March 12, 2013
— Ace Her kid was smarter than his teacher, so of course they tried to throw him into special ed. Not gifted and talented education, but learning-disabled.
I think the other day I said it was in third grade that the school gave us trouble over Robert. I was wrong, it was actually in first grade. I sent them a kid who could read, write and was working on fractions. Imagine our shock when in our first first grade conference, the teacher informed us that Robert was learning disabled and would probably never learn to read and write. This was particularly surprising since one of her pieces of evidence was a worksheet that consisted of 1+0, 2+0 etc. across the top of which Robert had written in properly spelled words “this is stupid and boring. A number plus zero always equals the number.”
Note the teacher here failed to recognize that the student had in fact already digested the main point of addition of zero -- that is, the whole point of the rote memorization was to get the student to realize the universal rule that any number plus zero is just that number. The student understood this -- the teacher, apparently, did not, for she seems to have thought this was some kind of "mistake," rather than the whole point of the tedious rote memorization exercise. The kid understood; the teacher was baffled.
Quick, let's pay them more money before they all jump ship for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
But I digress.
Dan and I threw a fit – we would – and they insisted Robert needed to be in Title One and remedial education. We insisted he didn’t. In the end, they had him IQ tested, after priming the school psychologist, who used a “set” that topped out at 107 IQ. Then they informed us his IQ was 107 and he needed to be in Title One and remedial education.At that point I wanted to go raze the school or perhaps set it on fire. (I did say I’m excitable, right?) But Dan wouldn’t let me. Instead we burned around 1k dollars we didn’t have (we were so tight in those days we hugged each cent till it squealed. Considering whether to buy an extra head of lettuce was existential. We drove a $1500 car, and only had one for the two of us,) found the most reputable psychologist in town, and had him tested over Christmas break. (They were making noises about a “staffing” meeting in January and how they’d take our parental rights away if we didn’t sign Robert for “what’s best for him.”) We said nothing, just had him tested.
He tested profoundly gifted (which is a technical designation.)
So, next thing you know, Dan marches into the staffing meeting with the results, authenticated by a psychologist who was known and respected in the region. He first asked them what they thought of her, and they said she was very good, but of course very expensive. Then he laid the results on the table.
Shock, horror and confusion ensued, the most important – the teacher, who btw, we later found out did this every year to a kid she perceived as ‘minority’ (this, btw, in a town that is one of the most liberal areas in CO. I told this story to a leftist friend who absolutely refused to believe it. And yet it happened.) and her friend, the school psychologist were both present – reaction being BETRAYAL. “How could you go and do this behind our backs, without warning us?”
Then the meeting broke up in disarray, Robert got put in “gifted” classes and no more was said about it.
A lot of her essay is about "Whole Word" reading, such an absurd concept I can only explain what it's not: It's not phonics. It's not reading based on sounding out a word based on the letters, but instead just looking at the word in a gestalt sort of way and guessing what word it is, repeatedly, until the teacher tells you the answer.
There's Cargo Cult thinking going on there.
I think that once someone really knows how to read, their brains skip the phonics sounding-it-out process and just shortcut to whole word reading. When Tami wrote in the comments something like this...
Can you raed tihs? Cachens are you can. Taht's bacsuee poelpe tned to sacn wlohe wrdos at a tmie and olny look at the frsit and lsat ltetres of wrods, and tiehr lgntehs, and of crouse the cntoxet cules of our ebdemded udnretsnding of gammrar and epxetced wrod odrer.
... I think she demonstrated that people who can read automatically, intuitively, really don't need correct spelling nor phonics to do so. We have large enough vocabularies combined with a very strong intuitive grasp of how sentences are supposed to look and what sorts of words we can expect in which parts of a sentence that our brains can just automatically figure these things out without much exertion of conscious effort. (It occurs to me that search-engines' prediction of what word you're going to write next in your search term is just this sort of thing performed by computer code. Our brains do it, without code, but still based upon the same sorts of things, "past searches" (previous experience in what words tend to follow each other, statistically) and the basic logic of sentence structure.)
So that's true of Strong Readers who are now, by their adulthood, intuitive readers who know the rules so well, and so unconsciously, that they can completely ignore the rules and don't even remember what "the rules" are. We all know "the rules" -- we know what has to come in a sentence, and what word goes where, and such -- but we know them unconsciously.
We'd have trouble explaining to a foreigner what the rules are, because we don't really think about the rules in conscious thought or in "mind words," just as we don't consciously think about where precisely we should put our hands to catch a ball. We just do it.
So this sort of thing is the end goal of education-- to get kids to know the rules so well they don't even know the rules anymore. They operate according to the rules, but they don't think about the rules. I can do a lot of basic 8th through 11th grade algebra, but I couldn't justify why I'm permitted to divide both sides by 8 or why I use the FOIL method. I just do.
But does it make sense to "teach" 4, 5, and 6 years old this way?
No. Because it's not teaching. In order to forget the rules by age 15, a kid has to first be trained according to the rules at age 5. You don't "cut out the middleman" and skip right to "forgetting the rules" at age 5.
The 5 year old can't forget the rules, because he never knew them in the first place. This is the end of the journey, not the beginning.
For God's sakes. This is obvious. Even if it weren't obvious, we have the minor clue of empirical results-- we've gone from teaching kids how to read to teaching them to be stubborn near-illiterates even into their college years (and of course then until their end of days).
And of course we've taught them to have the Highest of Self Esteem in their near-illiteracy.
I can't help but think this "whole word" teaching system is an attempt to make things easier for teachers. As I said, it's easy to do something when you already know how to do it. I can do algebra, but I don't know if I could teach it. I forget a lot of the reasons why I can do things. I forget the rigorous procedure of doing it, first do Step One, then do Step Two. I tend to just do it intuitively.
So, the hard part of teaching kids to read is not being able to read yourself. For God's sakes, I hope most of our teachers can read. I sincerely hope that -- but I have doubts.
The hard part of teaching kids to read is learning how to do it step by step -- that is, relearning "the rules" which most adults have forgotten because they've internalized the rules so deeply. That's the hard part-- but we're not asking teachers to do that anymore.
Instead, we're just asking them to read words themselves, and know that "orange" spells orange, and have kids guess at the word until they get it right.
That's very easy for an adult to do. Throw any word at this adult, and I Can Read It For You. I don't even need my Education Degree to do so.
But that's not what teachers are supposed to be doing. They're supposed to be teaching kids the step-by-step method of reading words so that they, too, can one day forget about the rules of phonics and just read.
Not just the easy stuff of saying "This word is 'orange.'" No shit, really? Well thank God our education system is full of people who know the letters O R A N G E spell orange.
The more important question is, as Jamie Escalante said in Stand & Deliver: Why?
Once a kid knows the why, he can decode every word he comes across -- without guessing at it.
Alternate Explanation for Whole Word Teaching: I started reading early, by age 3, I think my parents say. I started reading when every time my parents took me to a bakery it had this word outside it:
B A K E R Y
and every time I saw this great little cartoon dog Snoopy it had these strange markings under him:
S N O O P Y
Without being taught that "this letter sounds like this, and that letter sounds like that" I deduced these things, and then started trying to apply them to other words, and found that it... worked. So I started deducing what other strange squiggles might mean.
Now this is a good way to learn, certainly. And some kids will deduce phonics without being taught phonics.
And I'll tell you that as a kid I hated phonics with a white-hot passion. Because it was boring. I already knew, intuitively, that the w made a whuh sound and really disliked being taught this in a formal, rigorous way.
So maybe these people think that by simply exposing kids to words, they too will go through the deduction/experiment/confirmation process and wind up with a deeper understanding of reading than rote teaching of phonics would.
But there are two problems with this. First, the logical objection: If a kid was going to do this he already would be doing it. Kids are exposed to letters and words constantly; if a kid was going to learn to read by deduction and experimentation he already would have. He'd enter school, as many kids do, already reading.
We don't have to teach the kids who know how to read how to read. We have to teach the kids who don't.
Second, the empirical objection: It's not working. Period. Kids are not learning better; they're learning worse.
Maybe some kids are on the cusp of deducting their way into breaking the word code, but they just need help with the first step of it-- like codebreakers, they need a "crib." But if you don't give them that first crib of the phonics of the common words, they won't break the code.
Whatever merits the "force them to commit acts of higher-order deduction" theory might have, they're completely rubbished by the empirical record.
Posted by: Ace at
10:58 AM
| Comments (664)
Post contains 1971 words, total size 11 kb.
>>we later found out did this every year to a kid she perceived as ‘minority’
Don't fucking get me started on "bias of low expectations" I went through in the oh-so-liberal California public schools.
I know the quote is "soft bias" but it wasn't soft at all.
Posted by: Mama AJ at March 12, 2013 11:03 AM (SUKHu)
Posted by: kathysaysso at March 12, 2013 11:03 AM (6H6o8)
Posted by: Serious Cat at March 12, 2013 11:04 AM (UypUQ)
Posted by: Vic at March 12, 2013 11:04 AM (53z96)
Posted by: Brother Cavil, the future Pope Ampersand I at March 12, 2013 11:04 AM (fMiHM)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 11:05 AM (GFM2b)
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 11:05 AM (LTajP)
Wow.
The only thing missing from the paper is "I can't read" to which the stupid teacher would intepret as concrete evidence as to little Robert's illiteracy.
Posted by: soothie at March 12, 2013 11:05 AM (9Q7Nu)
>>I can't help but think this "whole word" teaching system is an attempt to make things easier for teachers.
My go-to explanation for any of this crap in schools is:
1. Schools pay/reimburse for grad. programs.
2. Bunch of teachers get advanced degrees and grad. schools expand.
3. They make up a bunch of crap and continually come up with new theories to justify themselves.
4. Profit!! But not for kids and tax payers.
Posted by: Mama AJ at March 12, 2013 11:06 AM (SUKHu)
Posted by: Brother Cavil, the future Pope Ampersand I at March 12, 2013 11:06 AM (fMiHM)
When we moved here, we didn't even consider another public school. Private school was worth every cent we paid.
Government teachers are nothing more than indoctrinators.
Posted by: Jane D'oh at March 12, 2013 11:06 AM (UOM48)
"And of course we've taught them to have the Highest of Self Esteem in their near-illiteracy."
But of course, Ace.
That way the kids can feel good about being ignorant.
Teachers used to take pride in turning out students who were well versed in the basics...and able to go on to become productive members of society.
Not any more.
Now, teachers seem to be more concerned with turning out indoctrinated pawns who can be easily led.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 11:07 AM (2xMNt)
Of course the people who would be held accountable would the taxpayers. But I would make sure the teacher was named on the lawsuit.
And I would make them pay for the lawyer.
Posted by: Vic at March 12, 2013 11:07 AM (53z96)
There's a comedy bit that pretty much mirrors this stupid teacher's actions. I forgot it, though.
Posted by: soothie at March 12, 2013 11:07 AM (9Q7Nu)
Posted by: Joe Biden, word-master at March 12, 2013 11:07 AM (Dll6b)
Posted by: JDTAY at March 12, 2013 11:08 AM (a0nis)
Posted by: Fritz at March 12, 2013 11:08 AM (UzPAd)
My kids' education costs me far more than $50,000 a year.
My wife teaches them.
Two words.
Home School.
Home Schooling in Colorado C.R.S. 22-33-104.5 Home-Based Education
Posted by: imp at March 12, 2013 11:08 AM (UaxA0)
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 03:07 PM (2xMNt)
Not even that; they are more concerned in getting another raise through their union.
Posted by: Vic at March 12, 2013 11:08 AM (53z96)
Government teachers are nothing more than indoctrinators.
Posted by: Jane D'oh at March 12, 2013 03:06 PM (UOM4
Exactly, if you care about the development of your child, you should seek out the best private school and send him/her there. There's no better investment you can make.
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 11:08 AM (LTajP)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 11:08 AM (nUH8H)
Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at March 12, 2013 11:09 AM (+z4pE)
This goes hand in hand with their "invented spelling" lessons. In K-3 the kids in a lot of public schools aren't taught to spell, except for if they are lucky 50 basic sight words. Instead, they are allowed to spell words however they think they should be spelled. Ostensibly because this would squelch their desire to write or their creativity.
However, the problem comes when suddenly the kids have to spell the words correctly in 4th grade. If you have been allowed to spell the word "night" as "nihgt" for 3 years straight, it is very difficult to spell it right in the long run. No matter how many times you get marked down for spelling it wrong, it takes a huge conscious thought process to spell it right.
Posted by: ParanoidGirlInSeattle at March 12, 2013 11:09 AM (RZ8pf)
While reading the IQ numbers, I automatically did the mental switch to make 107 mean 170. Because that's the much more likely result, after all, when talking about a kid like the one that she describes.
It's kind of like how we automatically "fix" words with rearranged letters when they appear in front of us on a page (as the quoted segment from Tami demonstrates).
