Simple economics in school

When I taught high school level economics I kept it very simple. I hoped to instill in students a sense of exactly what they might deal with in real life. One such lesson involved what sales meant.

One idea was that when an item was on sale for, say, 10% off, that they did not save ten percent but only spent ten percent less on it. That doesn't make a purchase bad of course. But unless they actually put that ten off in the bank, they hadn't saved anything. I in fact had gotten that idea from me Pops years earlier, when I was maybe, heh, heh, ten. A friend of his was showing the old man something and bragging about the ten off he saved. Dad merely asked, "So's where's the money you saved?"

Another concept was the old buy one get one free come on. You aren't getting either one free: you're spending half as much on each. Again, that doesn't mean it's a bad deal. But you are not getting a freebie. Free means all yours at no cost and with no strings attached, no demands on you as a consumer.

I don't know if these helped but it was what I taught.

Older Than What?

Teaching adult education for twenty odd years was fun, and occasionally rewarding. Yet certain moments are bound to stand out. I will never forget the two funniest incidents I have ever had in a classroom.

While grading a short essay for an Economics course, the student was asked the difference between stocks and bonds. In an obvious yet hilarious cut and paste off the Internet (a practice we frowned upon of course and graded accordingly), the answer began: "Stocks were medieval devices of public humiliation and torture." It went on to explain in some, ah, fascinating detail, the exact nature of certain forms of torture. Reading this challenged my attempts to stay calm and professional, to not laugh out loud at my desk in a room full of students. I had no trouble keeping control until the last sentence: "Bonds are government issued interest bearing securities."

Well, the student was half right in his answer, and I was able to keep my professional wits. Barely.

On another occasion, I had an English assignment to grade. With that one, I did go on to completely lose my composure in peals of laughter which I tried valiantly to hide but to no avail. I had to leave the room for ten minutes initially, hiding in an empty teacher's lounge while leaving the other instructor (there were two of us at all times in our teaching arrangement) to lament my having abandoned him. Luckily it was a slow night.

The assignment was to make comparisons in the form of analogies. The first prompt read: "Tom's car was old." Expected responses were along the lines of, 'Tom's car was older than baseball.' Instead I was treated to, "Tom's car was older than a dead frog."

I was okay at first; I stifled my giggles, although it took it a few seconds of tongue biting to maintain myself. But I was good.

The next prompt was, 'Abby was hungry.' Harmless enough. Until I read the student's offering.

"Abby was very hungry, like a sad clown who had fell off his bike."

I immediately roared uncontrollably. Shawn, the other teacher, asked what was up. Giving him the paper I replied between guffaws, "Read the first two sentences and I'll be back in a few minutes."

On my return, finally beyond any wild laughter, the first thing Shawn said was, "I can see why you didn't give credit for the first analogy. The frog may not have been dead that long."

I returned after another twenty minutes. Good times.

Cleese, Rotely

My current read is an autobiography, So, Anyway...by John Cleese of Monty Python fame. The cover is the top half of his face, eyes wide open as though shocked, with blue feathers floating around him. If you get the joke you're a true Python fan. If not, you're missing on a bit of inspired humor.

The book is quite good in a very English way, and I'm sure I'll talk more about it as time goes on. But interestingly what has surprised and intrigued me most so far has nothing to do with comedy.

I had not known that Cleese taught school for two years before heading to Cambridge and what became a renowned career in a much more zany world than education, although education has become zany in a decidedly unfunny way. That however is a question for another time. 

What I was pleased to discover was that this man who I admire for his comic genius believes in a kind of education which I do too, an approach to education which is well out of favor these days yet I firmly believe ought to be widely employed in the schools. Cleese is a believer in rote learning, of drill and simply committing things to memory.

Make the kids at a young age learn the States and their Capitols. Make them learn the planets and their moons. Drill them on the multiplication tables. Have a large part of history classes a memorization of dates and events. Fill their heads with rote fact and detail. Why? Because it makes them learn to concentrate. It thus helps them think more clearly because they learn to consider and appreciate detail.

It does not surprise me that too many adults today can't think in nuance. They weren't ever taught to see detail. Knowledge has become about what we feel is true (I think we can safely interpret that as what we want to be true) rather than a consideration of what is actually true. Drill and repetition, rote learning early on, is what makes us focus on the details which we need to understand if we are to ever comprehend complex situations.

I don't care for everything Cleese says (he appears to use psychology as a crutch in the same manner he criticizes the religious using religion as a crutch) and some of his humor is far too crude. But it was fascinating and rather a delight to find that he and I agree on at least one very basic need for our schoolchildren.

What's Best For Kids

Had he (a parent) sought out and hired a teacher for his child, that teacher might well say: Having chosen me for this work, you will either have to trust that I know better than you how to accomplish it, or go and find some other teacher for your child. But an agent of government can not afford to commend the competition.

