Dr. Renato Nicolai
Dr. Renato Nicolai was born in San Francisco, California, of immigrant, Italian parents on May 6, 1939, and grew up in The City and in various suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula. His entire elementary and secondary education was at parochial schools in San Francisco and on the peninsula. He attended Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco as a freshman and sophomore but finished his high school education at St. Joseph’s High School in Mountain View, California. He graduated from the University of San Francisco in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a major in English and completed a fifth year of college and the requirements for a Secondary Teaching credential at USF in preparation for teaching high school. Continuing to take education courses at USF, he achieved a Master of Arts degree in Education in 1966 and finished the requirements for three additional education credentials by 1969: Elementary Teaching, School Administration, and Pupil Personnel Services (Counseling). Dr. Nick and his wife Bette Ann live in Roseville, California, near Sacramento. They are blessed with five sons and five grandchildren. Dr. Nick keeps active by reading, writing, walking, gardening, singing in his church choir, writing a journal of his heritage for his sons and grandchildren, traveling, etc… “There is never a dull moment,” he said, as he continues to enjoy his retirement. |
The Nightmare That Is Public Education: An Expose of What Really Happens in Public Schools Synopsis: Public education is a nightmare! Incompetence and mediocrity haunt public middle schools, junior high schools, and high schools. Teachers waste valuable classroom instructional time every day, and their teaching methods are grossly ineffective. Knowledge of subject matter is alarmingly inadequate. Parents don’t really know what happens in public school classrooms. They have been hoodwinked by educators to believe that their children are receiving a good education, but they aren’t as substantiated by international assessments. The Nightmare That Is Public Education educates parents and the public at large about the tragic realities of public schools, challenges both teachers and administrators to improve their teaching and administrative practices and strategies, and boldly offers innovative and controversial solutions to the problems which continue to plague public schools. The chapters are entitled “Nightmares” because public education is a terrifying dream reality: • In Nightmare One, the author writes about the eight essential qualities most teachers don’t possess. He demonstrates how most teachers present information instead of actually teach. • Nightmare Two exposes the dreadful condition of classrooms and the grim fact that most teachers don’t know how to prepare the classroom’s physical environment for learning. Specific suggestions on how to use a classroom’s physical environment as a learning tool are described in detail. • The Third Nightmare details the scary incompetence many teachers exhibit in not promoting high expectations and learning standards. This Nightmare ends with an excellent list of strategies for teachers to use to teach standards expertly. • While reading the next two Nightmares, the reader will be alarmed to learn how much instructional time teachers waste and how ineffective they are in managing student discipline. These two Nightmares are packed with disturbing examples of wasted time and contemptible student behaviors but also contain tips for teachers about effective time management techniques and excellent disciplinary methods. Parents will be shocked to learn what their children are forced to endure in classrooms which are poorly managed. • A nightmarish topic all its own, the world of substitute teaching will horrify the reader in Nightmare Six. Little or no learning takes place in classrooms when substitute teachers are present, and students are so out of control from a disciplinary point of view that some classrooms are actually taken over by students. • Nightmare Seven unveils the culture of public schools, showing dramatically how reticence, permissiveness, mediocrity, and progressivism dominate nearly every aspect of schools. • Nightmare Eight explores the concept of “What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You.” The author writes about how the innocuous words and phrases educators use can be so eerily deceptive. Don’t be fooled by innocent-sounding expressions such as “Teacher In-Service Day,” “Collegiality,” “Professionalism,” and “Teacher Evaluation.” Finally, the good news is that the last chapter, “Pleasant Dreams,” offers solutions to the nightmares by emphasizing many different kinds of competition to help the monopolistic, government-run, and union-controlled public schools improve.
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