Posted by: junior at March 12, 2013 11:10 AM (UWFpX)
Posted by: Jollyroger at March 12, 2013 11:10 AM (t06LC)
Posted by: RWC at March 12, 2013 11:10 AM (fWAjv)
Posted by: Tilikum the Killer Assault Whale at March 12, 2013 11:10 AM (uhftQ)
From here in the heart of deep-blue NJ, I can't even imagine the process she had to manage to get her kid out of special ed. Parents here fight to get their kids into SE. It's ridiculously expensive and the schools try to mainstream any kid who's doing okay in SE, which they should do.
There are many annoying things about the ed system in NJ. Schools treating our kids like failures and dumbasses are, thankfully, not among them.
Posted by: spongeworthy at March 12, 2013 11:10 AM (r5w1L)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 11:11 AM (nUH8H)
Posted by: Regular Moron [/i] at March 12, 2013 11:11 AM (feFL6)
"My word is.....poon tang!"
Posted by: EC at March 12, 2013 11:11 AM (GQ8sn)
Posted by: junior at March 12, 2013 03:10 PM (UWFpX)
It sucks having to proofread my own work for errors in typing and spelling as I read it the way it should have been written.
Posted by: Jollyroger at March 12, 2013 11:11 AM (t06LC)
>>I can do algebra, but I don't know if I could teach it.
>> couldn't justify why I'm permitted to divide both sides by 8
While teaching Pre-Algebra to the oldest short person, I keep feeling like Bill Cosby's Noah: "I used to know" why you do it that way.
Posted by: Mama AJ at March 12, 2013 11:11 AM (SUKHu)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 11:11 AM (GFM2b)
Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Now with extra taunting. at March 12, 2013 11:11 AM (VtjlW)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 11:12 AM (bxiXv)
This article infuriated me and I applaud the Hoyt's for their counter-offensive, especially since it was effective.
Posted by: Hrothgar at March 12, 2013 11:12 AM (Cnqmv)
Posted by: JDTAY at March 12, 2013 11:12 AM (a0nis)
Interestingly, I suspect if you read between the lines (see what I did there?), it might very well be that Ace has it exactly right... and exactly wrong.
The kid showed up at school knowing how to read and do math. So when the teachers tried to get him to conform to a method of learning from the beginning, he was bored and unwilling to go through the process as the other kids were doing.
Believe it or not, thinking you're smarter than everyone else around you can, and often is, a learning disability.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 11:13 AM (TOk1P)
Posted by: VKI at March 12, 2013 11:13 AM (TKoA3)
This is a large part of why my children will be going to private school (starting next week for my son). The public school system simply is not designed to provide a good education to anyone.
Its (public school system) designed to give otherwise incompetent union members jobs at your expense. So, kinda like the TSA, except they're busy feeling up minors instead of grandma.
Posted by: Jollyroger at March 12, 2013 11:13 AM (t06LC)
Note one of several money quotes:
" Then they informed us his IQ was 107 and he needed to be in Title One and remedial education."
Along w/just over half of the others...
Posted by: Jess1 at March 12, 2013 11:13 AM (lbiWb)
Posted by: Roy at March 12, 2013 11:14 AM (VndSC)
Posted by: Jeanne of the North at March 12, 2013 11:14 AM (MYl9+)
Posted by: Gaff at March 12, 2013 11:14 AM (jPS2y)
Posted by: EC at March 12, 2013 11:14 AM (GQ8sn)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:14 AM (dZQh7)
Posted by: NCKate at March 12, 2013 11:14 AM (n7zrG)
Posted by: ParanoidGirlInSeattle at March 12, 2013 11:15 AM (RZ8pf)
Posted by: Jollyroger at March 12, 2013 03:11 PM (t06LC)
I never proofread something until I've set it aside for at least a couple of hours and done something else in the meantime. Makes it *so* much easier to catch the problems if I'm not thinking about what I just wrote.
Posted by: junior at March 12, 2013 11:15 AM (UWFpX)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 11:15 AM (bxiXv)
I always shake my head at the school scores of my kids Catholic school where all grades are 2 grades "ahead" on testing and most are 3 grades ahead. And I think to myself "ours aren't doing that much, what the hell are they doing in public school 6 or 7 hours a day?".
Posted by: Guy Mohawk at March 12, 2013 11:15 AM (p/cQy)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 11:15 AM (GFM2b)
Mom said fuck you and your drugs.
Posted by: Berserker at March 12, 2013 11:15 AM (FMbng)
It's like using fancy analogies; they really only work when you already understand something. Otherwise, it's huh??
Posted by: Jeanne of the North at March 12, 2013 11:15 AM (MYl9+)
I think the problem starts - or at least is exacerbated - by the overselling of the teachers. In my day, teachers *might* have had a degree...but not necessarily. After all, does a 2nd grade teacher *need* a bachelor's degree? By the time my kids were in high school, about 1/5th of the teachers and administrators had Ph.Ds. And it seemed they felt determined to 'justify' them. Which was disasterous. I remember my grade school kids having to do book reports with Venn diagrams and report on 'motivations' and 'conflict', instead of just the basics: who, what, when, where. etc. The teachers seemed to think that if Venn analysis was good for a 10th grader, it must be GREAT for a 5th grader! And so on - cutting out the middle step, as Ace noted.
Oh, and a 3rd grade teacher once proud/defiantly told me she didn't believe in rote learning. I asked her what 9x7 was, and when she immediately responded with '63' i asked if she had memorized that or calculated it. She didn't like me after that.
Posted by: annoyed at March 12, 2013 11:15 AM (uEm7J)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 11:16 AM (nUH8H)
"And of course we've taught them to have the Highest of Self Esteem in their near-illiteracy."
That's the "Mr. Rogers Effect."
You're just so Special, so Wonderful, so Uniquely You, that there's No One Else Quite Like You, You Little Special Snowflake, You.
Everything that You Say, Everything You Think, and Everything You Do is just so Uniquely Special, You just can't possibly be wrong. After all, it's You Who Did That.
Anybody who tells you otherwise is a Big Old Meanie. Please collect your Participation Award on your way out.
Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at March 12, 2013 11:16 AM (+z4pE)
Posted by: jb at March 12, 2013 11:16 AM (E4449)
"Yeah, like, know what I'm sayin? You know, right, like that's what it is. That thing there. You know. Know what I'm saying?"
-actual conversations across the nation's public school system
Posted by: imp at March 12, 2013 11:17 AM (UaxA0)
Posted by: DM at March 12, 2013 11:17 AM (LaKlJ)
Posted by: unf-ing-believable at March 12, 2013 11:17 AM (EXsuU)
Just sayin'.
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 03:15 PM (GFM2b)
I didn't say it.
Posted by: EC at March 12, 2013 11:17 AM (GQ8sn)
Posted by: BlackOrchid at March 12, 2013 11:17 AM (eFLi6)
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at March 12, 2013 11:17 AM (QF8uk)
He went to the Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Tech, the best high school in the country, bar none, then BS in physics at Harvard, and is now at CalTech working on his PhD in Theoretical Physics. But we should put our kids in these people's expert hands.
Posted by: pep at March 12, 2013 11:18 AM (YXmuI)
Parents continually complained about her. A couple of diligent moms followed her on her lunch break one day and found her parked on a nearby cul-de-sac drinking vodka.
In the days that followed, they videotaped her and showed it to the principal...who did nothing. They showed it to the school board. Who did nothing. Eventually, the bitch was offered leave to go to rehab. It took two years to get her out of the school.
Posted by: Jane D'oh at March 12, 2013 11:18 AM (UOM48)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 11:18 AM (GFM2b)
Posted by: John P. Squibob at March 12, 2013 11:18 AM (LJaTq)
I cannot imagine having a child in school right now, public or private. It seems like actual teaching is the very last thing that takes place.
Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Now with extra taunting. at March 12, 2013 03:11 PM (VtjlW)
They quit. I know, I have a daughter doing her first year of teaching at an inner city charter school. Hates everyone from the administrator to the ghetto parents who can't help their kids with the easiest English assignment and call her at 9 pm for help.
Posted by: Tami[/i] at March 12, 2013 11:19 AM (X6akg)
Posted by: huerfano at March 12, 2013 11:19 AM (bAGA/)
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at March 12, 2013 11:19 AM (QF8uk)
Posted by: Jeanne of the North at March 12, 2013 03:14 PM (MYl9+)
Not always. I read a lot, and I've got excellent eyesight - which, I might add, is actually somewhat unusual for my family. Most of my siblings had glasses by the time they were 20.
Posted by: junior at March 12, 2013 11:19 AM (UWFpX)
Posted by: gm at March 12, 2013 11:19 AM (/kBoL)
Public school? No way. They're designed for average-to-slightly below. Teaching to smart kids is extra work, and might make the average-and-below feel bad, and public education is supposed to make everyone more equal. Better that the above-average kids be bored and stunted than the average-and-below feel bad about not being equal.
Harrison Bergeron.
Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at March 12, 2013 11:20 AM (/kI1Q)
And that's really a watered-down perversion of Christianity. Funny dat.
Save it for church.
Posted by: Jeanne of the North at March 12, 2013 11:20 AM (MYl9+)
Posted by: ParanoidGirlInSeattle at March 12, 2013 11:20 AM (RZ8pf)
Throw in the prospect of divorce and child support... I respect the hell out of those of you who've managed to make it work, but the decline has been a long time coming.
Posted by: Hollowpoint at March 12, 2013 11:20 AM (SY2Kh)
There are plenty of decent, kind hearted, well meaning incompetents in the world, but these people are not in that group.
Incompetence, when shown it's error will make amends or at least make a show of getting in line but malice is true evil and it will not be corrected because the incorrect IQ test was a pretense, a ruse, the story that would facilitate the con.
Culturally, we are conditioned to always believe the best about teachers and educators. They are the monks and missionaries of this secular age - slaving away in self sacrificial privation for the good of others.
You will not dare touch the holy workers of the god of this age. You will not. They will prophesy over you and you will submit to the revealed will of their master or you will be cast out and a mark placed upon your eternal record, so that all may know you dared defy them.
Yeah, Fuck those guys.
Posted by: TFG at March 12, 2013 11:21 AM (Walj9)
No conservative should send his child to public school period. They are indoctrination mills, whose sole purpose is to create dependents for the ruling class to exploit. Why turn over custody of your most precious possesion to people who despise you and them? My parents were public school teachers, and they sent us to Catholic School. And many of my friends whose parents were PS teachers also sent their kids to Catholic or private schools.
I wish conservatives would speak out more about reforming education by privatizing it.
Posted by: Iblis at March 12, 2013 11:21 AM (9221z)
I have lived through a similar but more convoluted version of this story that includes my ex wife, who herself is a public school teacher, with a special ed background.
Its been a nightmare but finally, we seem to be on the right path. And it only took 7 years.
Posted by: AndrewsDad at March 12, 2013 11:22 AM (C2//T)
Posted by: L, elle at March 12, 2013 11:22 AM (0PiQ4)
Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Wilde Wrepublican Wench at March 12, 2013 11:22 AM (vRtsi)
Posted by: ace at March 12, 2013 11:23 AM (LCRYB)
Robert once let the cat out of the bag by telling his seventh grade ecology teacher that the only reason I sent him to school was to have 8 uninterrupted hours to write in, and that his real learning took place in three hours after school. It was true, of course, but stunningly tactless of him to say it.
I Think I would love this kid if he had an RPG launcher.
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 11:23 AM (7QZ6R)
Ace,
Just yesterday you told us you mostly copy/paste links. This post is irrefutable evidence that you bring logic and common sense into a political world sorely lacking both.
Sincerely, thanks for doing that.
Posted by: Washington Nearsider at March 12, 2013 11:23 AM (fwARV)
You're new here, aren't you.
Posted by: pep at March 12, 2013 11:23 AM (YXmuI)
In my experience in public education, some classroom teachers advocate removing "difficult" kids from their classes and placing them in pull-out programs for "remediation." Generally, the district administration tries to limit special-ed placement because it costs more and risks problems from future federal audits.
This dynamic usually puts the districts' special-ed administrators and classroom teachers in conflict. There's a lot more to this story than meets the eye.
Posted by: Jim Flimsey at March 12, 2013 11:23 AM (T9V22)
Modern day education is so fucked up that I've pretty much mooted the idea of home-schooling or parochial school for my kids. And I speak as a kid who (thank God) actually managed to get a first-rate public education.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 11:23 AM (bcLhD)
Posted by: gm at March 12, 2013 11:23 AM (/kBoL)
Posted by: nerdygirl at March 12, 2013 11:24 AM (ihUCh)
>>I read at a 8th grade level by pre-kindergarden, but the teacher insisted I was stupid because my motor skills (hand-eye stuff) were lagging behind my peers.
My youngest is like that. Started reading at 4 and sharp as a tack, but motor skills and speech are just on a different schedule.
