{"id":730,"date":"2008-01-16T19:24:49","date_gmt":"2008-01-16T11:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/archives\/730"},"modified":"2011-12-10T01:45:32","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T17:45:32","slug":"teaching-re-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/archives\/730","title":{"rendered":"TEACHING (re-post)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leigh<\/a>, still pining for that Incubus concert<\/a>, pointed me last week to a nice blog that talked about teaching.<\/p>\n

My first reactions to this were…<\/p>\n

‘This is isn’t teaching… this is baby sitting!’<\/p>\n

Beh-bee… sitting!<\/p>\n

(Mind… is… fighting… The<\/a>. Dark<\/a>. Forces<\/a>… that are pushing the fingers to link to that Babysitters pron dvd link. Must. Not. Link. Must… not.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Babysitting.<\/p>\n

Spoonfeeding… included.<\/p>\n

With matching twinkidoos woochoo woochoo.<\/p>\n

(And those endless-but-always-entertaining (to a two year old (not you (sadly))) Barney<\/a> reruns.)<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The way we view teaching differ.<\/p>\n

These views differ from one person to the other… from one place to another place.<\/p>\n

If you’re a student, probably teaching for you is different when you’re an actual teacher.<\/p>\n

It must be.<\/p>\n

Then again it depends on if you’re a lazy student or the other. That is… a lazier student.<\/p>\n

Now if you’re a teacher it depends also whether you’re still that renegade fresh out of college aspiring to change the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Or… that veteran-tired-of-changing the-world-nothing-still-happens so-let’s-just-give-them-all-passing-grades so-everyone-can-be-HAPPY!<\/p>\n

Then the view that most of us tend to overlook… the ADMIN\/OWNER-of-the-school’s point of view.<\/p>\n

(Yes… in CAPS LOCK (And yes I do use that CAPS LOCK so forget those petitions<\/a> to remove that key in the standard keyboard lay-out (Go strain yourselves, shit-err-shift-lovin’-humans)))<\/p>\n

To these admins, failing grades lead to less enrollees… less enrollees lead to less income to cover the expenses.<\/p>\n

Less income leads to fear. Fear leads to to anger<\/a>. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.<\/p>\n

I won’t even delve into the profit part.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Not all admins really.<\/p>\n

We’ve worked closely enough with around 25<\/span> private and semi-public schools\/universities for the past 9<\/span> years to realize that there are still those who are wiling to sacrifice income for a better quality of education.<\/p>\n

Good luck to them.<\/p>\n

To us database programmers working for schools and universities, we see those teachers only as records.<\/p>\n

A row in the database file.<\/p>\n

Until they start bitchin’ and whining and doing that I know it all<\/a> attitude.<\/p>\n

That and their endless delays in submissions of records with erroneous IDs\/Names that fvcks up the spag-recursive powered checking of our systems.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Back to that blog.<\/p>\n

After reading that one… I searched Parcel (my primary PC) for a file I made eight years ago.<\/p>\n

TeachingPrinciples.txt<\/p>\n

I scribbled that fresh out of college.<\/p>\n

Fresh from the sufferings and tortures endured during my own comsci student life.<\/p>\n

It’s blood I smell… and ‘Revenge’ chants were still vibrating in my brain. (With matching rubbing of palms and evil grin)<\/p>\n

Probably those growling ‘Seek-For-Revenge’ howls were the ones that subliminally triggered me to accept that junior database programmer job for TheUniversity’s computer center (later renamed to MIS).<\/p>\n

I can teach part time in the same workplace… in between coding.<\/p>\n

I’ll get my chance at ThatRevenge.<\/p>\n

Payback time, baby.<\/p>\n

Payback time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Before I drag you more into this revenge mindset let me post the un-altered contents (except for the hyperlinks and minimal comments) of that file.<\/p>\n

Please note that these were my views\/principles\/way of life 10<\/span> years ago.<\/p>\n

I was in my 20<\/span>s then… still aiming to change the world one starfish<\/a> at a time.<\/p>\n

That of course and the quest for TheRevenge.<\/p>\n

Probably if things permit, I might be accepting a teaching gig again.<\/p>\n

And I might still be following these things.<\/p>\n

TEACHINGPrinciples.txt circa 1998<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Never lecture what can be read in the book… clarify some parts but re-lecturing what is already there is pure bullshit. (Yes I cursed a lot in text files back then.)<\/p>\n

Some questions must not be answered by the teacher unless the student has spent one week without sleeping trying to solve the said problem.<\/p>\n

Considerate teachers produce lousy students. Period.<\/p>\n

Only wimps check attendances and uniforms.<\/p>\n

Two words: TOUGH LOVE. Sometimes you have to punish them for them to learn… you can’t bring a soldier to war by baby-sitting him\/her in his\/her training… college ground is a training ground and believe me… it’s a war out there.<\/p>\n

Give more than enough time for a given project but don’t remind… it makes no difference… they’ll still be doing it at the last minute.<\/p>\n

Give extensions and stretched deadlines as much as they can possibly be given… hehe i’m quite soft on this one… but i was asking for much extensions when i was a student… it’s about time i give something kind for that kindness shown to me before.<\/p>\n

Challenge them… even to the point of de-humanizing their souls.<\/p>\n

People first before subject matter… college doesn’t really mean you’re teaching the subject matter alone.<\/p>\n

Always believe in that ‘Smooth seas do not produce skillful sailors’ notion… as well as John Patrick Mason’s (Sean Connery) ‘Losers always whine about their best winners go home and f-ck the prom queen<\/a>‘ line. (From The Rock<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Others including you have done it before… there’s no way an impossible problem can’t be solved.<\/p>\n

… and always make them smile even if you’re doing the things mentioned above.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tough love… it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leigh, still pining for that Incubus concert, pointed me last week to a nice blog that talked about teaching. My first reactions to this were… ‘This is isn’t teaching… this is baby sitting!’ Beh-bee… sitting! (Mind… is… fighting… The. Dark. Forces… that are pushing the fingers to link to that Babysitters pron dvd link. Must. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching","category-workblogmem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1250,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions\/1250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxpro.ntsl119.com\/scr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}