Cutting Education Makes None Sense

A lot of things have changed since my last post, like my major (Actuarial Sciences->Considering Electronic Media->Mathematics Teaching), I shaved my face and cut my hair (There is SO much hair in my trash can right now), and their are talks of change here at UNI in the forms of NISG elections and budget cuts. One of the biggest issues here with the budget cuts is the possibility of cutting funding for the Price Lab Middle School. The Price Lab is used by the College of Education to help give Education majors hands-on field experience in addition to the student teaching. In today's economy, I can see why the budget is a big issue, but I have an issue with where they are taking the money away from.

What most people don't realize is that education is vital to any economy. If you are well educated, you are more likely to be successful in life, make a lot of money, and then spend all that money. The more trained in your area you are, the more successful you will be. That's why when you pick which school to go to, you should pick a school that has a good department in your area of study rather than how good the football team is. If that were the way you were supposed to do it, I'd be at Iowa not here at the wind tunnel that is UNI. The thing is education needs most is for the kids to have a drive to work hard and learn, and the teachers have to have a passion for what they teach (in addition to knowing the material, of course). People think that the educational system is going down the toilet because of the quality of teaching, that the teachers aren't as inspired as the days of old, and that the kids are failing because the teacher hates them. That is bullshit. 100% Grade A shit from a bull's ass. The biggest thing wrong with education is that the students slack off and generally don't care about school. Plus, the schools encourage the teachers to teach to a test, to make sure every kid passes even if they don't deserve to, and that the teacher goes out of their way to make sure that every kid gets a good grade. When it comes down to it, school administrators (and the Government, too (we'll get to them later)) only care about test scores (ACT, SAT, PSAT, ITEDS, ITBS, etc.) and graduation rates. If they actually cared about the students' success, they wouldn't make such a big deal about standardized tests or even care where we ranked in the world. All the USA wants is to crank out as many graduates who can read as we can. The problem with education isn't that the teachers suck, it's that we produce something different from what we want.

Another major problem in education is the parents. Even in the late nineties when I started school, if a kid was failing the parents would be upset with their child and make sure they were trying before going to the teacher. The somewhere in middle school, the mind set of the parent changed. All of a sudden it became if Jimmy got an F, it was obviously the teacher's fault because there is no way little Jimmy could get anything below an A. What the parents don't know is Jimmy hasn't been doing any homework, didn't study for tests, and play Xbox for 6 hours every night instead of his schoolwork.  Parents need to remember that it isn't a teacher's job to babysit. A teacher is supposed to educate a student in their subject, and make sure that once they know the material they can apply it to the real world and understand it even better. And just because a student can win the football team games doesn't mean he gets a free pass on a diploma. It's called "student-athlete" for a reason, you have to be a good student before you can play

Picture of the modern parent (via my cousin Matt (who is a teacher) and George Takei's Facebook)

If I haven't gotten my point across yet or you are completely lost, let me sum it up for you here. The problem with education doesn't lie with the teacher's training or work ethic. It lies with the expectations of the government and the parents. Just because you love your kid doesn't mean that they should automatically pass. And education isn't about out scoring China on a standardized test. It is about making sure the kids have an understanding of Math, Science, Social Studies, and English and are able to use it in every day life.Cutting funding for teacher training programs isn't going to make education better. In fact, it will only make it worse. The more experienced the teacher is, the better they are in the classroom. The focus needs to be on our perception of education. I don't know what their plans for the budget cuts are, but cutting the Price Lab's funding is not a good decision. 

Keep this in mind in the upcoming NISG elections if you are a student at UNI. My friend Wes Jones and I are running as write in candidates to represent the College of Education. There are three open seats for the COE, and we are the only two running that I know of. With issues like these being discussed, the COE really needs to be represented. Be sure to vote February 28-29 if you are a member of the COE. You don't have to vote for me or Wes, but make sure that we are represented in next years NISG body.

If you want to keeps up on my thoughts more frequently (they get more disturbing and nonsensical the less I think it out) follow me on Twitter @JVanderah20. You can find me on Facebook, but I'll probably only add you if I know you. I post again when something new bothers or excites me. Peace out Girl Scout!

The Story of Rick

Sup dawgs, today I come baring a gift. This gift, however, is not a material item. No, my friends, it is a story. The story of how DPBE's latest video came to be. It follows a fictitious student, Rick Vester, who is a fifth year freshman at UNI. Rick came to be when my good friend Robert Casey Hostert came back with a wig. I have no idea how he came to posses such an item, but when he put it on he looked like a stoner. Not just any stoner, an incredibly stupid stoner. Cole added that he looked like some whose name should be Rick, and thus, a star was born. He would wear the wig occasionally, and even convinced some parents that he had been a freshman at UNI for five years, taking a class or two per semester and passing about half of them. That was last school year, but when Casey rediscovered the wig this year, Rick was once again. It wasn't until we were supremely bored one Saturday nigh that we decide to make a mockumentary about his life. After ten minutes of half-ass planning, we spent like 40 minutes filming the goods. Watching it, it should be blatantly obvious that we took only one cut of every scene, I had no idea what Wes was going to say and I was laughing on camera, and we did minor video editing only. But in the end, I believe we made a mildly to extremely entertaining 13.5 minute video. Yes it's a little long, and we maybe shouldn't have put in the section about his childhood that makes you feel sorry for him, but it is still gold nonetheless. Here is the video, and I hope you enjoy the "findings" of investigative reporter Hugh Jass.