If he'd been in school, they would have been pushing speech and occupational therapy, holding him back and generally afixing negative labels to him left and right.
Posted by: Mama AJ at March 12, 2013 11:24 AM (SUKHu)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 11:24 AM (nUH8H)
Posted by: mugiwara at March 12, 2013 11:24 AM (Bj/NT)
Posted by: RWC at March 12, 2013 03:10 PM (fWAjv)
-----------------------------------------------
Ignorant and uneducated people are easier to push around. They'll fucking believe anything you tell them......as long as it fits into the ideals being pushed in public schools nowdays.
I'm finding out that by the time these poor children graduate high school, they've been pretty much irrevocabally indoctrinated into little marxist soldiers.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 11:25 AM (1q3PD)
can also be a idiot alot of peolpe dont not even think about that but still are
teachers cold make way more mony in the private bisunesses but they are
help children black hipsanic chinese even retard and cripple it dosent matter
learn about equatlity and diverse is a pretty good lesson think about it
Posted by: Jose Canseco's Gristle Encased Head at March 12, 2013 11:25 AM (+lsX1)
That, I cannot comment upon - I don't think so, because it definitely means the kids can't read, and the teachers' lives are not improved by this. I can comment on the horrifying knowledge that this stuff just will not go away! I fell into the happy trough between bouts of this "whole word" or "holistic reading" (It's had a number of names) doctrine (and could read before ever I started kindergarten), but I have met people just a few years younger than I who have been scarred by it.
Maybe this time, we can put a stake through its heart, fill its mouth with salt, and bury it at the crossroads, but I will not count on it.
Posted by: Dianna at March 12, 2013 11:25 AM (DV/Ik)
Posted by: BumperStickerist at March 12, 2013 11:26 AM (9P+hO)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:26 AM (dZQh7)
I wouldn't put it past the teachers unions and school administrations to pull some shit like that.
Posted by: Marmo at March 12, 2013 11:26 AM (QW+AD)
Public schools exist only to
Provide Employment to Public School Teachers
Everything else is irrelevant
That is why public education is the way it is
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 11:26 AM (Dnbau)
Posted by: vote Lord Humungus 2016 at March 12, 2013 11:26 AM (HEa5q)
Is there a rule, like Godwin's Rule, for the lame, crazy shit liberal socialism WILL produce over time?
Lamer's Law? Something like that.
Posted by: Ook? at March 12, 2013 11:27 AM (OQpzc)
Posted by: beach at March 12, 2013 11:27 AM (XYSwB)
My daughter inherited her grandmother's beautiful tapering delicate hands, and had poor fine motor coordination until about 6, because those beautiful tiny ivory wands had ZERO strength.
In kindergarten I was called into a conference because of issues with some of her worksheets.
I was shown a paper with pictures including an apple, ant, armadillo, etc, each with a perfunctory purple crayon scribble over the ones beginning with "A".
They discussed their concern with the lack of appropriate colors. i.e. the apple should have been red or green, with a brown stem and a green leaf, the ant should have been black or red; NOTHING was inside the lines, and so on.
I remarked that purple was her favorite color, and asked what the direction had been for the exercise--she was to color everything that began with "A".
When I went home I asked her about it, and without missing a beat she said, "well, they all started with "A", didn't they?"
Fortunately, her teacher said "she's got me there" and moved on.
Her "fine motor skills" are just fine at 19, btw
Posted by: barbarausa at March 12, 2013 11:27 AM (WWeoI)
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 03:26 PM (m2CN7)
Sound out the words!
Posted by: EC at March 12, 2013 11:27 AM (GQ8sn)
86...No conservative should send his child to public school period. They are indoctrination mills, whose sole purpose is to create dependents for the ruling class to exploit.
Many cannot afford to send their kids to private school...and can't stay home to do home schooling.
But yeah, our public schools are indoctrination mills.
Liberal Madrassas.
Temples of Progressivism.
Any questioning of it...is blasphemy.
Thou shalt not blaspheme the Progressive Prophets.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 11:27 AM (2xMNt)
See, right there, at that point, is when the teacher that was a problem should have simply disappeared.
Posted by: GMan at March 12, 2013 11:27 AM (sxq57)
Posted by: Ook? at March 12, 2013 11:27 AM (OQpzc)
Posted by: Eaton Cox at March 12, 2013 11:27 AM (q177U)
90 -
This world is full of brilliant people who never figure out how to conform to it, and go through life acting like it's the world's fault. They're miserable failures at school, at work, in their personal lives...
Yeah, that's a learning disability.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 11:28 AM (TOk1P)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 11:28 AM (xAtAj)
Hell, you're dealing with the stupidest of the stupid. And when they tell a kid the answer, it makes them feel smart for once.
Let's face it: Most teachers are stupid, stupid, stupid.
Ask any Education Major why that's their degree and 90%+ will say, "I'll get summers off."
Not, "I want to teach children." Or any other noble goal.
It's a greedy, beady-eyed system of adults who so completely lack morals that they are willing to steal from the young to keep themselves fat and happy.
Think back on your education. You have one, maybe two teachers who were worth a damn. Out of an average of 80 to 100 by the time you graduate from college.
That's 2% or less. You like these odds for getting someone who knows and cares about what they are doing? Would you accept that for your auto mechanic, your mailman, your grocer, your plumber, or anyone other than a teacher?
It's fucked up and evil.
Posted by: RoyalOil at March 12, 2013 11:28 AM (VjL9S)
>>>If you want a good education, or even a "good enough" education, you have to look at private schools or home schooling.
You know, this quite simply wasn't true as recently as the 1990s where I grew up. To be fair I was blessed enough to grow up in a wealthy suburban county with great public schools, and to attend magnet programs throughout my time there, but those magnet programs? They were f**king fantastic. I was so far ahead of the kids I knew in my first year of college (a good school!) in terms of writing ability that it was actually a little dismaying...and again, this wasn't because I was some kind of genius. In fact, I still remember how I USED to write (i.e. back in 8th/9th grade, before I got whipped into shape). All the basics of topic sentence, structural organization, etc. were essentially unknown or only vaguely understood to me. My teachers taught me the rules, and taught me well enough that I could finally decide when and where it was okay to break them as needed.
I wonder if my old school is still that good now. Or if it's collapsed into the same morass as all the others. Well, at least I made it out in time.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 11:30 AM (bcLhD)
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 03:23 PM
Thats what my mom did, she used cards. She also had me counting to 100 by the time I was a few years old, and from the moment I could speak she practically drilled the home address and telephone number in my head. I still remember that phone number, and I haven't lived there since I was 5.
Posted by: Berserker at March 12, 2013 11:30 AM (FMbng)
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 03:26 PM (m2CN7)
Sound out the words!
Posted by: EC at March 12, 2013 03:27 PM (GQ8sn)
I tried doing that but it they all sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher.
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 11:30 AM (m2CN7)
Posted by: Whatev at March 12, 2013 11:31 AM (A7Wh1)
When she graduated from the 6th grade I had to put her back in public school. I asked the private school why no grades above 6th. I was told that they could not get enough children to justify teachers above the 6th grade. The local yocals here want their little darlings to play football and be cheerleaders.
They don't give a damn about education. Wife and I looked around all over this State and neigboring States. Only thing we could find is boarding schools, mostly military academies. Could not afford that at all even with both of us working and making a good salary.
Posted by: Vic at March 12, 2013 11:31 AM (53z96)
My kid has an IEP and a dedicated IA even though he is off the chart smart. I was talking to the IA the other day saying the IEP meetings want to make me slit my wrists. I am in those things with 8-10 professional educators that are clueless about how kids who need an IEP really act in the real world.
Its a tough position to be in having to rely on the "professionals" to get your kid the help they need while having to do all in your power to keep from screaming, are all of you fucking retarded?
Posted by: AndrewsDad at March 12, 2013 11:31 AM (C2//T)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 11:31 AM (bxiXv)
Dumbass.
Posted by: eleven at March 12, 2013 11:31 AM (KXm42)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:31 AM (dZQh7)
Without going into the particulars of how things went downhill for my son at elementary school, we also had him tested and moved him into a private school that caters to above average intelligence kids who respond better to non-traditional teaching methods. Not only has he being learning by leaps and bounds, we've noticed that his school is approximately 90% boys. Wonder why that is?
Posted by: Lizzy at March 12, 2013 11:31 AM (0/zfR)
>>>So that's true of Strong Readers who are now, by their adulthood, intuitive readers who know the rules so well, and so unconsciously, that they can completely ignore the rules and don't even remember what "the rules" are.
Hey! That's how I drive!!!!1!
Posted by: Bigby's Left Turn Signal at March 12, 2013 11:31 AM (3ZtZW)
Little secret: Any number plus zero is in fact just that original number.
They teach you in middle school (or 1st year college) that it's called the "identity"
X = X + 0
X = X - 0
X = X * 1
X = X / 1
X/X isn't always 1 ? .. or is it ?
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 11:32 AM (7QZ6R)
My wife pulled the car over and went into the back and read the sentence in the book just as my daughter had said it. We had no idea she could read. Taught herself. I have a rule that both of my daughters can buy a book whenever they want, even if it's my last dollar. I'm sticking with it. Someday they will set the world on fire. I'm certain of it.
Posted by: dfbaskwill at March 12, 2013 11:32 AM (71LDo)
As me how to I set up a PCR in the lab. I probably couldn't tell you anything past what's written on the sheet of paper I use to check my steps. Why? I've done so many, that the little (yet important) things are more or less muscle memory (well were. I'm out of practice.)
We of course never seem to account for this when looking at teacher proficiency. We assess (and our schooling system for teachers) tends to focus on how well the teacher can learn, (oohhh they got a degree) but that's probably inversely proportional (or at best unrelated) to how well they can teach.
Then if they suck we can't get rid of them.
We've got the whole system f'ing backwards.
then if you have a kid who doesn't conform to the teaching "rules" teachers don't know what to do with them.
I'm fairly slow at math. Slow but highly accurate, and reasonably good. I just have to move stepwise (which is slower). Dunno why, it's just how I learned. But it drove teachers nuts because I had problems with the speed math drills.
Never mind the fact that given a normal amount of time I was far and above more accurate (and certainly so at complex problems) apparently this made me "bad at math."
I can do calculus, but my grade school teachers probably think I'm bad at it still.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 11:32 AM (b3IgE)
Posted by: nerdygirl at March 12, 2013 11:32 AM (ihUCh)
"Same with sports. Try teaching your kids sports that you know how to play. It's not that easy. You have to reverse engineer everything that you do and teach it to your kids"
Do NOT even get me started on that... I volunteer w/local youth sports league - we interviewed one aspiring TCKS* coach w/degrees & all in elem. ed. who explained that he would "let the game come from the kids" and that by doing so "they would better understand the ebb and flow" and "become better players". We passed...
*soccer, or "that communist kicking sport"
Posted by: Jess1 at March 12, 2013 11:32 AM (lbiWb)
Posted by: beach at March 12, 2013 11:32 AM (XYSwB)
The brain is also a "muscle" and needs training the same way.
Any training will initial be slow and repetitive. Can't run until you can walk kind of thing. Then as the movements become "instinctive" without thought about each part then the training is speeded up and distractions and different variable are introduced so that the trainee learns that what they know about x can also be applied to y.
eventually time trials and competitive exams are held to evaluate performance and ability.
Progressives have not only saddled our young with massive debt and undermined their confidence but we've also taught them all the wrong ways to do things.
It's no wonder we have so many LIV's and FSA's; they don't know how to live without government.
We have trained our children to NOT think.
Someone once said that if a foreign power did what has been done to our Educational system, it would be grounds for war.
Posted by: Bitter Clinger and All That at March 12, 2013 11:32 AM (qyv02)
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 11:32 AM (Dnbau)
Eh. Extrapolating from my own experience, I'm pretty sure it was easier to show my freshman English class a videotape and have a class discussion about it than to grade 25 book reports after track practice.
Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at March 12, 2013 11:33 AM (/kI1Q)
Just as an aside, I'd like to say it's awfully helpful to be talking about banning excessively large-size drink cups 24/7 when it comes out that CUNY thinks 80% of high school graduates in the City cannot read.
Why would WCBS even bother with a story like that, I ask you! We've got big fat drink cups to worry about, for crissakes!
Posted by: Mayor Bloomberg at March 12, 2013 11:33 AM (B5y+v)
Posted by: Hello, it's me Donna let it burn really.really bummed at March 12, 2013 11:33 AM (9+ccr)
Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Wilde Wrepublican Wench at March 12, 2013 03:22 PM (vRtsi)
--------------------------------------------
I loved our town library. I love books. It was in the library where I got my first feel of cooter in the darkest corner behind the land-lease and contract ledgers.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 11:33 AM (1q3PD)
Posted by: Regular Moron [/i] at March 12, 2013 11:33 AM (feFL6)
Just wait till this kid figures out the two most important rules of physics:
1) F = ma
2) you can't push a string
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 11:34 AM (7QZ6R)
Posted by: Flatbush Joe at March 12, 2013 11:34 AM (ZPrif)
Posted by: small town girl at March 12, 2013 11:34 AM (K5Csv)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:34 AM (dZQh7)
The more important question is, as Jamie Escalante said in Stand & Deliver: Why?
