HOWEVER OR BECAUSE

Tutoring is a favorite thing for me to do.  I am now working with a lady who is back in school to regain a new profession.  She's having some problems with language and math.  We are working together 2 or 3 days a week in those areas.

One of the things she had never learned in school was not to use However or Because to start a sentence. It doesn't seem to be a rule any more; why I don't know.  In fact, we come across the usage frequently in her practice books.  Teaching to the test, which is what most teachers have to do in this day and age, does not give you much time to actually teach the skills necessary for reading and writing.

I know Charlie Crist has had some flack about vetoing the teacher merit evaluation but it is probably one of the best things he has done while in any office for the State of Florida.  He and Jeb Bush, in my opinion, have really messed with the Educational System in this state.  My question is "How can you make decisions about ANYTHING that you have not experienced or about which you have no first-hand knowledge?"  Leave it to your advisors?  This is probably what is being done, but as we all know GIGO-Garbage In; Garbage out. If they are advised by people who have axes to grind, so to speak, or don't really know anything about the classroom or teaching, then you get poor decision-making tactics and lousy laws.

Why should a teacher be paid on student performance?  No one else's salary is done this way.  If my surgery doesn't go well, do we withhold the Hospital's payment?  If my car doesn't perform correctly, is the mechanic sued or the car?  Most people are paid on "their" performance.  And, while I'm complaining, why must we have the idiotic tests anyway?  Tests only tell us what someone doesn't know; not what they do know.

Most European countries have two strains of learning - If you want to go to college, you take certain qualifying tests, if you pass them, you stay on the "strain of learning" that leads to college level classes; then move into college almost as an additional "level of learning" much like here when students move from Junior High to High School.  If you don't want to go to college, you take the "strain of learning" leading to some sort of trade or apprenticeship. I personally think this makes much more sense than the way we try to cram all students into the "molds of learning" we have in the United States.  But, again, no one asked me.

It's time to retire my soap box once again and go to bed (total waste of time).  Tomorrow is another day and God is still in control.  I am grateful for this.  But one more thing I've noticed - What about the earthquakes and volcanic activity we have had?  Anyone read Revelations lately?