Views of Teachers

After this weeks classes, I thought back on the view of a teacher from other countries from Mondays class.  It was a great experience to be able to hear about how teachers are viewed and where they sit in the society in other countries.  I was honestly surprised to hear that overall there wasn't really a huge difference about teachers and teaching than here in America.  As was stated that Korea's teachers are seen as a very good job to obtain because it build you a reputation, but the pay and hours is still low and long.  She also described how tough the tests are.  Once again testing is still a focus to a point in each country, just in there own way.  I am glad that its just not only in the United States that teaching is a lower paid job.  But then merit pay can come into play.  In the articles that we were sent it talked about merit pay and how it would basically make teachers compete versus one another to get there students to get higher tests scores on tests.  This I feel is not the way that things should be done, I feel as it would lead to the teachers not talking to one another as mush and collaborating classes to run with one another.
In this article http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/sep/14/education-spending-class-sizes-school-funding, there is a visual that compares the US and the UK.  As we talk about education here in the United States, we believe that teaching the worst here and all the other countries are doing there own things and keep doing better than us.  I found it shocking although the USA spend a lot more on education thatn UK, the graduation rate is significantly higher in the UK than the USA.
When we started to talk about testing again in Wednesdays class, about the ACT and SAT with Ohio State.  It made me think about the transfer process I went through.  When I applied I was nervous that I would be accepted because I thought they would want the ACT score from high school, but they didn't.  As a transfer student, if you're transferring at least 60 credit hours you are basically accepted no matter what.  When high school seniors hear that an average ACT score for The Ohio State University Columbus is a 27, they do not understand, that that only pertains to the Freshmen.  Its just a way for all college in the nation to make it look like there college is really high in academics, all colleges do it!   For Some Reason this didnt post back on 09/26/2013