Why is our public education system so screwed up?
Because the screwup is deliberate. An educated, informed populace capable of reasoning and critical thinking is difficult to manipulate.
Because indoctrination can be disguised as education.
Because educators, like everyone else, pursue their own self-interests. Those aren't their children.
Because parents are too tired or too lazy to take an active role in their child's education.
Because teaching is the most overrated profession in our society. Pick a literate non-felon adult at random off the street, hand him or her a syllabus copied from a 1950's teacher's guide, and put that random adult in a classroom to teach reading for six weeks at elementary or middle school level. I'm betting that random pick will achieve results from students as good as Ms. Becklesworth with her Masters degree, lifelong tenure, and gold-plated pension.
Posted by: troyriser at March 12, 2013 11:34 AM (vtiE6)
I guess I was kinda retarded.
Posted by: Jeanne of the North at March 12, 2013 11:35 AM (MYl9+)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 11:35 AM (xAtAj)
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 11:35 AM (7QZ6R)
And that's really a watered-down perversion of Christianity. Funny dat.
Save it for church.
Sorry, but no, that's not a watered-down version of Christianity.
That's the hyped-up pap of a Helicopter Parent, and it's being foisted on the entire society. When an arificial sense of self-esteem is promoted instead of knowledge, we have incidents such the one in this post. The obvious flaw in this "thinking" prevents true learning and gives us the type of society we have today: Idiocracy.
There is nothing wrong with correcting a student when a mistake is made, yet the modern education system seems to think there is. It's an immature, emotional overreaction and says much more about the people who inhabit that system than anything else.
It's no coincidence that Little Billy Ayers went into "education."
Posted by: BackwardsBoy, who did not vote for this shit at March 12, 2013 11:35 AM (+z4pE)
What do you call someone who uses children to extort money?
Let's call them what they are...Thugs.
Teachers have become Union Thugs.
Why do you never see teachers marching in the streets, on strike, in the Summer when school is not in session?
Answer: Because they can inflict maximum pain with their extortion, when school is in session.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 11:35 AM (2xMNt)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 11:36 AM (nUH8H)
Posted by: SnowSoul at March 12, 2013 11:36 AM (qJlNG)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 11:36 AM (xAtAj)
X = X + 0
X = X- 0
X = X * 1
X = X/ 1
X/X isn't always 1 ? .. or is it ?
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 03:32 PM (7QZ6R)
I was told there would be no math on this blog!
Posted by: EC at March 12, 2013 11:36 AM (GQ8sn)
Speak for yourself. I have one graduating as a Chemical Engineer in 3 months.
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 11:36 AM (7QZ6R)
Posted by: Iblis at March 12, 2013 11:37 AM (9221z)
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 11:37 AM (Dnbau)
Posted by: Ook? at March 12, 2013 11:37 AM (OQpzc)
My dad told me he would buy me a BB gun if I got into the next group.
So I did.
My dad told me he would buy me a pellet pistol if I got into the highest group.
So I did.
The moral of the story is that guns are a civilizing influence on young boys.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 11:37 AM (3Mkrp)
>>We had no idea she could read. Taught herself.
I turned on Closed Captioning on the TV was the oldest was 4. For two of the kids, that really got them going.
Posted by: Mama AJ at March 12, 2013 11:37 AM (SUKHu)
but still pretty good at some things can draw any kind of cat really good and
but the teachers total dicks about cant eat in youre desk accept at lunch time
other rules but still hey do you idiots could teach like thitry or foutry kid in
one class probally not lol so give a brake even if you get a hole summer to
summer vacatoin its still way hard job than you probally got
Posted by: Jose Canseco's Gristle Encased Head at March 12, 2013 11:37 AM (+lsX1)
Posted by: beach at March 12, 2013 11:37 AM (XYSwB)
Posted by: BumperStickerist at March 12, 2013 11:38 AM (9P+hO)
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 03:32 PM (7QZ6R)
Only if you're dealing in absolute values. (Negativity can suck it though.)
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 11:38 AM (b3IgE)
Two can be as bad as one, it's the loneliest number since the number one.
Yeah.
Posted by: eleven at March 12, 2013 11:38 AM (KXm42)
My two kids are both very smart IQ-wise. But they are night and day when it comes to reading and writing. My son was taught to read and write in a great preschool and a wonderful neighborhood elementary school with old-school kindergarten teachers, small classes, and rigorous teaching methods all the way through fifth grade. He's been two or three grades above grade level ever since. Very little problem learning spelling and grammar. Always is complimented on his speaking ability, vocabulary, etc. Got a 35 on his English ACT (36 is a perfect score). Writes poetry and now songs that are complex and beautiful. I'm sure he could write a novel if he wanted to.
We moved to PA when my daughter finished first grade. She had the same kindergarten teacher my son had, but not a very strong preschool (the preschool my son attended lost its director and went downhill rapidly) We moved into what was considered the best school district in the area, and her elementary school had the highest state test scores in the region. But to my dismay, the school simply did not emphasize spelling or grammar at all. She was a good reader and still is, but her spelling is poor and her grammar is atrocious. I have been constantly stunned to read papers she writes and then she gets them back with As. By the time she was in 9th garde she was in Honors English and her teacher flat out told me they stopped grading spelling and grammar at that stage. I said, what else do you grade in an English class?? Last summer I put her into a summer program which she violently protested, just to get her basic grammar and spelling skills up to what I considered an honors 10th grade level.
So I have had to get remedial English education for a very smart daughter who is in honors classes in one of the top school districts in Pennsylvania, a state that supposedly takes education seriously and has supposedly tough standards. I can only imagine what is happening to the average kids in average schools. I'm guessing they are graduating being barely able to read and write.
Posted by: rockmom at March 12, 2013 11:39 AM (NYnoe)
Posted by: 40 year old Wisdom from Nora's Dad at March 12, 2013 11:39 AM (RGgMp)
I have my own story similar to the one in the article. I was reading very well before Kindergarten. My Mom had a chat with the teacher before I started classes to let her know that fact. The teacher, rather than being happy with my Mom's efforts was upset. I had spoiled the teacher's plans for the correct way to teach me to read.
She got her revenge though, I got a C for not knowing how to "skip" properly. That's right, not knowing the little jumping foot shuffle actually showed up on my report card.
Posted by: bonhomme at March 12, 2013 11:39 AM (ctuWC)
Whole language teaching is treason. Only an enemy would do it to a child. Or liberal educators. But I repeat myself.
Its typical of leftist thinking to take a method that worked (phonics teaching) and junk it for a new theoretical method that promised to do away with 'rules' and 'hard work.'
Posted by: Emperor of Icecream at March 12, 2013 11:39 AM (ZMzpb)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:39 AM (dZQh7)
As I've said numerous time before, teaching is a talent. The ability to transfer knowledge to another isn't something that can be learned.
Just as with singing, it doesn't matter how many lessons you take or degrees that you hold. If you can't sing, you can't sing. Same with teaching. No one knows why some people can recognize the spark of understanding in another and navigate through the maze of learning. Some do it instinctively and those are the ones that should be teaching.
Until we go to a strict voucher system, bulldozing existing schools and leaving everyone to the their own devices so that true talent rises to the surface, we will be stuck in this fallicy world of allowing people trained to teach fuck up our youth.
Posted by: jwest at March 12, 2013 11:39 AM (u2a4R)
So, what does the establishment do? Ignore the phonetic aspect of the phonetic alphabet, and instead choose to treat words like ideograms.
At least ideographic languages are, at their root, pictures that can be learned and decyphered. Our alphabetic-turned-ideographic words are purely abstract: you have to memorize them, literally without rhyme or reason.
Of course whole word makes sense for one subpopulation: the deaf. If you're deaf from birth, then phonics isn't going to do much for you; so the whole-word approach makes sense. But for the love of God, to treat *every* child as if he or she were deaf! What kind of lunacy is this?
Posted by: Brown Line at March 12, 2013 11:40 AM (VrNoa)
Posted by: Whatev at March 12, 2013 11:40 AM (A7Wh1)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 11:40 AM (xAtAj)
PDF version here.
http://tinyurl.com/y4jskof
Posted by: Warden at March 12, 2013 11:40 AM (HzhBE)
Good lord 90% of that schooling was boring as hell.
I never, ever had homework in K-12 except a history paper on a subject I was really interested (no thanks to teacher) and senior English ('cause the teacher was expected reading and writing. A lot. In an English class. I know, right?)
Posted by: RoyalOil at March 12, 2013 11:41 AM (VjL9S)
Posted by: Emperor of Icecream at March 12, 2013 11:41 AM (ZMzpb)
Posted by: nerdygirl at March 12, 2013 11:41 AM (ihUCh)
Posted by: Flatbush Joe at March 12, 2013 11:41 AM (ZPrif)
Posted by: gm at March 12, 2013 11:41 AM (/kBoL)
Posted by: rickl at March 12, 2013 11:42 AM (zoehZ)
Posted by: beach at March 12, 2013 11:42 AM (XYSwB)
164 -
Hospitals exist to employ doctors and nurses. That is all. Not to heal.
Sewers exist to employ plumbers. That is all. Not to move sh*t.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 11:43 AM (TOk1P)
when he was in fourth grade, my son accidentally corrected his teacher in front of the class. She never forgave him for it. Made his life hell. Tore up his home work in front of the class. He is in private school now. All my kids are.
Public schools are an employment program for union teachers. That is all.
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 11:43 AM (Dnbau)
Posted by: Thorvald at March 12, 2013 11:43 AM (1V6Pv)
Or the teacher is so busy trying to keep the gang members separated and trying to get the ESL kids to read at a 5th grade level and their administrator is on their back for "poor classroom management" they can't focus on other things.
Posted by: bonhomme at March 12, 2013 11:43 AM (ctuWC)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 11:43 AM (xAtAj)
Posted by: Nevergiveup at March 12, 2013 11:43 AM (9Bj8R)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:43 AM (dZQh7)
Posted by: kalel666 at March 12, 2013 11:44 AM (gSqI7)
Teach them to be employees---Teaching them Stuff is secondary
if you get a good school and they have an 'advanced placement' or I.B. program, an above-average student can get an above-average education. Nease High School in St Johns County ( where home-schooled Tim Tebow played football ) is an example
Posted by: Jerry Jack in Jacksonville at March 12, 2013 11:44 AM (Dll6b)
This would be the main thing that sets American education apart from Europe and Asia. You want to play sports there, you do it outside of school. Kind of like the kids with hobbies that are not sports are forced to do. Ho-hum.
Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at March 12, 2013 11:44 AM (/kI1Q)
Ack,
I misread the statement. Ironically algebra was never my strong suite.
Seriously, calculus I rock better than my physicist wife. Simple algebra, yeah totally mess that shit up.
Yeah x/x should always equal 1 for all real non 0 numbers.
IIRC There's one identity which fails for negative numbers due to some weird fluke, but honestly I forget what it is.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 11:44 AM (b3IgE)
Posted by: JohnW at March 12, 2013 11:45 AM (RNXo+)
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 11:45 AM (1q3PD)
Posted by: jd at March 12, 2013 11:45 AM (MXyBs)
Posted by: Truck Monkey at March 12, 2013 11:45 AM (jucos)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 11:45 AM (xAtAj)
Posted by: gm at March 12, 2013 11:46 AM (/kBoL)
The rest are clock watchers waiting for early retirement who bitch about everyone else's pay, because you know ... TEACHERS
Posted by: kbdabear at March 12, 2013 11:47 AM (mCvL4)
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at March 12, 2013 11:47 AM (QF8uk)
I loved our town library. I love books. It was in the library where I got my first feel of cooter in the darkest corner behind the land-lease and contract ledgers.
Gotta love the Dewey Decimal System.
Posted by: Lurking Canuck at March 12, 2013 11:47 AM (BrQrN)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (wR+pz)
Posted by: Trimegistus at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (p7Am8)
If you compare test scores of Asians and Euros to White Americans, they're essentially the same
it's only when non-White students are included that 'Americans' do worse than dozens of other countries
Posted by: Jerry Jack in Jacksonville at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (Dll6b)
Posted by: kbdabear at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (mCvL4)
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (Dnbau)
Posted by: RWC at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (fWAjv)
Posted by: gm at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (/kBoL)
>>>So I did.
Heh. Similar experience, updated for the late 1980s: in 4th grade we had these vocabulary/language workbooks called "Wordly Wise." You'd go through a "lesson" per week. My mom and dad told me if I finished the book they'd buy me a NES game I'd been wanting badly (Dragon Warrior, IIRC).
