Geocentric cosmos shocker

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
October 30, 2014 - 11:58am
Okay today a co-worker and I spent part of our shift correcting what the children where taught in class, based on their comments, questions and answers to our follow up questions we determined they are being taught a geocentric system for our solar system and had no idea the planet is a globe... they where very clear that they are being taught Earth is the center of the universe and everything rotates around it... understand we had limited tools but we did explain the shape of the planet, about orbits, how the Earth spins and why it appears the Sun rises and why it looks like the Sun goes around us but that is wrong and why, we explained why the day grows longer or shorter and much more... I am really getting tired of discovering this sort of absolutely wrong information is being taught. I have discovered more than one teacher teaching subjects they have no idea how to do... Pre-Algebra teacher that could not do any problem not in her teacher's guide, a science teacher that did not know the local mountains are old volcanoes and threatened to fail a child that did, elementary school teacher that could not teach math without using a calculator and more. I am tired of being told we are the uneducated people, when we are the ones teaching the children to write, do math and correct science facts.
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."
Comments:

Ascent's picture
Ascent
October 30, 2014 - 1:59pm
Really? Are you sure the children weren't simply basing their opinions upon simple childish observation? I find it hard to believe that any adult would teach such things. Also, have you confirmed this by speaking with the teacher and the school?
View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write.
"It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi
"That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi
Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild)

Malcadon's picture
Malcadon
October 30, 2014 - 6:41pm
LOL It sounds like the Flat Earth Society.Laughing

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
October 30, 2014 - 7:34pm
I honestly hope the kids misunderstood their teacher Ascent. We spent considerable amount of time asking questions of the kids to determine what they had understood their teacher had told them, the kids where very specific about what they had recently been taught.  Not all school educational programs are held to the same standard I have discovered & if a child ends up in certain programs it gets pretty sketchy as to what is being taught. I am not the only one to note this and be concerned. I have run across children that have never been taught to write as that program's gimmick only allowed using a keyboard as writing might confuse them. So I found my self teaching how to write letters & words one year to get those children up to speed. Then there was the program that introduced calculators before the children where solid on basics so no child was actually learning. I have been working here for a while and every so many school years I stumble across something bizarre in teaching like this... I hope I am wrong, I will know soon enough... it is not uncommon for a teacher to stomp up to me from a gimmick program and demand to know why I taught their students anything, how dare I teach them to write their name, or teach/tutor them so they are now passing tests in class on subject X (honestly I got yelled out for students going from F-D test scores in math to A-B test scores). I have had lots of run in with teachers. I usually win the arguments when I point out the children are now performing at grade level when before they where not and the teacher is objecting to their children now being at grade level versus failing. I have seen near genius to genius level children that have been shunted into programs where they are not being taught. I am not an educator. I have had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know some great teaching staff I respect a lot but I have also met some educators that make me seriously wonder if their educational degree came out of a Cracker Jack Box. Undecided I just hope I am wrong on this one. If not Basic Science it will be every day on the way to school now. Smile 
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

KRingway's picture
KRingway
October 31, 2014 - 3:18am
Are you based in the US? If so, is there not a standardised curriculum all through the various stages of pupils' lives?

I teach at degree level here in the UK and things can sometimes be quite bad for some British students coming into the system, in terms of not being able to handle the intellectual workload due to poor prior teaching. But at least here things are pretty much standardised, although sometimes there seems to be moves to stop even that. That said, I don't think anyone here is being taught geocentric models, even in religious schools. They'd fail government inspections with that sort of nonsense on their curriculums.

bossmoss's picture
bossmoss
October 31, 2014 - 3:36am
Don't get me started on the state of education today.  I used to be a teacher, but got out of it.  I think the system was still functional as recently as 30 years ago, but even then there were signs that it was headed this direction.  No Child Left Behind was the nail in the coffin.  We now stand as one of the worst educated of all 1st world nations.  Many 3rd world countries have better educated students than the United States.

I remember having to correct my own teachers in college, and about basic things.

