Hank Hill Wants You... To Be The Tough Boss

Recently I read a hilarious article on The Onion's website entitled Incompetent Staff Feels Underappreciated. The gist of this article is that a group of office staffers who are chronic under performers, spend a large amount of their time complaining about how the company does not thank them for how hard they work to make up for all the time they wasted. When the "journalist" questions their employer, the president responds "I wish I could just fire the entire staff for being so incompetent, but between going on vacation and running around trying to buy a second home, I'm really only in the office a couple of days a year." Despite The Onion being a "fake news" source, there is more than a shred of truth to this joke.

I recently "retired" from my part-time job this month because I am moving. While at the job I was constantly amazed at how the company continued to perform as well as it did. The staff was underpaid and there was no incentive program to speak of. So why then were there few instances of employees wasting large amounts of time? Answer: Constant management and supervision. The two managers on staff frequently checked up on employees to ensure that the were on task and performing their jobs properly. The effect of this was that everyone felt the job was somehow important, even though the wages did not reflect it.

In a seemingly unrelated incident, I was having a conversation recently with a high school student, who happened to be my coworker, about an assignment that each of us had completed (obviously not in the same class or at the same time). The assignment was to keep a food journal - a description of everything you've eaten over a period of time. I was shocked to hear that she felt the exercise was a waste of time, since I felt it was one of the single most important assignments I had ever completed (i.e., I learned a great deal from completing it). Upon further questioning I realized a key difference in the assignments.

Whereas I was required to record the foods that I ate, their caloric content, the amount of fat, protein, and carbohydrates they contained, the amount of fibre they contained, the amount of vitamin A and C they contained and compare this to my RDI (Recommended Daily Intake), my coworker was merely required to write down the foods she ate for each meal. Perhaps then it is no surprise that she felt the assignment held no real value and started to make up foods rather than actually record what she ate. She felt the exercise lacked value, because she was given an assignment that required little to no effort to complete. Consequently she was not willing to put the work into completing it properly. Teachers, parents, and supervisors constantly try to combat poor moral by lessening expectations and it just does not work. High expectations make the recipients of demands feel as though their time is valued.

We are living in a world in which discipline is viewed as something evil. Many parents don't want to scold their children because it makes them feel "mean." Many teachers don't want to fail their students because then the student's feelings will be hurt (plus they'll feel "mean"). Passengers on a bus don't want to scold teenagers for being loud and obnoxious because the teenagers might laugh at them. The list goes on and on. All of these fears are perhaps natural, but not at all conducive to attaining positive results. Like my managers, sometimes the people who are responsible need to yell and scream and otherwise get in the faces of those who aren't. You might be called a "horrible oppressor" if you try this, but as Hank Hill says "you're the boss, you have to do whatever it takes to get the job done."

Which Came First: The Dumb Kid Or The Dumb Teacher?

I know I've touched on this before, but I just can't let it go. I was reading a book entitled Math Wars by Carmen Latterell. This title is just another in a long list of books trying to figure out why American students are lagging behind the rest of the developed world in math? At the end of the book there is a study quoted that deals with the mathematics knowledge of American elementary math teachers and the knowledge of those from China. I feel that a summary of the results would be enlightening to many.

The researcher asked the two groups of teachers the same math questions. For subtraction questions 100% of American and Chinese math teachers could perform the problems, but only 17% of the American teachers could explain why subtraction worked, whereas 86% of Chinese teachers could. For multiplication questions, again both groups could solve the problems, but only 39% of American teachers could correctly identify why an incorrect algorithm (e.g., a formula for finding the "nth" term of a series) they were shown was indeed wrong, as opposed to 92% of Chinese teachers. With fractions, only 43% of American teachers could perform a computation involving fractions, while once again 100% of Chinese teachers could. Not one single American teacher could then create a word problem to represent the computation, while 100% of the Chinese teachers could. Apparently there were even more tests done, but Latterell decided not to include this data since the results were even more dismal for American teachers.

The interesting part of all this is not that the American teachers could not achieve at the same level, but rather that the American math teachers in the test had taken three times as many math courses in University as the Chinese teachers. The problem? Low standards. In grade five, my math teacher had us memorize up to and including our "10 times tables." He would not allow us to continue on in the unit until we could demonstrate to him that we knew every product off by heart. As a result I can still perform basic multiplication in my head. In contrast, my Language Arts (English to some of you) classes had us do a book report on Mice At Center Ice... twice (once in grade four and again in grade seven), and build "concrete poems." Is it then a coincidence that I did not know what a pronoun or preposition was until I was 22 when I bothered to search the definitions out on my own? How am I supposed to not end my sentences in prepositions if I don't know what a preposition is in the first place? How did I get Bs and As in English for 12 straight years yet not know that I was wanting in the most basic understanding of English grammar? How am I supposed to now teach my own students what was never taught to me?

I do not mean to attack American teachers. My preposition problem was the direct result of the ineffectiveness of the Alberta school system; a school system that is supposed to be one of the best in the world. My blame is directed squarely on the notion that to "keep kids in school" by passing them through and handing them degrees for just showing up is a good idea. As I was explaining to a friend the other day: students usually achieve up to but no higher than their expectations for themselves. I expect great things from myself, and so I will work hard to make my reality match my expectations even when I initially am achieving well below standard. However, a person who only feels he or she is a 50% student will only work hard enough to get a 50%. Teachers can dumb the curriculum down until we are handing out As for twelve-year-olds who can tie their shoes, but it won't matter. The weak students will only tie their shoes correctly 50% of the time. But, raise all the standards and the students will work harder to achieve the 50% they feel they deserve, and in the process will end up knowing more.

I'm not advocating that we make teachers responsible for teaching more information, we've done that already and our graduates are as dumb as ever. I'm advocating for more stringent standards on the information already being taught. Streamline the curriculum and cut out the concrete poetry and other garbage like learning to tell time on a 24 hour clock. Then, demand more perfection on the remaining concepts.

For example, in high school math in Alberta, the students are required at the beginning of grade ten to buy $100+ calculators that have the ability to graph functions. Then, in their final year of high school math, these same students are told that by using the "log" button present on a $9 Wal-Mart special calculator they could have solved any complex problem (ex. 2^x = 83.5, solve for 'x') that they were using their graphing calculators for. What a joke!

I'll end this now before I go ranting all night. My final point is that a great majority of teachers' educational woes could be solved if all teachers would demand more perfection from their students. 70% is not good enough. Little Sally and all of her classmates coast along through the elementary grades thinking they're doing alright at math because they aren't "failing." The teacher seems fine with this because Sally isn't as bad as Little Jimmy, who for some reason seems incapable of grasping even the simplest concepts. So, Little Sally sails on through elementary school and then is punched in the face with algebra, trigonometry and statistics in high school. She fails miserably and wonders what happened? "I used to be good at math" she says to herself. No you didn't Sally, you were actually pretty bad, but your teacher couldn't bother to tell you that you lacked the basic skills necessary to succeed at more advanced math since you were achieving more than 50% on his arbitrary grading scale. Don't let Sally get punched in the face anymore. Demand perfection.