I not only finished that book within a week (and got the game), I got so into learning new vocabulary words I finished the next seven books in the series by the end of two months. All the way up to college level.
Basically I built the entire foundation of my vocabulary and grammar abilities right there, in fourth grade...'cuz I wanted to play a stupid Nintendo RPG. Here's to incentives!
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (bcLhD)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (nUH8H)
Ace,
Just yesterday you told us you mostly copy/paste links. This post is irrefutable evidence that you bring logic and common sense into a political world sorely lacking both.
Sincerely, thanks for doing that. Second that. Even though I'm not a porn-addicted stormtrooper for the Sex Rev., its posts like this that keep me coming back. And the funny posts. And the complete disregard for basic civility. But also posts like this.
Posted by: Emperor of Icecream at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (ZMzpb)
I taught 4th grade in the public schools for 13 years. This "whole language" garbage was being forced into our district like it was a religion, and every year, my 4th graders were less and less prepared for the rigors of my classroom. You hit it right on the head, Ace. They would do these seminars for parents and teachers where their demonstrations seemed to make sense because of the fect that all the adults in the room already knew how to read.
The subject of Spelling was removed from our district. With spellcheck on computers, we were told that proper grammer and spelling was no longer a critical part of elementary education.
They started a Math Program in our district called Everyday Math that used the same principles. No more memorization of facts or processes of calculation. It was all about using blocks and straws and calculators to do math. In fourth grade.
Don't even ask about Social Studies.
I could not do this in good conscience. I went into teaching to make a difference. But, what we were doing was malpractice.
So in 2001, I retired. Bought into a franchise restaurant concept. Now I am making $450,000 a year.
Fuck it.
Posted by: Kansas Gman at March 12, 2013 11:48 AM (u4a/I)
Posted by: ace at March 12, 2013 11:49 AM (LCRYB)
When my mother brought me in, she informed the teacher who gently scoffed at the idea- he suggested that no, sometimes kids just memorize words which gives the illusion that they can read.
The very idea was foreign to me- I learned by sounding out words. He shut the fuck up about his little theory after handing me a kids book and hearing me read it aloud.
Posted by: Hollowpoint at March 12, 2013 11:49 AM (SY2Kh)
Posted by: Ryan Frank at March 12, 2013 11:49 AM (n23q3)
I went to school in Louisiana. I'm lucky I can tie my shoes. I keed.
Anyone else remember the monthly order form for paperback books when you were in grade school? It was like Christmas when your books were delivered.
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 11:49 AM (m2CN7)
Shoulda just gotten the scrip and copped them for yourself. That stuff is frankly awesome. Smart pills, and I feel dirty saying it.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 11:49 AM (bcLhD)
Yeah I don't have kids yet, but I'm already worried about this shit.
The wife is pretty dead set on public schooling. She says it's because "we pay for it, we need to use it." but I think it's because she's a little jealous that she got shafted with a public school, and "elitism" or something.
(Interestingly, my parents opted for private schools even though we lived in one of the best school districts in the state. Except for the first few years for my brother. He had a pretty clear speech issue, so he spent a few years in public school programs the private school didn't offer, until he "got over that" (i.e. caught up.) Then off to private school, even going to the local high academic high school.
In any case, as much as I hate to say it, my only hope would be complete implosion of the local school. That would likely effect my wife's choices.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 11:49 AM (b3IgE)
Posted by: NCKate at March 12, 2013 11:50 AM (n7zrG)
Posted by: vote Lord Humungus 2016 at March 12, 2013 11:50 AM (HEa5q)
BumperStickerist
Part of my problem is the ex, a teacher herself, could not see the forest for the trees. Our kid has behavioral issues, he is "on the spectrum" as they say. She would not admit to it and I have countless emails from her to school officials where she is ripping them to shreds right before she asks for special treatment, like a placement in the school of her choice. How to win friends and influence people. It took way, way, way too long to get her to have our kid properly evaluated and then once that happened, she needed to switch her story with the district from "the problem is he is just way smarter than the teachers", to now, he has been diagnosed with X,Y and Z.
Her and one of his teachers basically lied and tricked the district into doing what it should have been doing for years, providing an IA. They would have provided one a long time ago if in fact she had not resisted the evaluation.
So as of now, he is where he should be getting the services he needs. 2 years ago, I had zero hope he would end up any place but some sort of reform school or worse. The sad thing was he is so damn smart that he could do whatever he wanted, write his own ticket. Now, not sure what may happen just yet but there is at least the chance for a future.
Posted by: AndrewsDad at March 12, 2013 11:50 AM (C2//T)
Try this experiment some time. Get in a room with at least a few people and ask them if they can name 5 kinds of dinosaurs, but not to say the names out loud. For those that can't find out how many of them can picture 5 kinds of dinosaurs in their minds if you name them. My experience is about 60-70% of people can name 5, and if I name 5 about 90% can picture them in their heads.
Now, find out how many people can name the first 5 assumptions of the law of supply and demand. If the number is very far from zero I will be very surprised.
OK. Great. Why does this matter? Because unless you are an archeologist, paleontologist, museum curator, or working on a Jurassic Park movie, dinosaurs have not been relevant for 65 million years. On the other hand, unless the subject is a hermit, supply/demand is relevant to every single day of every human on planet earth.
Sadly, we are all educated in many irrelevant things and never the most relevant thing of all.
Something to ponder -- how many of our political issues are our legitimate (not nanny-state BS) political issues because one or more of the first 5 assumptions of the law of supply/demand does not apply well to that particular situation? [e.g. there is not much that is substitutable when the subject is health care.]
Follow up question -- if those legitimate political issues are due to a problem with one or more of the first 5 assumptions -- how likely are we to solve that issue (or properly handle the issue if it is realistically unsolvable) if we don't even understand the source of the problem in the first place?
[e.g. -- does anyone actually believe that any of the drafters of Obamacare, or any of the follow up regulations has the slightest clue how the problem is related to scarcity, poor or nonexistent substitutability, etc.? And yet, they don't have the slightest doubt that they know how to solve the problem even though they don't understand it.]
Seem obscure? I am truly sorry. I am also convinced that what is written above lies at the heart of the majority of the comments on this site every day. Conservatives tend to understand the law of S/D, maybe just intuitively, but they get it. Other people do not. And because as a nation we are so poorly educated in it in even the slightest way -- conservatives find themselves unable to reach many people using normal methods of communication. In short, it is just like shouting at a stone wall as if it is supposed to care.
Posted by: jc at March 12, 2013 11:51 AM (i8c5b)
If you look at your nearest university, and find out which group of entering freshmen have the lowest grades and lowest test scores, they are the ones who are queued up to receive degrees in education. Who will go on to become teachers.
How in the world would anyone expect the best to come of a system run by the worst?
Posted by: torquewrench at March 12, 2013 11:51 AM (gqT4g)
Posted by: Buzzsaw at March 12, 2013 11:52 AM (wrS2o)
229 -
Wish I'd thought of that, but oddly enough, when my kids needed medical care I took them to a doctor, not the school nurse and teacher.
Oh well...
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 11:52 AM (TOk1P)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:52 AM (dZQh7)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 11:52 AM (wR+pz)
Posted by: Ron at March 12, 2013 11:52 AM (oRxcF)
Posted by: 40 year old Wisdom from Nora's Dad at March 12, 2013 11:52 AM (RGgMp)
One of my cats ate some chili last night. Let me know where to send her present.
Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at March 12, 2013 11:52 AM (/kI1Q)
Ask if it'll show up in her licensing board under "punishments" (or "board actions" or whatnot.)
If so, it might actually be fair (that's 5 years of pain she'll be going through for every new job!)
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 11:53 AM (b3IgE)
>>After the third grade IQ test, I didn't have ANY more shit and they moved me up to fifth grade.
I always did very very well on standardized test, but the Hispanic last name trumped that for my schools.
Assholes.
I may need to get over it.
Nah...
Posted by: Mama AJ at March 12, 2013 11:53 AM (SUKHu)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:54 AM (dZQh7)
Posted by: ace at March 12, 2013 11:54 AM (LCRYB)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 11:54 AM (bxiXv)
It's not. 107 IQ would be about average in the general population.
That's her point, they were using a scale that made "average" the 100th percentile. Their going in position was, "I'm giving the kid this test because I already know he's retarded, so my job is to find out exactly how retarded he is."
When you assume before you've even administered a test that your subject is sub-standard, then you are the one who is actually sub-standard.
Posted by: Sean Bannion at March 12, 2013 11:54 AM (sbV1u)
When I was 4, I used to walk three miles to my school whether it was snowing or raining , while holding an umbrella so the book I was reading would not get wet. I just wished War and Peace was not such a thick, heavy book.
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 11:55 AM (m2CN7)
Posted by: Lauren at March 12, 2013 11:55 AM (wsGWu)
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 03:49 PM (m2CN7)
Good stuff.
"Scholastic Books?"
Do you remember?
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 11:55 AM (3Mkrp)
Posted by: backhoe at March 12, 2013 11:55 AM (ULH4o)
My wife and I weren't blessed with children, but we were absolutely determined to avoid the public schools at all costs. It wouldn't have mattered if we ended up in a trailer, a tent, or a refrigerator box through the loss of an income for homeschooling or the expense of a private education. Public education has become child abuse and we absolutely would not have let that happen.
Folks who make the sacrifices to give the finger to government education have my undying admiration.
Posted by: Jaws at March 12, 2013 11:55 AM (4I3Uo)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 11:55 AM (wR+pz)
Posted by: Nevergiveup at March 12, 2013 11:55 AM (9Bj8R)
Lots of people don't know this, apparently, but the reason Catholic school sprung up all around the country is because Catholic parents decided their kids were being ill served in public schools that were more like Protestant schools in those days.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 11:56 AM (TOk1P)
Posted by: gm at March 12, 2013 11:56 AM (/kBoL)
Obama Trying to Deport Homeschooling Family
http://wizbangblog.com/2013/03/12/51084/
Posted by: kbdabear at March 12, 2013 11:56 AM (mCvL4)
Posted by: vote Lord Humungus 2016 at March 12, 2013 03:50 PM (HEa5q)\
Not just "inner city" schools. Our schools do that here too and its "free" for low income children. They even do it in the Summer.
I wanted to go down and ask them why I pay taxes for Food Stamps if they were feeding all the little bastards at the schools.
Posted by: Vic at March 12, 2013 11:57 AM (53z96)
In the 6th grade, my parents decided "we understand him fine, he's going in regular classes"... and I get put into "reading" which is what speech therapy had replaced... then I got pulled from class in a month for my IQ test that they give students in my district "every 3 years".
This was my FIRST ONE. They didn't bother before that, as clearly I was deficient and there was no point in testing me. I'd never seen this test, I didn't know what I was doing. I scored somewhere in the 130's anyhow.
So I got moved from speech therapy, to reading class (which I'd missed for 6 years for speech therapy) for a month, to the gifted program (which again replaced reading) based on my IQ test.
Then in 7th grade they wanted to skip me ahead a grade.
They basically don't know what the heck they're doing; they're guessing but can't admit that... and they're not clever enough to know they're wrong most of the time on their guesses.
And no, I didn't skip a grade... my dad skipped two grades and didn't think it was preferable from a development/social viewpoint.
Posted by: gekkobear at March 12, 2013 11:57 AM (X0NX1)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:57 AM (dZQh7)
my hubby was all pro public schools. His mother is a retired public school teacher. His BIL and sister are public school teachers and confirmed commies. Before we had kids he was totally committed to giving them a public school education.
Then we had kids. One gifted, one neurotypical, one spectrum. They are all in private school now. Life has a way of trumping one's preconceived ideas
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 11:57 AM (Dnbau)
Posted by: ace at March 12, 2013 03:54 PM (LCRYB)
You speak of abduction.
I'd argue abduction is real, however it's the result of lots and lots of training in the particular skill you're talking about.
The famous example is probably the carpenter. He can tell you the joint isn't square by looking it. He can't tell you why (but when you measure he's right) he just knows it based on experience.
That's exactly who you want building your table. Ironically not who you want teaching the next generation of table builders.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 11:57 AM (b3IgE)
#196 I wanted to send my kids to private school but my liberal husband was a teacher a for couple of years and would not stand for it. So we moved into the best school district we could find and are paying as much in property taxes as we would have for tuition in a cheaper neighborhood.
Posted by: rockmom at March 12, 2013 11:57 AM (NYnoe)
Well, that bon mot right there will sure upset some Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines.
Posted by: Sean Bannion at March 12, 2013 11:58 AM (sbV1u)
>>Rote memorization is still very useful to function - especially at the low end, which is what we are discussing. But even in the high end, knowing your times tables is useful. In my daughter's 3rd grade class there are many smart kids who don't know their times tables because no one is pushing to memorize them. That is not good. We do creative well in America, but you need a solid base too.