Part of the problem lies in finding anyone motivated to even become a teacher these days.  I think most districts are happy to find anyone at all.  Who wants to work in a career where you get paid very little, are treated badly (by students, parents, and the public), have a decreasing amount of control over what & how you teach in your own classroom, e.g. creationism, and have a very high probability of being falsely accused of improper sexual behavior (especially if you are male) and must live with the constant possibility that you and your students might be shot at any moment, like a Damocles sword hanging over your head?

I think education is in a real crisis.

I homeschool my own kids, by the way, because I want them to amount to something.  They often comment on the education of their friends, and that serves as a constant reminder to me why I am doing this.  So does every school shooting I read about in the news.

Ascent's picture
Ascent
October 31, 2014 - 5:32am
KRingway wrote:
Are you based in the US? If so, is there not a standardised curriculum all through the various stages of pupils' lives?

I teach at degree level here in the UK and things can sometimes be quite bad for some British students coming into the system, in terms of not being able to handle the intellectual workload due to poor prior teaching. But at least here things are pretty much standardised, although sometimes there seems to be moves to stop even that. That said, I don't think anyone here is being taught geocentric models, even in religious schools. They'd fail government inspections with that sort of nonsense on their curriculums.
There is and there isn't. There is standardized testing, but not standardized carriculum. Teacher salaries have languished and we have a problem in the U.S. of not being able to attract college-educated teachers because of too low of salaries. Some places are worse than others, so the problem has become that many of these uneducated teachers are doing nothing to teach the kids. They take shortcuts to do as little as possible to acquire their paychecks. But even in that situation, I find it terrifying that any teacher would teach the kids retard-level flat earth jibberish. (By the way, contrary to what many believe, flat earth teaching does not come from the Bible. The Bible teaches a round earth floating in space like the sun and moon along with stellar expansion.)
View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write.
"It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi
"That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi
Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild)

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
October 31, 2014 - 9:30am
We do & do not have standards. Many children once placed in a program (& of course all programs are great per the PR, & no they are not I researched many of them for one of my children at High School level most had a greater than 50% failure rate) the parents are required to sign a form that states the school, the program, the teachers & the district can not be held responsible if your child learns nothing. I was shocked and was difficult over that form and refused. I can only read & write myself because as rescued & placed with a retired 1 room school house teacher who fixed my deficiencies with old school techniques. I literally had my own slate & wood desk with ink well, she also objected to the assessment that I did not speak English & did not understand English and was able to prove that was incorrect; with the use of a tape recorder she could adjust the speed on; to the district. Turns out what I was speaking was a shortened simplified fast English in an attempt to speak as fast as I could think the way I thought. Anyhow she is why I can read, write, speak slowly & correctly for others and do arithmetic. I use her techniques when helping children, they always work. The problem with American education from what I have observed is more than pay (though pay is a factor, I have not had a raise in 10 years) So here is what I see:

1) Gimmicks:

 Since the 60-70s a variety of Gimmicks have been tried or bizarre weird ideas that are promoted in colleges as they appeal to people who like talking, debating and writing papers on how great their favorite idea is. Basically people in academia are enamored with the gimmicks that give them all sorts of technical terms on learning, theories on how they think people think & thus learn, anything perceived as politically correct is heavily pushed, any idea that appears to make them sound smart appeal's to their ego (these are the folks that like to talk down to others while using terms and words they think you do not understand... they hate it when you do.) Most of these Gimmicks are absolutely impossible for a child to understand especially if most adults can not understand them too. Most Gimmicks are based on seriously flawed studies by publishing companies that have a vested interest in maintaining a copyright & peddling their flawed products. Many professors also write books, develop flawed systems of education and get royalties so they teach what ever they have developed is awesome and their students believe it mindlessly. 

2) Short Cuts/Speed

Americans as a rule think faster is better. When they attempt to apply that idea to education it is always a disaster. Adults (teachers are adults) sometimes have trouble with going slow, and try to take short cuts. Teaching a dog 1 behavior requires a minim of 15 times of the dog doing it correctly on command, that does not include all the steps before in which Fido did not get it, most people with a dog that never learns to sit do not have the patience to waist the 30 minutes a day every day till Fido get's it... same applies to children, most adults get impatient and give up too soon in the teaching/learning process or try and create a short cut in the process which results in failure if not right away latter in more advanced levels of the subject.  Slow and steady wins the education race for all subjects.

