School Starts Back In Two Weeks!

Discussion in 'Reading & Writing' started by Rene Descartes, Aug 1, 2019.

  1. Rene Descartes

    Rene Descartes Very Well-Known Member
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    In a few weeks, my students will be piling into our program, getting their ever so brilliant essays proofed and sitting patiently while we teach them the importance of proper grammar, spelling, interpretation, argument, and context. I miss them immensely! I cannot wait to see the new faces, my juniors and seniors, and more so, my nursing students.
    In one month, I will make another post that says:
    Those (^_&%&##) kids! Didn't anyone bother teaching them APA or MLA? Why do I get all the entitled prissies that think blog writing is academic?? ugh... I'm looking for a new job!
    Writing is ferdemental.
     
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  2. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    , who
    @Rene Descartes
    Our schools here opened yesterday. About the same time for California also. When I taught High School Math in Missouri, I was asked, or rather pleaded with, to take the teaching job during the first week of August, giving me one week to attend pre-semester meetings. Their Math teacher had quit suddenly, just before the school year was to begin. The only teaching I had done before was to conduct electrical safety seminars for Sears. No certification, the entire school district enrollment was about 400. State sent paperwork indicating I would have to take ten hours of Teacher's Ed. Never did. My supervisor, the Principal, who had all but begged me to take the job, told me not to worry about it. My daily schedule was Trigonometry, Geometry, Algebra I, Algebra II, General Math I, General Math II. My nephew, teaching in Flagstaff at N.A.U., was shocked: he said nationwide daily teaching load was about 4-1/2 hours! This was in extremely rural MO, town of 394 population.

    Would you know about that?

    Frank
     
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  3. Rene Descartes

    Rene Descartes Very Well-Known Member
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    I got tired just reading your teaching load. The teaching load for campus teachers is pretty much 6 hours, depending on the level they teach. I work for a company that contracts with about a dozen colleges so I never have to go anywhere but my office. All of our sessions are online either one-on-one or papers are uploaded for review. It's mandatory with the schools that students upload their papers to us. My job description is writing instructor/tutor regardless of subject, and reviewer in all soft sciences--law, history, English, government, and the nursing students even though they are hard science. Occasionally I get a creative writing student. I get quite a few English as a second language students. I have gotten to where I can tell which nationality they are by their written/typed accents--the Asians/Indians are different from the Middle Easterns, and they are different from the Spanish... and sometimes I get a UK student. I think the ones who make me snicker the most are student teachers who have 68 errors in their papers. I'm very thorough. :)
     
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  4. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    Welcome to Seniors only Club, Rene!
    [​IMG]
     
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  5. Holly Saunders

    Holly Saunders Supreme Member
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    Our schools don't return until September...
     
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  6. Hedi Mitchell

    Hedi Mitchell Supreme Member
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    Ours start August 13,... Can't wait to send me GD who is staying out the door:)
    Question for all the teachers...is it just me,but I wonder are times what do they actually teach? Entering the 8 th grade and has never been taught the states and the capitals! Nothing ! We bought a nice sized puzzle and I am teaching her... She requested..SMH !
     
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  7. Holly Saunders

    Holly Saunders Supreme Member
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    I love the school holidays.. our roads are very small, and narrow , being a little Island, but we have 65 million people on the roads at any one time, and almost every parent wants to drive their child to and from school even if it's only half a mile, so twice a day from 7.30am to 9 am and especially after 3pm the roads are immovable at times.. so it's joy when the kids are off school, the difference it makes without school run traffic, is immeasurable.. and we get 6 weeks of that..!!

    I used to work 10 minutes drive away.. 5 miles .. in the morning at around 8.30am it could take me 45 minutes some days.. I used to have to leave home before 7.45 am for a 9am start just to avoid the school traffic.
     
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  8. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    I find that the concept is interesting but I do have a question.
    Prior to the student handing in his or her edited work, do you forward a copy of the unedited version to the instructor or professor?

    I know from personal experience that it’s a pain in the tail to have to weed through unnecessary minutiae, grammatical errors, etc just to grade a paper on subject matter, but it does give some insight into the total progress of the student.
    Just to be clear, I have met a couple of people who are practically geniuses in their field but find it difficult write a paragraph without an editor but for some reason I really like to “meet” the person as a whole.

    Please do not misunderstand me Rene because I like the concept and I can definitely see the worth. There were times in my past when someone more familiar with grammatical necessities had a look at a paper I was preparing just so I didn’t see all the red checks and circles all over a graded product.
     
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  9. Rene Descartes

    Rene Descartes Very Well-Known Member
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    I think that is why we have so many contracts with colleges--teachers have a set criterion from the chairs and boards and many have more than one teaching type job at a time. Many kindergarten classes start students on computers, and that continues throughout student's school careers. They leave high school with poor writing skills, poor critical thinking skills, and poor socialization skills, even though they shared a classroom with 30 other students. That is one of the reasons why I would not teach in a typical school environment because I would not actually be allowed to teach. When my daughter decided to go back for a bachelor's in human resources, she went to campus and they had them sign on to a virtual lab. She asked her advisor why she was driving 45 minutes to class if they were all online--the advisor said, "Exactly." I think what you are doing is outstanding. Keep it up. :)
     
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  10. Rene Descartes

    Rene Descartes Very Well-Known Member
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    The program holds a copy of the proofed paper in a file that the teachers have access to, and the student has to make corrections before uploading it to the school plagiarism program and teacher. If the teacher sees errors from their program, and that the student did not make corrections listed by the reviewer, the student is, normally, made to redo the paper with points extracted until it is correct. Some teachers will go ahead and deduct points for laziness and move on though.
    Many of the hard science student struggle with writing--my nurses for example--I have a motto: Nurses save lives, and we save nurses papers. All of my tags have explanations as to why something is an error and how to fix it. We use the scaffolding method, meaning we tag the first error of that family (ex. passive voice error) with full explanation, and then every error in that family after that gets a simple tag of what it is. The problem with brilliant students is that they assume their brilliant thinking will give them scholarships and As, and that is not the case. They have to be able to communicate what they think so people giving them money understand them. They have to be able to write articles (in the future) for publishing in particular journals. A corporation or medical facility wants publishable employees as well as brilliance. Legal students fail to consider the opposition and might write totally bias arguments. I point out the holes in their arguments, pop legal precedents on the comment section with an explanation, and basically, try to get them to hone their approach. A student cannot make a claim without backing it with data, evidence, or precedent.
    I used to do editing on Upwork. I liked doing that because I can make the corrections without having to teach anything. It's faster. Upwork started charging freelancers to apply for jobs though so I quit that program.
     
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  11. Hedi Mitchell

    Hedi Mitchell Supreme Member
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    Sad...very Sad indeed.
     
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  12. Joe Riley

    Joe Riley Supreme Member
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    I Teach, therefore I am!
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