From The Well Trained Mind dot com:
>>Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This classical pattern is called the trivium.
I don't necessarily agree with all of it, just putting it out there.
Posted by: Mama AJ at March 12, 2013 11:58 AM (SUKHu)
Lovin' the humblebrag.
In high school I was the kid ostentatiously walking around with copies of Rush Limbaugh's books, just DARING people to give me shit about it. Oddly enough, even though everyone else was liberal (well, to the extent that that could be at that age...they weren't weirdly intense about politics like me), I got some strange respect for it. Like, "get a load of the balls on this kid, he really doesn't give a shit about being seen lugging around right-wing propaganda!"
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 11:58 AM (bcLhD)
'Teacher Expectations'
Ever heard of this?
'A child can be heavily affected by Teacher Expectations.'
This was a meme back in the 70's, before the Dept of Education was created.
Some researchers decided to test this theory...
They took some A-students, and some F-students in the 4th grade...and switched their grades during the summer.
The following year, the teachers who had these students didn't know that the F-students were in fact, A-students.
Same with the A-students, whose records showed them to be F-students.
The A-students who were thought to be F-students...did poorly.
The F-students who were thought to be A-students...started making A's and B's.
The teachers expected the A-students to do poorly...and they did.
The teachers expected the F-students to do well...and they did.
This has now morphed into the teachers today expecting their students to be dumbed-down little drones...and so they are.
Thanks to Federal control of our schools, under the Dept of Ed.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 11:58 AM (2xMNt)
Just thinking about the kids from my high school who became teachers makes me physically sick.
Posted by: Zippity Doo Dah at March 12, 2013 11:58 AM (E55AK)
What can make the product of the Education Establishment even worse? Add politicians.
The 'teaching to the test' that has occurred under No Child Left Behind is about to go into overdrive as states NOW must adopt Common Core Standards. EVERYTHING schools do now is aimed at "closing the gap" among groups of students. Everything rides on that. "Gifted students"...? You bring no money, no recognition from Policymakers and Politicians. Get lost.
You want to help? The next time a candidate for federal office says "Here is my education platform" tell them to kindly shut the fuck up.
Posted by: CJ at March 12, 2013 11:58 AM (9KqcB)
What a great quote - I plan to use it often when debating the merits of public education with friend and foe.
Posted by: profligatewaste at March 12, 2013 11:59 AM (uyl03)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 11:59 AM (nUH8H)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 11:59 AM (dZQh7)
Posted by: gm at March 12, 2013 03:46 PM (/kBoL)
-----------------------------------------------
I don't agree. Kids need structure. They need (and want) someone to tell them how to do things, especially in their formative years.
Homework gave me self discipline. I had to do it or the consequences weren't happy. A good life lesson. It also taught me how to prioritize. Part of my good work ethic came from that.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 11:59 AM (1q3PD)
Posted by: rockmom at March 12, 2013 03:57 PM (NYnoe)
Soon that will not be possible. Thanks to the NAACP and the courts all schools must be equally funded now and they are "fixing" it all over the country.
Posted by: Vic at March 12, 2013 12:00 PM (53z96)
Posted by: Nevergiveup at March 12, 2013 12:00 PM (9Bj8R)
Posted by: joeindc44 wonders if anyone has any advice for the GOP at March 12, 2013 12:00 PM (QxSug)
Posted by: EC at March 12, 2013 12:00 PM (GQ8sn)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile at March 12, 2013 03:54 PM (bxiXv)
Don't tell her I said this, but so far her "full stop objections" have dissolved in the face of reality. I suspect this one will as well.
Although as Maet (or was it CDR, anyway) in the ONT said, sometimes cost is a prevailing factor.
When it's time we'll see what reality has in store for us. (I'm hoping by then it's school vouchers, go go Republican veto proof majority in the state house/senate! DO IT!.)
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:01 PM (b3IgE)
But if they do math exercises during the school day, there's no time for sports, Earth-worship, sexual techniques, involuntary "volunteerism", obesity lectures, etc, etc.
Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at March 12, 2013 12:01 PM (/kI1Q)
"Akeelah and the Bee" (2006)Posted by: Thorvald at March 12, 2013 12:01 PM (1V6Pv)
>>>Ever heard of this?
Ennnh. I can see how this might possibly work in 'soft' classes where grading is more subjective (though even then the difference between a subliterate English paper and a well-thought-out, well-argued one is pretty impossible to miss, whatever your preconceptions). But I literally don't understand how it could be possible in math or science classes. You either have the right answers or you don't.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 12:02 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: ace at March 12, 2013 12:02 PM (LCRYB)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 12:02 PM (dZQh7)
Skip the middle man, file the complaint with the state nursing board and tell them the school won't inform you if she's a licensed nurse. Let them sort it out.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:02 PM (b3IgE)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 12:02 PM (xAtAj)
Posted by: Nevergiveup at March 12, 2013 12:03 PM (9Bj8R)
Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at March 12, 2013 12:03 PM (e0xKF)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 12:04 PM (wR+pz)
Have you ever pointed out to her that your knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing conservative ass has a better grasp on reality than her enlightened liberal self?
Jus' askin'
Posted by: Sean Bannion at March 12, 2013 12:04 PM (sbV1u)
Good luck with "judgment/judgement" then!
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 12:04 PM (bcLhD)
In Washington State, students get scores of "1" through "4" on federally-mandated tests ("1" is the top score, "2" means "meets standards"). Schools DON'T CARE about the students who earn "1s" and they only care about the "2s" to the extent of making sure they don't fall into the "3" category. The ed reform movement has resulted in a total focus on having every kid meet standards.
Virtually every staff meeting and every "action plan" is motivated towards moving the "3s and 4s" up (my lip curls at the sound of that phrase). Over the last ten years of my 37-year career, NOT ONE administrator ever expressed interest in challenging capable students.
The district administration played lip-service to its "highly-capable" program, but it was a public relations charade. All the pressure on the teaching staff was to lower standards so that students got good grades (We got notices if our students' grades were too low).
Given that environment, it's easy to see why schools are being dumbed down. Please don't make a blanket condemnation of teachers; there are still lots of them battling the bureaucracy. It's pretty lonely for them, though, especially reading comment boards like this.
Posted by: Jim Flimsey at March 12, 2013 12:04 PM (T9V22)
So it was me, the slow but nice 6th grade girl, a kid from Africa who only spoke French, and a boy who had to wear a helmet due to his daily seizures in the retard math class. My parents didn't even know about this until Christmas when the teacher was puzzled how a 'special' child like me had scored so high on the math achievement test. By then it was too late to get me switched back. So my parents pulled out the financial stops to put me into a private school for the next few years.
Of course the irony is that I later went on to major in mathematics (among others areas) in college, got a masters in math, and even started working on my Ph.D. dissertation in math before switching to the dark side....electrical engineering.
Posted by: Mætenloch at March 12, 2013 12:04 PM (pAlYe)
Do you remember?
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 03:55 PM (3Mkrp)
It was a paper booklet with short descriptions of the books and then a check list page with prices where you checked the box of the book you wanted. Again it was Louisiana so it may have been Coonass Books but Scholastic Books does ring a bell.
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 12:04 PM (m2CN7)
278 -
Same here. You couldn't walk through the parking lot without getting high.
And I went to a Catholic high school.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 12:04 PM (TOk1P)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 12:05 PM (dZQh7)
There was one in my band who could barely count 8 measures of rest who now teaches for the Omaha Public Schools. I blame UNI for admitting her in the first place.
Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at March 12, 2013 12:06 PM (/kI1Q)
Posted by: Mætenloch at March 12, 2013 04:04 PM (pAlYe)
Sounds like an episode of Malcom In The Middle where Dewey was put in the 'slow' class. Classic episode.
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 12:07 PM (m2CN7)
Posted by: Berserker at March 12, 2013 12:07 PM (FMbng)
294 -
I've given up on that one. I got tired of seeing the green/red squiggly line whenever I omitted the 'e.'
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 12:07 PM (TOk1P)
Was all ready and raring to go into the Alternate Explanation for Whole Word Teaching in the middle of reading Ace's post, but Ace very kindly wrote it up instead. I learned to read very early, this way, from TV commercials my mom says and to my parents' great amusement, kept trying in vain to teach my younger sister the same way by carting her around to text (on soup cans, our Coleman cooler, etc) and reading the word(s) for her.
Never understood the concept of phonics till I was a teenager, btw. I found it frustrating because there were so many exceptions to the rules. "Why don't they just learn the words?"
I'm sure other people have this alternate type way of learning about math, or science, or whatever. Just a different way of learning and it's too bad teachers don't take the trouble (OK I guess some don't have the time) to learn which way would work best for a particular child.
Posted by: no one of consequence at March 12, 2013 12:07 PM (whMsz)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 12:07 PM (wR+pz)
#244 OMG Everyday Math AAAIIIEEEE!!!!!
They tried that shit in my son's school for a year. Parents and students went crazy. My son was terrible at counting money and understanding it, and could not do half the lessons. Great principal dropped it immediately. When we moved the school was using it, and I refused to put my son into a regular 6th grade math class. They did not want to put him in pre-Algebra because he had not taken the Pennsylvania test. I yelled and screamed and said look, just put him in pre-Algebra and if he flunks I will let you send him back to regular math. Of course he got straight As.
Posted by: rockmom at March 12, 2013 12:08 PM (NYnoe)
Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Now with extra taunting. at March 12, 2013 12:08 PM (VtjlW)
285 >>>'Teacher Expectations'
>>>Ever heard of this?
Ennnh. I can see how this might possibly work in 'soft' classes where grading is more subjective...
----------
It was back in the 70's, JeffB.
So it pre-dates your experience of what it was like in public schools.
Back then, grade-school teachers would give kids personal attention, if it seemed like they needed it, in order to learn the material.
There was only One Teacher per classroom, and those teachers got to know their kids pretty well...and actually took pride in it.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 12:08 PM (2xMNt)
Posted by: Nevergiveup at March 12, 2013 12:09 PM (9Bj8R)
Sucks when conservatives get sucked into the game of Blame the Schools. The schools are fine. The "crisis in education" began when families began breaking apart.
Every year, more children arrive at school unprepared to learn than the previous year. Every year, there are fewer parents in the home than the previous year. That's the problem that no one wants to talk about. So liberals scream More Money! and conservatives scream Vouchers!
It all does nothing but avoid a problem that seems to daunting to tackle.
Posted by: CJ at March 12, 2013 12:09 PM (9KqcB)
Posted by: Thorvald at March 12, 2013 12:09 PM (1V6Pv)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 12:09 PM (dZQh7)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:09 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 12:09 PM (xAtAj)
I read both the article and the comments with a great deal of interest and a bit of amusement. My guess is that virtually none of the writers began their education in the immediate post WWII era. Reading was taught by teaching us to read words. Initially it was in short sentences. The sentences grew longer and the words more complex. Prefixes and suffixes were added to the words as time progressed. We all learned to read quite well.
Only knowing whole words worked well for me. I remember well as a very young child accompanying my father to a Central Hardware store in St Louis. There I saw a door with two words across it that I recognized. One was “off” the other “ice”. I puzzled over that for a while and then expressed my quandary to a clerk. It was then I learned the spelling of a word I understood. “OFFICE”
Phonics and phonetics seemed quite odd to me when I first became aware of them as teaching tools. But I understand that they became the norm. Now there seems to be some serious resistance to retuning to a teaching method that seemed to work well for a long, long time.
I am not so sure about teaching people to read using Phonics or phonetics. I notice that on the rare occasion when I get something in writing from most recent high school graduates that there seems to be a problem. The language and sentence structure seem to be deficient.
These are just my personal reactions to the article, the comments and life in general.
Posted by: Allan Yackey at March 12, 2013 12:09 PM (Cgrh4)
Posted by: madamex at March 12, 2013 12:10 PM (+kvQd)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 12:10 PM (wR+pz)
Posted by: BlueStateRebel at March 12, 2013 12:10 PM (7ObY1)
A lot of systems I've been exposed to do this, but also have provisos that kids can only be held back a grade once if they fail, then "everyone" is surprised when high school kids, who literally haven't passed a thing since 2nd or 3rd grade, are reading on a 2nd grade level and can't read the college reading level textbook you've given them and they keep failing.
Posted by: Ranba Ral at March 12, 2013 12:11 PM (G99e4)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 12:11 PM (dZQh7)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 12:11 PM (xAtAj)
As opposed to an "F" for plagiarizing?
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 12:12 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:12 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 12:13 PM (Dnbau)
Posted by: KristenS at March 12, 2013 12:13 PM (Z5Wwq)
Posted by: BlueStateRebel at March 12, 2013 12:13 PM (7ObY1)
Okay, morons, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There are a lot of exceptional teachers out there, and I have been blessed with the teachers of my grand children. The kids (1st, 9th, and 12th) are as smart as tacks are sharp.
