Ranty McRant

[melwil]

Higher Education

By the end of 2005 I will have completed 5 and a half years of higher education, and apparently, I will be ready to walk into a job. I used to love it. Serious study, jokes about collapsing boats, $15 text books - life as an Ancient History student was okay. But this education degree drives me crazy half the time. Overly expensive text books which we barely use, lecturers who don't know how to lecture, although they're supposed to be expert in teaching, group work where other members don't put in the work that's required. I wonder sometimes, since we're the last group doing our specific degree, if they don't really give a damn about us, they just want to get rid of us so they can put their shiny new course into action. Thus I rant





Education System and the Liberal Party in Australia

For those just playing here, the Liberal party in Australia aren't actually liberal. They're more like a soft right version of the Republican party, or a hard right version of the Democrats. And they hate education.

No, I lie. They hate the idea of free education. Especially free education run by the state governments. See the State governments are all Labour and the liberal party don't like this. So they redistribute federal funding so more money is given to the ritziest Private schools in the country. Then when the public school systems complain, Howard and Brenden Nelson say, sure you can get funding, but only if you teach our values So look for schools to move to value based education where you talk about flagpoles, the brave boys of Australian History, and good Christian morals as long as they are the morals of trustworthiness and abstinence, and not the morals of helping each other.





I was complaining about this to sangerin the other day. Those of you who everread the Baby-Sitter's Club will understand. How the bloody hell was Jessi as good as she was supposed to be? She was this 11 years old genius in pointe shoes. Interestingly, at my dance school, you didn't even get to put point shoes on until you were eleven, and then you just got to do a few small exercises in them at the end of the ballet class. Apparently Jessi, though, was strong enough to dance the Rose Adagio - which balletomanes will agree, would be incredibly difficult for someone her age. So was Jessi just a big fish in a small pond or was she some sort of freak?

I'm going for freak. Even Gelsey Kirkland wasn't advanced enough to dance full length ballets at 11. Unless they were high adapted. Just once, I wished that Jessi hadn't won a big role, that instead she was in the corps de ballet, a peasant, or dressed in a white tutu waving a rose back and forth.



The only other comment on my last post was a list of things to drive channel nine crazy. I love my sister

Comments

[wisdomeagle]

BSC rant! *squees dead*

Didn't she end up in the corps once? Dammit, it's been far too long; I'm remembering a long discussion of how she couldn't be in the corps because she was black and this whole long rant about it... I'm guessing it was in the one with the anorexic ballerina friend and the underprivledged kids putting on a modern ballet about life in the city? I mean, not that I over-read them or anything.

Yeah, I read them when I was younger than eleven, and then I was suddenly eleven, and twelve, and thirteen, and by the time I was fourteen I realized I was older than the baby-sitters which was remarkable to me since they had always been the ultimate in grown-up-ness for me: there was no adulthood past eighth grade. And when I failed to suddenly have the ability to run a small business, solve mysteries, have a boyfriend, and go on exotic vacations about three times a year, I began to suspect I'd been led sadly astray.

:)

Thanks for your rant on higher education, too.

[melwil.livejournal.com]

I can't remember if she ended up in the corps at all. In Snowbound (SS #7) she played the Mouse King in the Nutcracker, but I can't remember her dancing as a peasant at all. (Though her work at Dance NY could possible count as Corps de Ballet, though they seemed more like group dances than the full length ballets she did at Madam Noell's)

Jessi was always a little over sensitive about her race - something her Grandmother pointed out in the Super Special when they travel across the US.

[wisdomeagle]

Hmm, I honestly don't remember well enough, and not being a dance person myself, it didn't really stand out.

Jessi was always a little over sensitive about her race - something her Grandmother pointed out in the Super Special when they travel across the US.

I don't remember that in BSC in the USA, but that came at the end of my BSC phase, so I probably only read it once. Hence, no memory.

To Jessi's credit, AMM did kinda play the race card rather heavy-handed-ly over the years. I mean, I spent almost eight years in a similar whitebread town in New England (although probably slightly more rural than Stoneybrook) and didn't especially notice race as being a Deal -- but then, I was white and young and kinda naive. Still, I don't really buy Stoneybrook being that closed-off.

And the book -- what was it called -- with the Prejudiced Client? The one who hated everyone who wasn't a married WASP with 2.5 kids? Looking back on it, it's just appalling, how flat she was. And really -- unlifelike.

But I suspect it's best not to think too hard about these books.

[melwil.livejournal.com]

They're much more fun to just enjoy *g*

At the beginning of the BSC in the USA, Jessi's group visit her grandparents in New Jersey, and Jessi thinks Mallory is uncomfortable in the surroundings. Her Grandmother points out that Mallory was just nevous about making a good impression

[miss-smell.livejournal.com]

speaking of expensive textbooks...
my sister told me yesterday that there is a textbook she'll need for the entire of her degree. that cost $800! :/

A ramble on crap lecturers.

[jennifergearing.livejournal.com]

This may or may not be the case, since I have very little knowledge of the politics of education faculties as opposed to others. Essentially my knowledge bases in these areas are Humanities (to a very small extent) and Business (from copious discussions with $ about the various politics in the various business faculties he and his sister have worked in).

As you're probably aware, lecturers in general aren't necessarily experts at teaching, or even presenting (which, essentially, is the bare minimum I'd want in a lecturer if I had my way). They're the experts in their field of study (research), and, as far as the university is concerned, a lot of them are primarily there to generate research funds.

Applying that to the education faculty would obviously be somewhat different, since the academic staff *are* supposed to be experts in teaching. However, just as a consideration, how many of the lecturers would have spent long stretches of time working on the qualifications that will make it more likely for them to actually get lecturing roles (Hons, Masters, Doctorates, etc.).

I've been taught by a number of teachers who have completed these whilst actually teaching, so certainly not all of them are just dropping out of the practical stream of the sector for research, but from my own experience, those with the latter two examples of further qualification have actually been really rather shitful as actualy teachers in practicality.

My rather unreasearched opinion? It has a lot to do with the fine line between practical application of skill and research-based exploration of theory. Or something like that. I think it's a somewhat rarer person who can walk the line successfully.

Of course, there may be a practical experience requirement for education lecturers/teaching staff, which blows my entire theory out of the water (at least for education), so *shrug*

Like I said. Unresearched, Quite possibly utterly inaccurate, but there it is. Certainly no one can say I tried to pass it off for fact. *g*

[moebiusjones.livejournal.com]

Keep ranting, I like.

*tips hat*

Re: A ramble on crap lecturers.

[melwil.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, our teachers were actually supposed to be very good teachers. One of them was Head of Junior school at a major Sunshine Coast private school, another one had a good 30 years teaching under her belt.

Our best teachers were the ones who didn't have as much classroom teaching experience