3) Over focussing on one way of learning.

Over the past few years I have noted there is an attempt to make all children conform to just one teaching/learning style, and any child that is not compatible with this style is flawed... this is untrue, the child is fine, the system is flawed. The style I have noted is heavily based on using a computer as soon as possible. This means only children that are highly Visual with medium to low audio input requirements and are sedentary by nature will do well and everyone else will struggle. There was even a really poorly done study that attempted to say children did not learn through kinetics and kinetic learners are a myth. In my experience classroom settings that use all 3 input methods in a balanced way generally have all students at grade level... but it is more work for the teacher. There are lazy teachers, I have met a few.

4) Failure to improve one's skills

This is so logical it baffles me why teachers do not do this: If you know you personally have always struggled with a specific subject and you are going to teach it, then you should review it heavily... they don't do that. This is why I have had so many conflicts with teachers & math. Many teachers in America seem to be deficient in arithmetic, yet never for their own peace of mind try to improve their skill level... yes they do continuing ed classes for the state but they shy away from hard subjects and take things like "how to use your magnetic white board more effectively". I always review anything I set out to teach.

5) Teacher's Motivation

Why someone is teaching makes a huge difference in results. When I teach something it is because I see someone needs help, I love the subject, or I have been asked to... I do this because I enjoy seeing people succeed, I enjoy seeing people's quality of life improve, or just enjoy finding someone who I can interact with on a subject I love. All my teaching skills are self taught based on observing teachers with successful classes and unsuccessful classes. I also have asked lots of questions for over 20 years of teaching professionals on how to teach, and I read on the subject from time to time. I made an effort to learn. However that is not why some other people teach... I have noted some people are more interested in "changing the world", "making a difference", "being respected", and "I thought I would make more money"... The first 2 statements are usually made by teachers concerned about PC ideas more then academic success, the third statement comes from teachers who are often bullies, the final statement from teachers that just don't care. 

6) The ever changing standards & programs

The educational system in the USA is influenced by politics. The standards in the USA have been on a down hill slide for years for political reasons. Common Core is clearly a Gimmick system, the math is from a failed USSR experiment from the 1970s, the other assignments clearly are also being used as social engineering. I have heard one to many times children today are just too dumb to learn and it is all the parent's fault., because no one is educated above 5th grade level according to the experts. I think not. Many parents are educated intelligent human beings and are trusting educators & the state to do a good job, so if the state is failing when it has the child from 8 AM to 3 PM 5 days a week I think the state needs to take responsibility and act quickly not take 5 years or more and tons of complaints to acknowledge an issue. Many issues revolve around laws which races can & can not be tested and if tested how, age based advancement, failed social engineering attempts, putting children in special ed to get rid of them and continued use of classroom time to make the children think correctly about adult subjects. Also many programs that fail are failing because how the $ is allotted to the district & program... example ESL (English as a Second Language) programs have done poorly traditional in CA, where we are on 3rd generations of people who can not speak English or read it or write it who all went to CA schools... how did that happen? Easy as long as the children failed to learn English the $ kept coming, if they started learning it went away... so children where only being taught on average 2 words per year of school. But good news, we the people got wise to the scam, and now the funding has changed so districts only get $ if the kids learn English... guess what the children are now learning English. Lesson learned, when ever a government program fails it is important to see under what conditions the program gets paid or funding cut.

I can probably write a college level doctorate paper on why the educational system in the USA is failing so I should stop here... 'cause there is more reasons. LOL!
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

Ascent's picture
Ascent
October 31, 2014 - 10:46am
That was all well-stated. I think your final statement is the biggest failure. Can you say "No child left behind"?
View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write.
"It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi
"That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi
Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild)

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
October 31, 2014 - 5:06pm
Yes, NCLB did not help, CA is going to a new sort of program in funding districts so it will be interesting to see what that does good, bad, or indifferent. My biggest concern is Common Core. 
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

Ascent's picture
Ascent
November 1, 2014 - 5:53am
I don't see why they don't just look to countries with successful education programs. Could it be that they do it on purpose so that the best and brightest stand out and are easy to identify because they educate themselves?

