[SATLUG] Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage

[Hector Bojorquez]

Have to disagree with you Al...
I work with lots of kids and whole lot of them have read ALL 7 Harry Potter
books (many by the age of 12.. God bless JK Rowling... I took my cousin's
kids to the midnight Barnes and Noble's Potter party...and there was about
400 kids there)


about expectations..
Lids are tested constantly...expectations are constantly being raised...
problem is that the right mechanisms and funding to instruct correctly are
never put into place..
For example.. at this moment the law says that kids must graduate with 4
years of Math... does not stipulate what kind of Math..
Why?
Because hiring quality teachers who 1. know their subject and 2. can teach
it well  takes money and effort.
So what we will end up with is an unfunded mandate where schools across
Texas will graduate kids with four years of Fundamental of Math--- instead
of EXPECTING at the very least a graduating class with more than a passing
knowledge of Trig.

and teacher unions?  That's a  boogeyman ...specially in Texas.  They have
absolutely no power here... unless you think having a planning period is a
luxury (that's the last things Texas' teacher's unions "won").

Remember this conversation got started because we need to increase
Technology, Engineering, Math and Science leadership in the world...
We have to raise generations of technology visionaries, researchers and
leaders
We have to think beyond the old "political conventions" of left and right
(there's more than enough room for blame on both sides).
Our schools are OUR institutions and we CAN demand that things change.. if
we only have the cojones to demand it from our leaders

On 8/27/07, Al Castanoli <afcasta at texas.net> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2007-08-27 at 06:55 -0500, Borries Demeler wrote:
> > ...
> > > gotten into a technical field, but who says school kids need to be
> spoon
> > > fed an education?  With access to the Internet and all these college
> > > libraries online now, the knowledge is out there for the asking.
> > >
> > ...
> > > Throwing money at schools and telling them to spoon feed an education
> to
> > > their charges doesn't work - I was in one of the "open school"
> > > experiments in the 8th grade and we learned very little unless we were
> > > motivated within.
>
> > Hey Al,
>
> > good to hear from you on this topic! So if education is not the problem,
> > what do you think is causing the problem? The US is falling behind in
> > scientific publications, and we are exporting our knowledge at a record
> > rate. How do you turn the ship around and get more domestic scientists?
> > To me it seems right now the only thing we can do is hand out H1B visas
> > to keep the people here whom we educate. I talked to some CS people the
> > other day about this, and was told that enrollment was down
> significantly
> > across the US in CS schools, and this is partly blamed on the dot com
> > bust, but it doesn't look any different in non-CS science fields as far
> > as I can tell. What should be done?
>
> I've thought much about this, and the one thing our kids seem to lack is
> parental involvement in their education. I didn't have anyone lording
> over me to do my homework, but I did get it checked after I did it, and
> had to redo many of my math problems and rework paragraphs in papers
> before I turned them in.
>
> When I was a kid, Bohr and Einstein (as well as Albert Schweitzer) were
> considered at least as important in our culture as the athletes and
> movie stars.  By the time I was in college (at least on the college
> campus - we had some really bright folks in the Program for Afloat
> College Education at sea) in the 1980's, though, folks who enjoyed
> thermodynamics were considered nerds.  With a few rare exceptions, these
> days, bright people who endeavour to understand more than was known
> before are not held in much regard in American society.
>
> My eighth grade English thesis (as it was for my whole class) was on the
> Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Imagine trying to get an English class to
> read three whole books today - I doubt it would be allowed, since it
> would threaten the self-esteem of lazy students.  I fear egalitarian
> politics in education are lowering expectations to the least common
> denominator, and I have no idea how to dislodge the teachers unions from
> this ruinous course.
>
> Al Castanoli
>
> --
> _______________________________________________
> SATLUG mailing list
> SATLUG at satlug.org
> http://alamo.satlug.org/mailman/listinfo/satlug to unsubscribe
> Powered by Rackspace (www.rackspace.com)
>