What is with the STEM obsession?

[bcrusaderw]

Yes, people with STEM degrees earn more as a whole than those with other degrees, but not everyone can be a STEM major, and there are important jobs that need to be filled that are not in the field of STEM. Most of you who are obsessed with it aren't even STEM majors, and it's not like you want people to go on to create their own with these degrees you just want them to join white companies. There's a reason that blacks and women are underrepresented in STEM , and it's because those two groups are not encouraged to join those fields. In the case of blacks the math and science education for inner city schools is abysmal, so it's very understandable why people wouldn't major in STEM in college. All of this is to ask why you are really obsessed with STEM degrees? The obsession doesn't stem for a want for the betterment of our community, so what is it really about?

 

[Mr Rager]

If you have to ask, it ain't for you...don't worry about it

 

[bcrusaderw]

If you have to ask, it ain't for you...don't worry about it

Sweetie pie, I am in my final year of study for a B.S. in Chemistry. What did you major in? Are you out here loaning your talents to these young minds that are consistently unappreciated in your community? With an answer like that I'm guessing NO.

 

[GPBear]

Standardized testing. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law.

NCLB, a school gets federal funding only if it passes state tests. So, instead of cultivating creativity or inter-global communications through the internet in classrooms, schools "teach to the test" with curriculum out of the box. In addition, teachers are often paid extra bonuses at the start of the year if their students from the year before did well on tests.

This seems decent enough, but you realize that inner-city, predominantly black or hispanic schools were never known for having high test scores, so they're going to score low, while suburban and upper class predominantly white schools rake in all the federal funding. So instead of giving schools with piss poor facilities more money and attention, they close them down, split the kids up across the district, and give the money to either a) a white school for football jerseys or b) a six figure online testing program to get kids more integrated with the tests - as opposed to researching the wealth of free online resources for educators across the web or c) raises for the superintendent and other good-lookin administrators to keep them from jumping to another district, while they lay off more teachers and stop buying tubas and paint brushes.

/rant

 

[bcrusaderw]

Standardized testing. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law.

NCLB, a school gets federal funding only if it passes state tests. So, instead of cultivating creativity or inter-global communications through the internet in classrooms, schools "teach to the test" with curriculum out of the box. In addition, teachers are often paid extra bonuses at the start of the year if their students from the year before did well on tests.

This seems decent enough, but you realize that inner-city, predominantly black or hispanic schools were never known for having high test scores, so they're going to score low, while suburban and upper class predominantly white schools rake in all the federal funding. So instead of giving schools with piss poor facilities more money and attention, they close them down, split the kids up across the district, and give the money to either a) a white school for football jerseys or b) a six figure online testing program to get kids more integrated with the tests - as opposed to researching the wealth of free online resources for educators across the web or c) Raises for the superintendent and other good-lookin administrators to keep them from jumping to another district, while you lay off more teachers.

/rant

I definitely agree that standardized testing has made inner city schools much worse, but I think that there should be some kind of check to see how the students are doing, but school funding shouldn't be tied into it. Perhaps instead of testing every year they could do it every few years? There should be a way to check to see if the students are learning, but tying it into achool funding just leads to corruption. That does nothing for the children.

 

[OfTheCross]

Yes, people with STEM degrees earn more as a whole than those with other degrees, but not everyone can be a STEM major, and there are important jobs that need to be filled that are not in the field of STEM. Most of you who are obsessed with it aren't even STEM majors, and it's not like you want people to go on to create their own with these degrees you just want them to join white companies. There's a reason that blacks and women are underrepresented in STEM , and it's because those two groups are not encouraged to join those fields. In the case of blacks the math and science education for inner city schools is abysmal, so it's very understandable why people wouldn't major in STEM in college. All of this is to ask why you are really obsessed with STEM degrees? The obsession doesn't stem for a want for the betterment of our community, so what is it really about?

You answered your own question, tbh.

Money improves your situation and your children's situation. Generation by generation, wealth and knowledge will be built.

Those STEM degrees just seem like a safe bet to most.

 

[GPBear]

I definitely agree that standardized testing has made inner city schools much worse, but I think that there should be some kind of check to see how the students are doing, but school funding shouldn't be tied into it. Perhaps instead of testing every year they could do it every few years? There should be a way to check to see if the students are learning, but tying it into achool funding just leads to corruption. That does nothing for the children.

Online portfolios.

First day of kindergarten, a kid makes a finger painting of a tractor. Now a 3rd grader comes into the class, takes a digital picture of the finger painting. Then an 8th grade sets up an online portfolio for the Kindergartener, and puts the .jpg of the tractor finger painting in there.

Then in 2 years, 2nd grade math teacher looks and says "oh the kid likes tractors, I have to teach him about circles, I'll teach him about tractor wheels" now the teacher's job isn't a test-machine, it's a facilitator of learning. In addition, the kids have friends older than them.

