'Murican Ed-joo-muh-kay-shawn

[thalassa]

Apparently we can't pronounce Irish names or Massachusetts towns either...

these are hilarious...

(and take that questions about Canada! I knew those!! Except the population size...35 million, really? )

[volcaniclastic]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

Apparently we can't pronounce Irish names or Massachusetts towns either...

these are hilarious...

(and take that questions about Canada! I knew those!! Except the population size...35 million, really? )

I'm surprised we're at 35.5 million. I've always remembered it as 32 million. And yes. The population of California. All three territories combined have less than one million people. Half of the country has less than one million people. Almost all of that 35 is Ontario and Quebec.

Also, PLEASE restore my faith in humanity. Americans aren't THAT bad, are they?

ARE THEY?

[thalassa]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

Also, PLEASE restore my faith in humanity. Americans aren't THAT bad, are they?

ARE THEY?

I'm not. Most of the people I know are not.

But...in the US, by income and education, I'm doing better than most. And income is the single biggest predictor of education success in this country. I came from an middle class family that valued education, went to excellent and well funded public schools in a community that valued their schools (I'd never seen a tax levy not approved for school money). Basically, I got lucky. If you live somewhere else in this country, like Mississippi, your chance of having a good school and a good income sucks. Hell, even in the same county and town, because of states differ in funding education you can have rampant inequality--I was in good school district, but if I'd lived about 15 miles down the road I wouldn't be.

From what I understand, the Canadian and most European school systems are more standardized and honestly, homogeneous. That makes a difference, as much as any other factor.

But when you watch videos of other people and how dumb they are, they get some dumb answers too. Everyone has stupid people. Americans are just more comfortable with our stupidity, we're good at making fun of ourselves. Good editing gets good ratings.


By the way, this is a few years old and some things have changed...but if states were countries, this is what their GDP is equivalent to:

[gelman66]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

The best place to start is to start paying teachers a living wage and funding schools. Although we have our problems here in Canada, we manage to get the basics right, and that's one of basics.

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education." - FDR

[thalassa]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

The best place to start is to start paying teachers a living wage and funding schools. Although we have our problems here in Canada, we manage to get the basics right, and that's one of basics.

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education." - FDR

Median teacher income where I live is 48,000 a year--this is about what a midlevel professional federal employee makes. In some states it will take you further than others (because of cost of living and real estate), but its well above the living wage for a single person (in Virginia, that's $10.54 an hour...but more in the urban areas--both my husband and I work and we just about break even with two kids) and supposedly slightly above a family of two adults and two children. In IL (who have the third highest average salary for teachers by state when adjusted for cost of living), the median teacher salary is 36,900 for new teachers and 74,000 for the highest pay band (generally high school teachers with over 13 years experience and a masters degree), and a living salary is somewhere around 22.00 for two adults and two children. Teacher salary, is dependent on education, experience, certifications, etc, just like any professions. While these two states pay more than many others, salary varies quite a bit from district to district...and studies on pay-to-performance are pretty mixed.

But. I don't think teacher pay (also per capita student spending) has as much of an impact of student success as an independent factor as we'd like to think (though I certainly think teachers should generally be paid more, and should often be offered better professional development opportunities in education, psychology, and their specialty fields). The problem with the US education system is largely systemic, its *how* we do education and how our society values education--our society hates smart people. Everything, including teacher pay, comes from that. America is the country of hypocrisy---we want high test scores but we lambaste smart people and science all over the media, we want teenagers not to get pregnant but we push abstinence-only education in schools...I mean really. It is a country where the morons outnumber the non-morons. And it has very little to do with education itself, but with one's mentality and world view. Just look at Honey Boo Boo.

TBH, if Americans want their students to succeed, they should pay the parents if their kid makes honor roll, has perfect attendance, etc. The problem with schools isn't teachers.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

...And income is the single biggest predictor of education success in this country...

It's important to couple that idea with another - the level of education of the parents.

The reason why this is important is that the poor will not suddenly become rich, but education is something which can be achieved. And education and income are so closely related that they really can't be discussed independently.

My main advantage is life is that, despite being dirt poor for most of my childhood, my parents were both college educated - first generation college educated.

Once a patern of family higher education is established, the potential for generational economic improvements becomes viable.

But, ya know, there's also luck involved...

[thalassa]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

My main advantage is life is that, despite being dirt poor for most of my childhood, my parents were both college educated - first generation college educated.

Once a patern of family higher education is established, the potential for generational economic improvements becomes viable.

But, ya know, there's also luck involved...

Both sets of my grandparents came from dirt poor lower class backgrounds...without the military and a time period where you didn't need a degree and could still support your family, they'd be SOL. My dad was the first person in his family to go to college, but on that side, I was the first with a degree (unless you count my aunt-by-marriage)...he and my uncle both had associates degrees, and worked in fields where *now* you need undergrad and in some cases grad degrees to get in them, but when they started you could make it with an associates and a good work ethic. My mom was the first person in her family to go to college, the first woman to get a bachelor's degree (when I was in grade school) and the second person to get a graduate degree (I was in high school, and my cousin beat her by a week by graduating somewhere else).

So yeah, I totally get this.



