “If my child is getting an ‘F’, and I know that he is able to do ‘A’ quality work, then it has to reflect on the teacher.”

In fact, the responsibility for a child FAILING in school rightfully belongs to the parents and students, who are shirking his or her duties. 

If most Asian students can succeed in the same classroom, so can non Asians. It was my experience that Asian parents were the toughest and their children usually earned high grades.

Teachers cannot teach by themselves. It takes a community to teach a child. The most important element of the community is the parents, students and teachers and cooperation is the key.

– to be continued
See The Growing Education Gap between the US and China

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to this Blog, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | America, cultural differences, education | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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