The problem is the union enforced bad teachers. Unions perpetuate the bad teaching of our kids because they refuse to allow the dismissal of one of their dues paying members. So we end up with teachers sitting in a room 9 to 5 reading their favorite books, but fortunately, away from our kids. Perverts get suspended with pay. The whole thing needs to be revamped and reinstated without unions and with merit pay for the best teachers.
Posted by: TimothyJ at March 12, 2013 12:13 PM (J1D9e)
I turned on Closed Captioning on the TV was the oldest was 4. For two of the kids, that really got them going."
Interesting you say that! She was always turning it on herself. It would take me days to figure out how to turn it off. Thank goodness she's smarter than I.
Posted by: dfbaskwill at March 12, 2013 12:13 PM (71LDo)
310 -
Agreed. I never understood the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I send my kids to public school so they can follow a schedule, do the work, and occasionally learn things, but their real education tends to occur when they get home.
What they are learning now, I hope they can carry with them throughout their lives. If all I did was complain about the public school system, I'm not sure what good that would do for them.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 12:14 PM (TOk1P)
Posted by: alexthechick - SMOD. Now with extra taunting. at March 12, 2013 12:14 PM (VtjlW)
Posted by: Dwight Yokum, method actor and elementary school teacher at March 12, 2013 12:15 PM (qM5uD)
Posted by: Flatbush Joe at March 12, 2013 12:15 PM (ZPrif)
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 12:15 PM (dZQh7)
Posted by: MikeTheMoose DOOMCASTER! at March 12, 2013 12:15 PM (0q2P7)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:15 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: Nevergiveup at March 12, 2013 12:15 PM (9Bj8R)
as a very young child accompanying my father to a Central Hardware store in St Louis."
Was that store in Kirkwood?
Posted by: Tami[/i] at March 12, 2013 12:16 PM (X6akg)
So what's your plan to solve the parenting crisis? In the meantime,
Acknowledging it in the only way that matters. That means, not paying lip service and then rummaging through the box to find something else to work on. That's not aimed at you, but all of us. Vouchers just give us something else to talk about. It's clear everyone spends most time talking about the second-most important topics, and lower, than the one at the heart of the problem.
Added incentive: Conservative, limited government will never happen with the current rate of single parent homes. It requires too much government support.
Posted by: CJ at March 12, 2013 12:16 PM (9KqcB)
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 03:48 PM (bcLhD)
When I was 10/11, my dad offered me $40 to draw a map of any continent, correctly labeling national boundries, capitals and principle topographical stuff (rivers, mountains). This offer applied to each of the seven continents.
Me, genius, immediately submitted Antartica and Australia and pocketed an easy $80. Me, greedy, then had to suffer through post-USSR Europe and Asia before swinging over to the Americas.
Ask me how I know where Andorra is.
Posted by: Washington Nearsider at March 12, 2013 12:16 PM (fwARV)
That kinda mirrors my primary school experience. My teachers thought I was full of it when I read Sphere and wrote a book report on it in a weekend in 5th grade. I had read Jurassic Park the week before, but the movie was about to come out so they wouldn't let me do it in case I somehow got ahold of an advanced copy or something. Once they found out I wasn't joshing it, I was hounded about being in honors everything. I was average everything else, except math, which I was HORRIBLE at. I ended up not even hitting up the honors English/Lit classes because I had already read most of what they were doing and I abhorred those particular books.
Posted by: Ranba Ral at March 12, 2013 12:16 PM (G99e4)
Posted by: lilredhen at March 12, 2013 12:16 PM (AsF7r)
Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at March 12, 2013 12:16 PM (e0xKF)
Well, time to go stuff more knowledge into the heads of my own precious flowers.
Posted by: Mama AJ at March 12, 2013 12:16 PM (SUKHu)
Posted by: Nevergiveup at March 12, 2013 04:09 PM (9Bj8R)
Turnitin.com would have totally screwed them these days.
Speaking of something with no accountability, due to a weird schedule thing I ended up taking History part 2 my Junior year in college (rather than second semester sophomore year.)
Turns out that course is basically "how not to plagiarize 101"
Everything had to go through that turnitin.com site to check for plagiarism.
Here's the thing though, the paper topics are remarkably banal, and for shit I don't care about my writing style is remarkably generic. I was always afraid I was going to get dinged with a false positive just for lack of creativity (and random circumstance.)
I never did but my fears weren't entirely unfounded, in what I think was the same semester I turned in an English paper, and 2 days later the prof handed out some other paper (published somewhere) with basically word for word the same thesis I had. I had never seen this paper before that I remembered. Nothing ever happened (the published paper was more efficient at making the points which probably ruled out plagiarism in the prof's mind anyway.)
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:16 PM (b3IgE)
This laziness is endemic to a society of "me" more interested in themselves then offspring- only to the point they can harass and belittle teachers for their kids not getting into Ivy League schools or something.
Heck I don't even completely blame teachers. Most parents have no idea what their kids are being taught, don't ensure they do simple things like homework. They treat school like anything else they pay for and then don' receive proper value.
It's bullshit. School is hard work. It takes significant time from the student and parents. Parental guidance is a lost art to many people. Hence kids grow up dumber or as in this case don't get appropriate instruction- until people get involve and make the system accountable.
Kids today are growing up dumber than ever, they are serial cheaters, have high, unrealistic expectations, live false lives through social media and are destined to fail.
Posted by: Marcus at March 12, 2013 12:17 PM (GGCsk)
X/X isn't always 1 ? .. or is it ?
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 03:32 PM (7QZ6R)
Only if you're dealing in absolute values. (Negativity can suck it though.)
Only 0 / 0 is questionable.
Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at March 12, 2013 12:17 PM (7QZ6R)
Posted by: Flatbush Joe at March 12, 2013 12:17 PM (ZPrif)
Posted by: Colonel Pooteh at March 12, 2013 12:18 PM (hQImb)
Posted by: Ohiogal at March 12, 2013 12:18 PM (SAYgH)
I responded with "where are all these 'best' teachers hiding and how did we get stuck with the ones we have?"
Posted by: Lemmiwinks at March 12, 2013 12:18 PM (SkyIE)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 12:18 PM (nUH8H)
Posted by: dfbaskwill at March 12, 2013 12:19 PM (71LDo)
#295 The teachers are not always at fault, you are right. They are at the mercy of the education establishment that is constantly dumbing down the curriculum and instituting bullshit training courses and such. They cannot rock the boat or they can be fired or reassigned. Especially now, teachers are thrilled just to have a job and will do whatever it takes to keep it.
My kids have had some of the most incredible teachers in the world in public school, and some duds. My kids' kindergarten teacher still recognizes them, 15 years later and all grown up. My son's second grade teacher had them writing poetry and putting together books and poetry readings for the community. My daughter's sixth grade teacher is now a successful author.
Private schools also very often do not have great arts programs. If your kids are artistic, as mine are, that can be a big loss. We were blessed to have unbelievably great music and art teachers in all of my kids' schools.
Posted by: rockmom at March 12, 2013 12:19 PM (aBlZ1)
Did you learn that in a public school?
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile at March 12, 2013 04:09 PM (bxiXv)
____________________________________________
Generalizations bother you, do they?
I read Ace all the time and find the comments very entertaining and often informative. I am troubled by the chicken coop assaults I often see whenever anyone veers from the clan's conventional wisdom.
Posted by: Jim Flimsey at March 12, 2013 12:19 PM (T9V22)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 12:19 PM (GFM2b)
I feel for parents today. My mother and father never went to a single school meeting or PTA or whatever. I don't even know if they had any. They only had to be reactive. They signed the report card and if that didn't indicate any problems everything was good to go.
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 12:19 PM (m2CN7)
Posted by: RWC at March 12, 2013 12:20 PM (fWAjv)
Also, we don't have a spending problem.
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile at March 12, 2013 04:12 PM (bxiXv)
Ah. If only bumper stickers could solve our problems.
Look, if you take out the subgroups - poverty and minority students who traditionally struggle academically - US schools do just fine stacked against developed nations. Yes, there are problems and teachers unions need to be neutered like in Wis., but any problems with schools are simply a reflection of changes in the home.
Posted by: CJ at March 12, 2013 12:20 PM (9KqcB)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 12:21 PM (wR+pz)
Posted by: madamex at March 12, 2013 12:21 PM (+kvQd)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:21 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: Ray Van Dune at March 12, 2013 12:21 PM (fb100)
>>>Ask me how I know where Andorra is.
What I love about these sorts of stories is that they're all different and yet they're all the same, really. So many people with a love of learning -- a love of ACQUISITION of knowledge -- got it from these neat sorts of challenges put up to them by their parents. For example, around the dinner table at night, we would always play the "Senator guessing game," where we had to go around the table each naming a U.S. Senator, and the one who drew a blank first ended up having to do the dishes.
As a result I not only can tell you most every person who served in the Senate since 1994 or so, I also ended up (by cultural osmosis) picking up a crapton about civics and politics.
Dorky for sure, but man I loved it.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 12:21 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 12:21 PM (GFM2b)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 12:22 PM (xAtAj)
Posted by: Flatbush Joe at March 12, 2013 12:22 PM (ZPrif)
My parents raised hell, took me to an outside expert for eval and testing...and there was not an f'ing word about special ed after that.
And apparently things have degenerated even further. Institutionalized stupidity, indeed.
Posted by: Stu-22 at March 12, 2013 12:22 PM (k4bdL)
Yeah in a later comment I noted that for some odd reason I the statement.
fucking algebra.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:23 PM (b3IgE)
Posted by: sTevo at March 12, 2013 12:23 PM (vroT8)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:24 PM (bxiXv)
Scandis have a massive % of kids born to single mothers, too.
They don't have our subgroups. And even though they have plenty of out of wedlock births, I'm pretty sure their single parent households are way fewer than ours.
Posted by: CJ at March 12, 2013 12:25 PM (9KqcB)
Posted by: Y-not on the phone at March 12, 2013 12:25 PM (5H6zj)
So is ∞/∞
y=ƒ(x) where ƒ(x) is 2x take the lim of x → ∞ of y/x.
Simplified it is ∞/∞
With the limit evaluated the answer is 2.
Posted by: MikeTheMoose DOOMCASTER! at March 12, 2013 12:26 PM (0q2P7)
Meh. I think we throw this line out there far too easily. To be sure kids were able to get away with stuff a decade ago that would never fly now, but still...I was pretty much the most poorly-behaved kid imaginable in elementary school and middle school, and early in high school as well. Got into a shitton of trouble for it too! (Me and the school counselor became tight, we saw a lot of each other...)
But they never tried to "suppress" me. Heck, they even went to bat for me a few times. I might just have been lucky as fuck, I dunno.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 12:26 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: Flatbush Joe at March 12, 2013 12:26 PM (ZPrif)
Posted by: Allan Yackey at March 12, 2013 04:09 PM (Cgrh4)
-----------------------------------------
I started school in 1955 (so basically post war) and was taught phonics, grammar, and writing. Even though they look seperate, they blend very nicely later in school. I've never regretted being taught that way. It has carried me very well through life.
The whole word readers of that time still can't read or comprehend on the same level.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 12:26 PM (1q3PD)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 12:26 PM (wR+pz)
"Reform" of public schooling has resulted in almost entirely worse results and a more entrenched bureaucracy every time over the last 40-45 years.
Who said reform? I said get rid of public sector unions. That's different.
All you're doing by blaming schools for being fucked up is avoiding the reality that more homes are fucked up. There really is no difference between liberals and conservatives in that regard.
Posted by: CJ at March 12, 2013 12:27 PM (9KqcB)
Posted by: small town girl at March 12, 2013 12:27 PM (+xKk0)
So if I'm reading this right, public schools nowadays are full employment/pension plans for people who were too stupid to eke out a Sociology degree. And oh, by the way, they do a little day care on the side.
There are times when I'm glad that the opposite sex finds me unworthy of breeding. Not sure I'd want to put my progeny through this bullshit. You moms and dads among The Horde really have my respect.
Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 12, 2013 12:27 PM (TIIx5)
Conventional Wisdom?
Oh...Limited Government....Personal Responsibility....Property Rights?
That kind of conventional wisdom?
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 12:28 PM (3Mkrp)
Posted by: The One at March 12, 2013 12:28 PM (wR+pz)
@BuzzFeedBen
Koch Brothers Won't Rule Out Buying Los Angeles Times via @tessaestuart
Retweeted by Jonah Goldberg
Posted by: weft cut-loop [/i] [/b] at March 12, 2013 12:29 PM (/T+P8)
But you can say that "as x approaches 0 in this function: y approaches [something]".
y = (sin x) / x, for instance. In this function: as x approaches 0, y approaches 1.