ETA: I did run across an interesting study from the 70s that made me wonder if anything else had been done looking at teaching styles of parents in the home before starting school and academic success---it said something like upper and middle class parents teach their students in a way that makes them more likely to do well in school, particularly when it comes to valuing reading. But working class parents tend to focus more on rote learning--alphabet, etc, and tend to only read at bedtime/naptime and their kids don't learn to value reading or education as well.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

ETA: I did run across an interesting study from the 70s that made me wonder if anything else had been done looking at teaching styles of parents in the home before starting school and academic success---it said something like upper and middle class parents teach their students in a way that makes them more likely to do well in school, particularly when it comes to valuing reading. But working class parents tend to focus more on rote learning--alphabet, etc, and tend to only read at bedtime/naptime and their kids don't learn to value reading or education as well.

I've seen a lot of studies relating parenting styles to child success in school (it's part of my job ), the problem with them - as is the case with many "natural experiments" - is separating genetic influences from environmental influences (do parents who read a lot influence their children to read a lot, or do the children read a lot because they have genes from parents who read a lot, or is it both, and how much of each?), and the big bug-a-boo of determining whether you are looking at correlation or cause.

Honestly, educational research is real bad about dealing with those two things properly, and so we teachers are often instructed to waste a lot of time on the educational fad of the year.

You would be astonished at the amount of junk science I have to kiss up to in education...

[Gleb]

Re: 'Murican Ed-joo-muh-kay-shawn

Lol reminds me how the teachers here used to spell my name wrong.
Very nice. If it wasn't a test, they could have just googled that.

[Medusa]

Re: 'Murican Ed-joo-muh-kay-shawn

Can they pronounce America?
Just for clarification. It's pronounced freeeeedoooooooooooom.


hoohoo. I'm a riot!

[Gas Mask]

Re: 'Murican Ed-joo-muh-kay-shawn

Lol reminds me how the teachers here used to spell my name wrong.
Very nice. If it wasn't a test, they could have just googled that.

I think I know how you feel. I have an extremely Czech last name that I have had to correct people on countless times. A lot of people get it wrong. I have to either tell them how it's pronounced or how it's spelled.

[thalassa]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

I've seen a lot of studies relating parenting styles to child success in school (it's part of my job ), the problem with them - as is the case with many "natural experiments" - is separating genetic influences from environmental influences (do parents who read a lot influence their children to read a lot, or do the children read a lot because they have genes from parents who read a lot, or is it both, and how much of each?), and the big bug-a-boo of determining whether you are looking at correlation or cause.

Honestly, educational research is real bad about dealing with those two things properly, and so we teachers are often instructed to waste a lot of time on the educational fad of the year.

You would be astonished at the amount of junk science I have to kiss up to in education...

I can imagine--I cringe when I read psychological studies and medical studies sometimes...

[DanieMarie]

Re: 'Murican Ed-joo-muh-kay-shawn

(and take that questions about Canada! I knew those!! Except the population size...35 million, really? )

Yes, really. Though to be fair, I would have gotten that wrong too. There were around 34 million people in Canada when I left 10 years ago. A lot of people must be immigrating to Canada...

[thalassa]

Re: 'Murican Ed-joo-muh-kay-shawn

Yes, really. Though to be fair, I would have gotten that wrong too. There were around 34 million people in Canada when I left 10 years ago. A lot of people must be immigrating to Canada...

I thought it was more...

[DanieMarie]

Re: When Americans try to pronounce Welsh Place Names...

But when you watch videos of other people and how dumb they are, they get some dumb answers too. Everyone has stupid people. Americans are just more comfortable with our stupidity, we're good at making fun of ourselves. Good editing gets good ratings.

Yeah, and to be honest, I don't think any of those things are particularly stupid. The Canada one is a bit silly, but to be honest, nobody knows anything about Canada. I've lived in Europe for a decade and most people couldn't even tell me that Vancouver wasn't in Quebec until the Olympics happened, and that's one of the biggest cities in the country. And tough luck getting people to name our Prime Minister or capital city. Most people outside of Canada don't know that.

As for the other two videos, anyone from other countries would have the same issues. No one who isn't Irish or familiar with Gaelic spelling rules or pronunciation can pronounce those names (I know several people with Irish names in Berlin, even easy ones like Siobhan, NO ONE can say them). The Massachusetts place names are either named after British towns that no one else can pronounce, or Native American words that no one else can pronounce. I'd say the Americans did pretty well!

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But. I don't think teacher pay (also per capita student spending) has as much of an impact of student success as an independent factor as we'd like to think (though I certainly think teachers should generally be paid more, and should often be offered better professional development opportunities in education, psychology, and their specialty fields). The problem with the US education system is largely systemic, its *how* we do education and how our society values education--our society hates smart people. Everything, including teacher pay, comes from that. America is the country of hypocrisy---we want high test scores but we lambaste smart people and science all over the media, we want teenagers not to get pregnant but we push abstinence-only education in schools...I mean really. It is a country where the morons outnumber the non-morons. And it has very little to do with education itself, but with one's mentality and world view. Just look at Honey Boo Boo.

TBH, if Americans want their students to succeed, they should pay the parents if their kid makes honor roll, has perfect attendance, etc. The problem with schools isn't teachers.

I agree with you. I also think that the focus on test scores is a real problem. It's not just an American problem. British Columbia has been placing increasing focus on test scores and standardized testing in recent years, and it's seen its quality drop, which is also due to other factors, but all of my teacher friends and family feels it's a problem because they spend so much time teaching tests that they don't actually have enough time to actually -teach-. The UK also puts a lot of focus on scores, and also has a terrible education system.

I get that everyone loves numbers and statistics and that we live in a data-driven society, but that's not how people work, and that is NOT how kids learn.

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I thought it was more...

It's a very large country with very few people. I think it has one of the lowest population densities in the world (average population density...obviously it varies between north and south!)