But most importantly, the kids work, his pop quizzes, his art, his essays, whatever - gets put into the portfolio and the teachers have to actually take interest in their students and learn as much from them as the students learn from the teachers. "Oh the kid likes tractors, I don't care if he's 9, I'll show him what a diesel engine is".

Pedagogy is stuck in the 19th century as far as student-teacher relations are concerned.

 

[AyBrehHam Linkin]

well i like computers and the moneys good, that's why im studying and looking for a career in IT, specifically Network Security

 

[bcrusaderw]

Online portfolios.

First day of kindergarten, a kid makes a finger painting of a tractor. Now a 3rd grader comes into the class, takes a digital picture of the finger painting. Then an 8th grade sets up an online portfolio for the Kindergartener, and puts the .jpg of the tractor finger painting in there.

Then in 2 years, 2nd grade math teacher looks and says "oh the kid likes tractors, I have to teach him about circles, I'll teach him about tractor wheels" now the teacher's job isn't a test-machine, it's a facilitator of learning. In addition, the kids have friends older than them.

But most importantly, the kids work, his pop quizzes, his art, his essays, whatever - gets put into the portfolio and the teachers have to actually take interest in their students and learn as much from them as the students learn from the teachers. "Oh the kid likes tractors, I don't care if he's 9, I'll show him what a diesel engine is".

Pedagogy is stuck in the 19th century as far as student-teacher relations are concerned.

That would be lovely, but you will be hard-pressed to find the funding to get teachers to care that much. Teachers at my school had on average 150 different students. How could they possibly do that for all of them?

 

[bcrusaderw]

You answered your own question, tbh.

Money improves your situation and your children's situation. Generation by generation, wealth and knowledge will be built.

Those STEM degrees just seem like a safe bet to most.

Money isn't going to improve the situation of blacks in the US if we continue to funnel it into other communities. Until we build our own economic structure people will still be dependent on a group of people who hate them.

 

[KOohbt]

Science, technology, engineering, and math. How in the fukk can you not understand how important that is? Not the end all be all by any means but it is very important that we have a segment of our black population that has that type of knowledge. Glad you are in it btw.

 

[brick james]

That would be lovely, but you will be hard-pressed to find the funding to get teachers to care that much. Teachers at my school had on average 150 different students. How could they possibly do that for all of them?

I'm curious how that was possible in elementary school? My school was 1 teacher for thirty students

 

[bcrusaderw]

I'm curious how that was possible in elementary school? My school was 1 teacher for thirty students

I'm talking about middle school and high school. In elementary you stay with one teacher the entire day, but in middle school and high school you move around. I assumed he wanted to keep that level of attention up throughout those years too.

Science, technology, engineering, and math. How in the fukk can you not understand how important that is? Not the end all be all by any means but it is very important that we have a segment of our black population that has that type of knowledge. Glad you are in it btw.

I understand exactly how important it is to have some of the population involved in STEM. The obsession here doesn't come from a place of community upliftment though. If it did people would be coming up with ways to entice young black children into it instead of shaming people for not getting STEM degrees. The way the inner city school system is set up it's a wonder that any black children pursue STEM.

 

[OfTheCross]

Money isn't going to improve the situation of blacks in the US if we continue to funnel it into other communities. Until we build our own economic structure people will still be dependent on a group of people who hate them.

It takes money to make money.

STEM jobs pay good money. You can do whatever you want with it after

 

[GPBear]

That would be lovely, but you will be hard-pressed to find the funding to get teachers to care that much. Teachers at my school had on average 150 different students. How could they possibly do that for all of them?

Those people aren't teachers. They're government agents. That's why they get paid and treated like garbage.


My father taught at Richmond in the years before Coach Carter. 21 languages, 21 gangs. He had a computer in 1991. He'd get gang bangers stories published in Sweden, then the kids would say "Wow that's great, can I get a copy for my grandmother? Also, where's sweden?" He's a teacher. Teachers aren't in it for the money. A lot of them are though, that's why they aren't teachers, that's why they're apathetic good looking politicians. That's why actual teachers get paid less, because the apathy. Idealistically, the job wouldn't be that hard because there'd be a web of teachers working together. So the teachers would ask the other ones about the kids. Obviously, if there was a teaching revolution, and teachers started doing things like researching your kids to help them along, we as a society would say "finally!" and give them the money they deserve. I live 15 minutes from Intel headquarters, and they aren't subsidizing computers in the classroom, because things are so backwards. The money's all there in theory. But as it is, there's a lot of people teaching that don't belong there, just like any other field, so no one gets the respect or cash they should. Rapping's difficult and deserves money, but because of all the sham artists, the true talent gets washed away for petty cash.