That quote is from one Richard Mitchell, the self styled Underground Grammarian from years past and someone from whom I learned more about teaching and government authority (I'm willing to argue abuse of authority) than any professor of Education whilst earning my teaching certificate. I can't truthfully call it a degree because that implies the aforementioned professors gave me real direction on what an actual education should involve. I jumped through the hoops, was handed a piece of paper, and then taught as I thought best under what circumstances I faced. Believe me, anybody can become certified to teach (I may well be proof of that), much more so today than when I was in college in 1982. It is not an impressive accomplishment.

But that idea goes farther than what I intend to for today. What the late Dr. Mitchell (he passed in 2007) meant here was that (a) we should respect true teachers, folks actually trying to make our children better people and who, indeed, work along with us as parents and members of society towards that most important goal, as opposed to (b) public school teachers who, by and large, as agents of government, tend to work against worthwhile improvement in their charges. That's because they're interested in what the government thinks best rather than what actually is best.

This is a primary reason why as I age I become increasingly libertarian. Governments rarely care about what's best for your child; they care about keeping themselves in authority. They care about holding, and wielding, power. Our liberal friends seem to recognize that when it's Donald Trump yet can't see it in Joe Biden. Ditto, conversely, our conservative pals.

But once more I digress. Parents are by their nature (yes, I realize there are bad ones, and it is of course okay for society to get involved in those situations) more concerned with what's truly best for their children than public authorities. Government needs to get out of the way and let parents do what they do best: raise their kids well. That involves mom and dad actively, even almost exclusively, choosing who teaches their offspring and letting the true professional teach as they ought. It's a simple concept, and hardly radical. Yet that's also exactly why it's a threat to government schools.

Caught in the Act

Solitaire. I play too much of it, and generally alone because, well, solitaire. A derivative of solitary. I think.

It runs in the family. Dad played, Mom played, and I remember sitting in me Grandpa Joe's kitchen when I was ten or eleven watching him play. Klondike is our version of choice. I didn't even know it had a name other than solitaire until I was an adult. Once I learned that my reaction was, it makes sense. Why should there be only one type of one person card game? Yet that never occurred to me before my twenties.

I was once playing it when I admittedly shouldn't have been. For the last ten years I taught I was in a self driven classroom where students could take a myriad of subjects which were streamed in via computer. As such, we were there to facilitate as much as anything, helping students through difficult tasks, getting them needed materials, and grading finished work among other chores. 

Our sessions ended at 9 PM weeknights. One evening at around 8:45 with few students in attendance, honestly maybe three, and with no immediate demands on my time, I sat down at an open computer which I thought was out of view and pulled up solitaire. About half way through my game I got that feeling we all get sometimes of being watched. Turning around, a young man who was something of a joker (but a cool one) was standing there with a broad smile on his face. He pointed at me and barked sternly, "Get back to work!", and laughed.

I laughed with him. What could I do? I was caught. 

Taking aim

As a general rule I side with authority. In that light I told my kids as they became school age that if I got word from school that they were misbehaving somehow then so far as I was concerned, they were misbehaving. Pontificating a moment, I think a lot more parents need to take that attitude too.

Yet teachers, being human, aren't always right either, and I recognize that. 

There was a minor incident one day with my son and another boy.  While a group of boys were playing football during lunch one kid, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, got mad. He picked up the football and flung it at my son Charlie, but missed. Charlie however picked up the ball to return the favor, drilling it right upside Cloyce's head.

As it happened I was the one to pick up the kids from school that day. The principal spotted me and explained what happened. When he was done I said something like, "Oh." I was dismissive of it, quite frankly.

Coughing, the principal asked, "I'm wondering how you intend to handle it."

I shrugged my shoulders and said,  "Not my fault Charlie's got better aim than Cloyce." The principal stood in front of me, speechless.

The way I saw it, then and now, was that it was just boys being boys (they were in sixth grade) and simply no big deal. If anything, Charlie was really only defending himself with a dose of playground justice (and I was admittedly kind of proud of that). On top of it all, the two kids were good friends before the incident and remained good friends after it. Let it go; there simply was no real harm done.

I think they both got detention. Okay, whatever. Perhaps it did merit that. But Mr. Principal was clearly taken aback by what he felt my cavalier attitude. Me? If that was the worst thing one of my kids were to do in school, I could live with it.

A quick, funny, maybe not quite PC joke

Bumper stickers, eh? They really tell the world what you think.

Driving north on Interstate 75 this morning I saw a car with one of those 'bumper stickers'. It read:

Retired teacher. Every child left behind.

If you don't find that funny, you're wound too tight. I laughed for miles myself.

Sales and teaching are quite alike

I haven't been in a classroom now in over four years. I had taught various classes in various locations for 24 years. Now all that's past history, as me Grandpa Joe used to say.

