JayB Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 Excerpt: "I am a 22-year-old African-American male and recent graduate of a respectable liberal arts college in Kentucky. I acquired a 3.75 grade-point average with a double major in Social Studies Secondary Education and sociology. I was a Rhodes Scholar nominee, inducted into the Mensa society in May 2001, named to the National Dean's List for three consecutive years, successfully competed in intercollegiate forensics and served as student body president..... Recently, I interviewed with a school in one of the metro Atlanta counties, only to receive an e-mail from the principal stating, "Though your qualifications are quite impressive, I regret to inform you that we have selected another candidate. It was felt that your demeanor and therefore presence in the classroom would serve as an unrealistic expectation as to what high school students could strive to achieve or become. However, it is highly recommended that you seek employment at the collegiate level; there your intellectual comportment would be greatly appreciated. Good luck." " Source Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dru Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 So what else is new? When I interviewed for a college teaching position in northern BC they turned me down with a similar explanation, that these students were mostly those who had failed to get into university, were not going to ever go to university, and they (college administrators) felt my academic successes made me poorly qualified to understand the students' needs and problems... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 How silly. His first mistake was choosing Atlanta. There are schools all over the country who are dying to get people like that. On the other hand, he may have come across as arrogant in his interview. If you don't come across as personable in the interview, you've lost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbw1966 Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 There's an alarming trend in public education to teach to the lowest common denominator. I guess they are now looking for that in teachers now as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Part of it is the practice of (what do they call it?) Mainstreaming? Everybody in the same classroom from the village idiot to the young prodigy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iain Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 The dude mentions he was inducted into Mensa? I bet they rejected him cause they knew he would be a self-important jackass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonehead Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Seems like there are a lot of assumptions here. Sometimes the excuse is used that a candidate is overqualified most commonly in cases where there may be age discrimination or other bias. Rather than an automatic indictment of the failure of public education and its goals, I'd favor hearing more about the circumstances surrounding his rejection. These types of news stories tend to be viral with an agenda, kind of like the stories of the frivolous lawsuits, stories designed to also discredit the filing of legitimate claims. The meme (def) is that public education is lacking, caters to the LCD, etc. Our dispensation for simple explanations and uncritical thinking support the life and propagation of these viral messages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottP Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 There's an alarming trend in public education to teach to the lowest common denominator. Interesting. Could you point me to the data on that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Off_White Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 How many 22 year olds get hired to teach at the collegiate level? I think the notion that it's an excuse for some other reason is plausible, but it is a bit bizarre that the reason offered was considered acceptable. Maybe it's a circular phenomenon, and the meme Stonehead proposes creates the reality and then reinforce's itself with another generation of stories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul_detrick Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Does anyone really care? Wellcome to the real world kid, sometimes shit just happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbw1966 Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 There's an alarming trend in public education to teach to the lowest common denominator. Interesting. Could you point me to the data on that? Sure--as someone above mentioned: mainstreaming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlpineK Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 The dude mentions he was inducted into Mensa? I bet they rejected him cause they knew he would be a self-important jackass. Exactly...I think he might have come off as stuck up in the interview; also the highschool kids might have ate him for lunch. Maybe they were just letting him down easy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lummox Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 There's an alarming trend in public education to teach to the lowest common denominator. Interesting. Could you point me to the data on that? necro is a school teacher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayB Posted January 28, 2004 Author Share Posted January 28, 2004 The one really brilliant, inspirational teacher I had in high-school (left a successful career to teach) got hosed by the union and left in disgust. She was incredibly popular teacher with both staff and students. She was also clearly Senior/AP English teacher material and got sent to junior high to teach borderline delinquents basic literacy when the HS had to lose one teacher due to declining enrollment. She was the newest teacher so she got the boot. The disrguntled/quasi-literate POS who also happened to be the school's union rep took her spot. Mediocracy in the truest sense of the word (e.g. rule by the ....). Incredibly lame stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlpineK Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Your personal experience may be true, but it's hard to tell what's up with the dude you gave as an example at the start of this thread. He could have been passed over for cause he was too smart for the system, or he could have been a stuck up pain in the ass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lummox Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 i aint too smart to teach. and them high school