I guess it could also be analagous to a world full of supers vs. a world with only a few supers. A world full of supers is going to be full of super villains as much as super heroes. But in a world with only a few supers, they can track and identify them and minimize the damage they cause. In other words, perhaps they view education as a weapon to be put in the hands of the few, not the many.
View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write.
"It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi
"That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi
Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild)

KRingway's picture
KRingway
November 1, 2014 - 10:43am
Whilst on the theme of things 'super', it's quite weird to think that a current 'superpower' like the US might soon be oustripped by various other countries simply because it cannot properly educate it's own population. Maybe it's a symptom of a nation on the wane.

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
November 1, 2014 - 12:58pm
Well I have wondered some of the same sort of ideas... here are some ideas:

First I have learned that some people suffer from a form of insanity in which the have an emotional attachment to an idea and no matter how many ways or times that idea is proven wrong they will continue to deny the repeatable observable results and with "good intentions" impose the failed idea on others over & over. They can not except they are wrong, made a mistake, as their egos are too fragile.

There are lots of control freak crazies who are out there and always trying to micro-manage everyone's personal life, keeping America stupid or at least pretending that gives them more power over other people's lives. Also many people in colleges use this to encourage the belief among the 18-20ish crowd that their parents are mean spirited idiots or at least everyone else's parents are idiots and that the students & college staff are the only smart, sophisticated and socially aware people in America. (Total holy bovine manure of course but the kids buy into it so it is easier for the professors to manipulate them to think a very specific way). Also it allows another group of people to invalidate any complaint the general public may have about what ever it is that we the people are getting annoyed with, as we are too stupid/bigoted to understand the master plan. The data published by the media in my opinion is false, in that it is extremely easy to create any study that gets the results you want if you know how, I learned how in college to do this, so I know others did also (it is unethical, but people do it all the time) I can rig a study to prove Conservatives have low IQs or Liberals have low IQs with the right words, questions and understanding of demographics, it is absurdly easy to skew such studies. 

I honestly believe based on my life experiences that their are people who believe they are superior in every way to other people, and based on knowing such people I have learned that they truly believe large sections of the general public are inferior humans. Apparently some people need other people to be inferior to feel good & confident about themselves. 

Many genius IQ children are in learn nothing special ed classes nation wide, we are purposely under educating our greatest resource the human brains with the highest potential. From what I can tell part of that problem may be the adults in these children's lives have the low IQs or are just lazy. It is a false premise based again on observation that high IQ parents will produce equally high IQ children, or that low IQ parents can not produce high IQ offspring... there is a certain amount of chance on the DNA dice roll on IQ potential. These children are often smarter then their parents, their teachers or the administrators combined. These children learn quickly how to manipulate the punishment system of a school district to get out of doing school work, going to school and often to get what they want. Being children they just want to play. The system has no place for super smart children. Show me a public school system that regularly graduates 12-16 year olds from High School. No school district is motivated to get children out to college as fast as possible because that is lost money to their limited way of thinking, they are however motivated to keep children in desks as long as possible even if it means atrophying their learning capabilities.  

Segregation is also being achieved using many methods that are disguised as something else in my opinion. I have met a surprising number of racist people (of many different races) in education.

So yes the education system could either through malicious manipulation, apathy or crazy "good intentions" be used by a few people to achieve other goals.  
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

jedion357's picture
jedion357
November 2, 2014 - 2:26pm
I'll keep this brief: my oldest was in pre-k or it could have been K and a teacher caught me in the hall and introduced herself as my child's science teacher.

"Really? You're a science teacher for kindergardeners? What science are you teaching to me kindergardener?"

"Well...."

"Seriously, I would like to know what you are teaching for science to 5 years olds?"

"Well, we color pictures of clouds and learn about hand washing."

"Really? And this takes a dedicated science teacher?"

"Well, it has to do with compliance to No Child Left Behinds so that we have the required number of hours teaching science."

"So this is really a joke so that you can get government funding?"

"Basically."