For years I had the best of both worlds. I was using my college degree and, hopefully, helping high schoolers and young (and some not as young) adults in starting to make their marks on the world. At the same time I was working in a family business, keeping and deepening close family relationships. I still have that and the pride that goes along with it. And I do find that sales and education share certain traits.

I've ran training sessions and given product demonstrations for work which are very similar to teaching. You show how something is used, you help a customer determine what exactly they need, and you answer questions; you deal with a wide range of experience and adjust your approach to that. Hopefully it helps people along in their jobs as it (one likes to believe) helped students find their way in the world.

I really still have the best of both. Part of me would like to be in a more formal classroom again. The rest of me sees the big picture. It's not too bad of a picture either. I'm just waxing philosophic on this chilly Friday morning in Michigan.

We old guys get to do that. And it's leaving a smile on my face today. Why not? In a half hour I get to educate a young man on why his machine is shocking him, and I'm sure I'll feel that old satisfaction when I solve that problem.

Education and Learning

The Warren Consolidated School system in suburban Detroit has announced that it will soon open a math, science, and technology center for middle school students in the district. It is all part of a strategic plan to 'focus on student learning'.

Weren't they supposed to be doing that already? What have they been doing all these years if they weren't strategically focusing on student learning? How long has the WCS been in business that they now have come to realize that schools are for learning? For crying out loud, isn't the whole point of education supposed to be about pupils learning things? Yet this is precisely the thing which sounds so good when enunciated that the general public thinks, without actually thinking, 'ohh, that sounds so good: schools focusing on student learning'. How could you not vote for new or recurring millages, knowing your schools focus on student learning?

But to the point. Schools used to be about teaching. Now they're about learning. It doesn't seem like much of a difference, but it is. At one point, teachers were supposed to teach. Now, students are there to learn. What does that do?

It takes the responsibility off the teachers, that's what it does. And we all know how many maladies exist to excuse students from learning. They're everywhere, and more are concocted every day and with every imaginable acronym. Soon there will be no reason we should expect a teacher to teach, or a student to learn. Schools will be a place of academic schizophrenia; no one will know how to act. As such, no one will be at fault for the mess. What to do, what to do?

A good thing to do would be to vote against any and every millage which comes around your local school district, new ones indeed but also renewals. If what we are paying for are schools which don't seem clear on what they're doing (and they can't be clear if it has taken them decades to realize that their focus should be on the obvious) then they don't merit our support. Don't give them money. That is rule one when dealing with charlatans and shysters. They will only want more when the fish have taken the bait.

More Alternative Education?

A local school district, Warren Consolidated to be exact, has taken up the problem of what to do about dropouts. Nothing new there, except that the dropouts they are concerned with are those leaving the Alternative High School the district supports. In the words of an administrator, “We are looking for an alternative to alternative education.”

Now, you really should not be snickering at that. It happens all the time in education: every one must be educated, willing or not, and if we can only just find the way to reach them they will become educated.

Right. The education establishment refuses to accept that some young folks simply will not be educated. That isn’t necessarily the fault of educators; indeed it’s likely not the fault of theirs in the overwhelming majority of cases. But it is pig headed to think that everyone will learn. That attitude simply forces us to keep students in the system who should not be there yet are, to the detriment of those really trying to learn and the teachers really trying to teach.

Yes, state and federal laws (think No Child Left Behind, that onerous boondoggle of W’s) compel us to such nonsense. Yet a lot of that was brought on in the long term by the education elite who promised the education of every single student. You got what you asked for, guys. Deal with it.

Unless you can find an alternative to that.

Parental Rights Under Fire Again

Provincetown Schools in Massachusetts have announced that they will give out condoms to students who ask for them. This policy apparently will apply to all students in the K -12 system. Parents will not be informed of any giveaways, but the students will receive counseling and education about sex.

Considering the overall lousy job that the nations' schools are doing, that is not much of a comfort. But you must understand that, in American education today, it is much more important that schools be socially aware and active than it is to actually deal with teaching our kids reading, writing, and math. Why teach anything, when the youngsters will only lose their lives to casual sex, disease, and debauchery?

Such crass ideas not only fail to respect the students as human beings with free will capable of knowing the wrong from the right and able to behave accordingly, they disparage the average parent as ignorant of what is best for their children. How dare anyone in any field, let alone such a powerful one as education, harbor such blanket and unfounded feelings about moms and dads as a group? Who are these folks, who only see each individual child a few hours a day (if that) that they can know better than that child's parents what is best for the kid? They clearly bring their preconceptions to the field, applying them irreverently to any and all, because, after all, they're the professionals, thank yew very much. You're merely the parents.

This is public education today, friends. Insulting and impudent. But when we pay for teachers yet get social engineers, what do you expect?