cherries are sweet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyDave Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 I'd rather be too smart to teach than too drunk to fuck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayB Posted January 28, 2004 Author Share Posted January 28, 2004 There's an alarming trend in public education to teach to the lowest common denominator. Interesting. Could you point me to the data on that? Sure--as someone above mentioned: mainstreaming. Let's not forget cancelling funding for separate courses for gifted kids either. You can pretty much pinpoint the beginning of the decline of American public schools to the day when parents lost control of their kids and started trying to be their friends, and when the schools let vague political nostrums trump common sense in the classroom. Both casualties of some of the voguish nonsense spewed forth in the 1960's. "I'm not your teacher I'm your learning enabler" "Johnny, let's talk about why you just smacked Mommy across the face with your Power Ranger. That's not how friends treat each other - mmmmmkay?" Hurl. Both experiments against reality with incredibly predictable results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayB Posted January 28, 2004 Author Share Posted January 28, 2004 Your personal experience may be true, but it's hard to tell what's up with the dude you gave as an example at the start of this thread. He could have been passed over for cause he was too smart for the system, or he could have been a stuck up pain in the ass. This may be true, but how stupid do you have to be to think that claiming that someone was too intelligent for the job is going to create problems for you? Any administrator with an ounce of sense would make up a more palatable reason to reject an applicant, and also realize that anyone on the receiving end of such a rejection would most likely respond with both disbelief and a strong desire to publicize the rationale? Anyone with an ounce of sense would also be able to project forward and realize that if something like that ever got out it would piss off all of the teachers on the staff, who by default are all automatically unintelligent and uninspired enough to fit in at that school. Amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottP Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 There's an alarming trend in public education to teach to the lowest common denominator. Interesting. Could you point me to the data on that? necro is a school teacher. So am I And mainstreaming isn't teaching to the lowest common denominator, though I assume there are teachers out there who will do that because of a) a lack of understanding or b) a lack of concern of how to teach across a variety of abilities and learning styles in a single classroom. If you have your shit together (as most teachers do), all students, from the high end kids to the special needs kids can be challenged by the same teacher in the same classroom. The WASL and NCLB are where the trend is going, and it isn't toward teaching to the lowest common denominator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DPS Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Since this guy is so smart, he should get himself a job working at the social studies factory. That's what his degree is in, isn't it? Just from looking at his photo I would assume he came off as an arrogant jackass. Who wants to hire an arrogant jackass. Anyone who states membership into Mensa as being a qualification clearly has not done anything worthwhile to speak of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wopper Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Excerpt: "respectable liberal arts college in Kentucky." Does this really exist? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Okay, imagine you are an administrator in the Atlanta school system and you are interviewing this young bright black man. He comes across as incredibly arrogant and you take an immediate dislike to him. You figure that with his glib demeanor he'll stir up all sorts of problems with other teachers if you hire him. But the guy is really well qualified. You can't just tell the guy you don't like him. What are you going to tell him? Whatever you do you don't want to give him the impression that you are rejecting him for racial reasons (heck you, yourself are probably black). So what do you tell him. You say he is overqualified and probably would not fit in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonehead Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Look, the simple fact is that the process of interviewing and hiring can be very subjective. There's a large number of unexplained reasons for the decision: The person hiring could have felt threatened. The person hiring may have worked long enough to recall a similar person who ended up causing problems for the district. The person hiring could have perceived that the guy was too weak to handle taunts by teenagers. The fact is, is that we don't know the complete story. One thing that is disturbing is that the rejected candidate submitted his side of the story, published a supposedly confidential email, and pushed his one-sided version of the incident. Whether his purpose is to self-promote or if his motive is political, doesn't matter. This person does not inspire my trust. He needs to grow up and realise that the world can be unfair and to just deal with this situation stoically. "If you cannot do what you love, love what you can do."-- Leonard di Vinci Guy would probably make a decent political consultant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Posted January 28, 2004 Share Posted January 28, 2004 Buecause someone is a member of Mensua doesn't make them able to be a good teacher. A balance of knowledge and teaching skills, which can be learned, and a love of the kids, which can't, is needed. Maybe the hotshot came across as an ass. If so then the administrator did not convey the correct message - could have said we chose another candidate because of a better fit, blah, blah, blah. Though I wouldn't phrase it the way JayB did (youngens these days have no respect) parental participation in a kids schooling is key. Seems like we put too much responsibilities on the schools - like they're going to fix all of society's ills that affect kids. The best indicator of a school's performance? The percentage of kids eligible for the free or reduced cost lunch program. You can't fix that within the school walls alone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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