"Well then, carry on with the science."

She never went out of her way to talk to me again. Wink

That brings me to admission #2 by a Boston public school teacher when I enquired about why no History or Geography being taught to my child but some other spurious seeming crap- that they had to basically teach for the MCAS test that every student must pass to graduate in MA and is taken periodically throughout their school career so that schools can be graded on performance. No adminstrator wants their school to be given a low mark so teachers are required to simply teach for the test and screw a real education for the kids. I said as much to the teacher admitting this to me and she said correct.

My brother was stationed at Fort Cambell Kentucky (the base's entrance is in Kentucky but much of it lies in TN. Apparently the TN public schools value affirmation of the student over actually educating them as he encounterd an adult (19 year old) who could not spell and had been told in school to spell a word the way she felt it should be spelled. No objective standard- any spelling was vallid because they didn't want to tell the child they had gotten something wrong and scare their psyche.

Its 2014 and Johny can not only not read but I doubt he has much chance of finding his own ass with two hands.

I learned more Geography trough playing Risk than anything else. Play Risk with your children so they get some Geography. Wargame with them so they get some History.

ooops guess that wasn't breif.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
November 2, 2014 - 3:50pm
After my son was left black and blue by a teacher and I was confronting the school over it... one educator told me the purpose of school was to teach my child to be obedient for the workforce and that because my children would question authority and corrected teachers they belonged in jail... so don't ask questions kids or correct authority figures 'cause that is a sign of a criminally inclined mind don't you know & it might justify an injury.

Oh the schools figure out how to cheat on the tests too...

I crunched the statistics with the AP students my senior year and we concluded our HS was rigging the yearly fed test... here is what they where doing:

In your Freshmen year you are randomly chosen for the test, but interestedly the students that received grades in the A-B range % on that test would be asked to take the test the next year with the only people new added "randomly chosen" students not pulled from the C,D,F testers of the previous year, but students who had not been tested but did coincidentally have a GPA in the A-B range... but it could all be chance right? No because in our Junior Year again only children that scored A-B from the previous year where taking the test again and our HS had just received an additional 1000 or so students at the beginning of the school year from another HS, and there was none of these new kids being tested except in the Freshmen Class... which meant they where padding the test results with students that they knew performed well on the test, which got easier not harder as it always repeated some questions from the previous tests plus new questions... so by our Senior Year those of us who had been "randomly chosen" knew it was statistically improbable, so we refused to be part of that test pool. The HS did not do so well that year for the Senior test results as every senior AP student was in the pool along with a lot of regular students like myself who breezed through that test 3 years previously. Yes we got threatened for our refusal. But no HS is going to get away with expelling all their A-B students in their senior year without all hell breaking loose on the grounds they can not refuse to take a test that has nothing to do with their graduation, college entrance, or classes they are taking... and every single one of us was very openly stating our HS administration was cheating on a Federal Test and we had data. Needless to say we got in to no trouble when they figured out the potential scandal for punishing us would probably result in them loosing their jobs and a federal investigation.




 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

jedion357's picture
jedion357
November 2, 2014 - 4:03pm
Nice.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

KRingway's picture
KRingway
November 2, 2014 - 9:39pm
In the UK there does seem to be some sort of rigging going on so that pre-university pupils pass exams by being streamlined to get certain grades. If that school then gets a general positive average, it bodes well for their ranking in the schools league tables that we have here. So whilst the schools might do well out of this as organisations, you tend to end up with kids who cannot do any sort of lateral thinking by the time they move into university education. I used to teach 3D modelling (for computer games), a skill which involves a lot of lateral and spacial thinking, but over the years I found that many British students could not handle that way of working. It sometimes also tended to make some students expect - or on one occasion, demand - that they received a certain grade because various other students got a higher grade than they did, and so they wanted the same grade.

Generally, my best students are either from Scandinavia or Eastern Europe (and I've taught students from various parts of the globe over the past 8 years). Why this is, I'm not sure. Also, in some years I do get a gaggle of good British students, so there does sometimes feel that there is some cyclical effect of the various changes that happen in the UK education system as it tries out different approaches to teaching.