Posted by: boulder toilet hobo at March 12, 2013 12:29 PM (QTHTd)
Posted by: 98ZJUSMC Waiting for the Sun at March 12, 2013 12:29 PM (NYof0)
Not all single parent homes are supported by the govt.
Of course not. But a disproportionate number are. Plus the multitude of other added costs: schools, police, etc.
We can have a society with the current number of single parent homes, or we can have limited government. We can't have both.
Posted by: CJ at March 12, 2013 12:29 PM (9KqcB)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:30 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: Y-not on the phone at March 12, 2013 12:30 PM (5H6zj)
Posted by: Miss Scarlett with a GUN!! at March 12, 2013 12:30 PM (J+V/o)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 12:31 PM (GFM2b)
Posted by: beach at March 12, 2013 12:31 PM (XYSwB)
Posted by: Lemmenkainen, Freelance Warlord at March 12, 2013 12:31 PM (ZWvOb)
Posted by: Thorvald at March 12, 2013 12:31 PM (1V6Pv)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 12:32 PM (wR+pz)
Any network hardware geeks around?
Can I splice CAT-5, or do I need a home-run?
It's for hardwiring a Roku.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 12:32 PM (3Mkrp)
Remind us again how homes being fucked up means public schools, which are some of the most heavily-documented fuckups in history, aren't fucked up?
Um, you send more kids to school each year who can't learn. Each year schools fail to turn our fucked up kids into lil' Einsteins. And we express outrage - at the schools. Brilliant!
Posted by: CJ at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (9KqcB)
Posted by: beach at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (XYSwB)
its both
its single parent homes AND
messed up public schools
we can't force two parent homes
we can choose better education for our children through private school, home schooling, moving to a great public school district, or enrichment
it is not an either/or problem. Its both
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (Dnbau)
Posted by: Y-not on the phone at March 12, 2013 04:25 PM (5H6zj)
--------------------------------------
It's not phonics. Phonics teaches the rules of reading and spelling. Perhaps you're refering to what Ace wrote in his post about the lazy attitude of the teaching techniques that don't require correct spelling.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (1q3PD)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (bxiXv)
373 -
I don't remember the numbers, but I'm reasonably certain their "out of wedlock" births data is close enough to ours. The difference is, the culture is generally rejecting the concept of marriage, as opposed to it being a bunch of teenagers having babies.
Then again, their birth rates for native-born Scandis are incredibly low. So the nation, as is much of Europe, is committing suicide by not breeding.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (TOk1P)
Posted by: Lemmiwinks at March 12, 2013 04:18 PM (SkyIE)
Oooh. That had to leave a mark.
Posted by: Ronster at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (pDjY6)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (GFM2b)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (nUH8H)
Posted by: Regular Moron [/i] at March 12, 2013 12:33 PM (feFL6)
Koch Brothers Won't Rule Out Buying Los Angeles Times via @tessaestuart
Retweeted by Jonah Goldberg
Does that mean the video from the vault will come out?
Posted by: Lemmenkainen, Freelance Warlord at March 12, 2013 04:31 PM (ZWvOb
Holeeee...shee...ite.
Posted by: Jane D'oh at March 12, 2013 12:35 PM (UOM48)
Posted by: Y-not on the phone at March 12, 2013 12:35 PM (5H6zj)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 12:36 PM (GFM2b)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 12:36 PM (wR+pz)
OT - PETA is marking today's release of Starcraft II by handing out flyers decrying the slaughter of millions upon millions of zerglings.
No, I am not making that up.
However, it appears that for once, at least, PETA is actually in on the joke. The flyers are pretty clearly intended as a cartoonish parody.
Posted by: junior at March 12, 2013 12:36 PM (UWFpX)
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 12:36 PM (Dnbau)
Can I splice CAT-5, or do I need a home-run?
It's for hardwiring a Roku.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 04:32 PM (3Mkrp)
I suppose you could, but you'll need to make sure you splice all 5 tiny little ass wires properly, and then on top of that make sure you don't cross any of them on either end.
(To put it differently, if your cat 5 connector is Red-Green-Blue as 1,2,3 on one and and the one you splice it too is Red-blue-green as 1,2,3 you're hosed and just wasted your time. And yes, I've seen wires by different manufacturers run different ways.)
You might be better off just grabbing a female-female connector which can be had for like $5.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:37 PM (b3IgE)
Can you imagine a parent today doing that?
Here's something else that is a dying sight: Bookshelves with books on it.
Know what I see on nearly everyone's bookshelf these days? Knick-knacks, odds and ends, pictures and everything NOT books.
Posted by: RoyalOil at March 12, 2013 12:37 PM (VjL9S)
Posted by: Thorvald at March 12, 2013 12:37 PM (1V6Pv)
Posted by: ACE at March 12, 2013 12:37 PM (LCRYB)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:39 PM (bxiXv)
"Saudi Arabia is considering halting beheadings in favor of firing squads, as officials report the government is running out of swordsmen to carry out executions."
Posted by: RioBravo at March 12, 2013 12:39 PM (eEfYn)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 12:39 PM (nUH8H)
Honestly, the word-from-root method was better for me. By that point I could already read. Phonics was a waste of time. My reading-comprehension and my spelling needed work, though.
Posted by: boulder toilet hobo at March 12, 2013 12:40 PM (QTHTd)
ACE apparently thought his name didn't stand out enough before!
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:40 PM (b3IgE)
Books? Like on physical paper? How quaint.
Posted by: Hollowpoint at March 12, 2013 12:40 PM (SY2Kh)
Posted by: thunderb at March 12, 2013 12:41 PM (Dnbau)
416 -
I know. My daughter has a nice bookshelf in her room. Full of all sorts of not-book things...
She has her books laying all around the room on the floor. It's gotten so she blocks the heating vents, and when I try to tell her that's why it isn't warm in her room, she looks at me like I'm crazy.
I offered to buy her a Kindle. She says she prefers the feel of the paper in her hands.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 12:41 PM (TOk1P)
It's not standardized?
Wow.
Thanks for the info....that would never have occurred to me.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 12:42 PM (3Mkrp)
The teacher did acknowledge that she was ahead of her class, but assured us it would be okay because she would get to do lots of 'enrichment exercises.'
Turned out that she meant, "Enrichment Exercises," as in, that was the title of the stupid workbook she gave my bright child who loved to learn.
Here was the exercise that broke the camel's back (remember, our kid could count to a thousand, and KNEW and understood those numbers):
Draw and color one balloon.
Draw and color two balloons.
Draw and color three balloons.
Draw and color four balloons.
Draw and color five balloons.
It's too tedious to continue, but you get the drift. If it's too tedious for me to write this or for you to read it, imagine what it was like for my kid to have to draw it. Instead, she basically drew 9's- the balloons were dran with a single stroke to show the balloon and string.Then she turned her crayon on its side and swiped it across the age to 'color ' them with one, swift stroke.
I got called to a parent-teacher conference for that.
My dad served on a textbook selection committee for the State of California some 25 years ago. There's a whole lot of stupid going on. I wrote about his experience - if you click on the link in my name it should take you there. I'd like to say it was unbelievable, but you know, it was California, and it was government schools, so of course, it was all too believable.
Posted by: DHM at March 12, 2013 12:42 PM (mhcif)
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 12:42 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: Thorvald at March 12, 2013 12:43 PM (1V6Pv)
Posted by: Mirage at March 12, 2013 12:43 PM (yijvE)
Posted by: Y-not on the phone at March 12, 2013 12:43 PM (5H6zj)
just so Special, so Wonderful, so Uniquely You, that there's No One
Else Quite Like You, You Little Special Snowflake, You.
***
AND GLOBAL WARMING WILL KILL YOU!!!
Now, be sure to pick up a condom on your way out and remember, You're descended from apes.
Posted by: WalrusRex at March 12, 2013 12:43 PM (Hx5uv)
The problem I see with Phonics...is that kids can imprint on the misspellings of words, and it can stick with them.
We are very impressionable when we are little.
Which is why Liberals love to get their hands on our young.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 12:43 PM (2xMNt)
I think we've solved the "no testing cosmetics on animals" problem.
Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at March 12, 2013 12:43 PM (/kI1Q)
Posted by: prefer lowes at March 12, 2013 12:44 PM (XYSwB)
Posted by: BumperStickerist at March 12, 2013 12:44 PM (9P+hO)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 12:44 PM (nUH8H)
It's SUPPOSED to be.
Supposed to and what happens in reality are two different things I've found, especially with either a) cheap cable or b) "homemade" stuff (including stuff put in by installers.)
99% chance you're OK. 1% chance for whatever reason someone decided to flip green and blue that day.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:45 PM (b3IgE)
Posted by: Paul Zummo at March 12, 2013 12:45 PM (Ud5vq)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 12:47 PM (xAtAj)
All of us down at the Brattleboro WomanÂ’s Reproductive and Pregnancy Decision Center are just getting out of bed right now because we all stayed up till the son came up this morning watching DVDs of Presdent Obama in his furst four years as are furst black presdent. We had so much fun discussing his majjor accomplishgments that we forgot what time it was. i hope that everyone did not miss us reproting the news as truth today. Yeah for Presdent obama and all he has done for us when he came into are lives......
Posted by: Mary Clogginstein from Brattleboro, Vt at March 12, 2013 12:47 PM (R8X+X)
All of us down at the Brattleboro WomanÂ’s Reproductive and Pregnancy Decision Center are just getting out of bed right now because we all stayed up till the son came up this morning watching DVDs of Presdent Obama in his furst four years as are furst black presdent. We had so much fun discussing his majjor accomplishgments that we forgot what time it was. I hope that everyone did not miss us reproting the news as truth today. Yeah for Presdent obama and all he has done for us when he came into are lives......
Posted by: Mary Clogginstein from Brattleboro, Vt at March 12, 2013 12:47 PM (IkHXL)
Plus if the splicing gets screwed up later, you have 5 wires to check
.Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:47 PM (b3IgE)
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 04:41 PM (TOk1P)
-------------------------------------------------
I don't know her but I like her.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 12:48 PM (1q3PD)
Posted by: toby928© Crypto-Fashionist at March 12, 2013 12:48 PM (evdj2)
418....But phonics must be the basic method of teaching for any kid that hasn't already learned phonics through his own deductions.
My earliest recollections of Phonics, are as a remedial method...to help kids who weren't reading well.
So I think it got started that way.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 12:48 PM (2xMNt)
=====================
But they had no problems with 'The Bible'?!
Posted by: Tami[/i] at March 12, 2013 12:48 PM (X6akg)
***
I saw a video one time about an adult black woman who finally learned to read at about age forty. She learned to read by the phonics method. She said, "I always knew there some secret they weren't telling me."
Posted by: WalrusRex at March 12, 2013 12:48 PM (Hx5uv)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:48 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: dappershoes at March 12, 2013 12:49 PM (l9BsS)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 12:49 PM (XYSwB)
Posted by: Y-not on the phone at March 12, 2013 12:49 PM (5H6zj)
Posted by: toby928© Crypto-Fashionist at March 12, 2013 12:49 PM (evdj2)
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 12:50 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: CAC at March 12, 2013 12:50 PM (p7Xiw)
Quick, let's pay them more money before they all jump ship for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory kill everyone involved except the kid and his parents, before they spread their seed to the rest of the Education System.
Shit. Too late.
Posted by: Sharkman at March 12, 2013 12:50 PM (03IDC)
Posted by: Paul Zummo at March 12, 2013 12:50 PM (Ud5vq)
Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at March 12, 2013 12:50 PM (e0xKF)
Posted by: CAC at March 12, 2013 12:51 PM (p7Xiw)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 12:51 PM (XYSwB)
446 -
Well, young man, you can come over after Church on Sunday, you and I can sit on the porch. She'll serve us lemonade. We'll see where it goes from there.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 12:52 PM (TOk1P)
For a few of the participants here, it's not new concepts that make their eyes glaze over. Instead they stop paying attention when they encounter anything that, even in some minor way, challenges their assumptions.
Anyone who could read my full comments in post #295 and then describe them as "crass and rote defenses of destructive, established bureaucracies" has to be primarily motivated by their desire for a fight.
Posted by: Jim Flimsey at March 12, 2013 12:52 PM (T9V22)
It's an interesting exploration in stupidity, fallacy and sophism disguised as an intellectual endeavor.
http://tinyurl.com/a48pa59
Posted by: Marcus at March 12, 2013 12:52 PM (GGCsk)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:52 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: Frank Underwood, D-South Carolina at March 12, 2013 12:52 PM (fscec)
Posted by: Paul Zummo at March 12, 2013 12:52 PM (Ud5vq)
Sarah ran into something that we've had problems with in our family, and I suspect many other people have experienced. If your child is creative, and he's being taught by uncreative minds, he's screwed. If your child is an energetic boy, and he's being taught by lethargic women, he's screwed. If your child is two or three standard deviations to the right of the median of the bell curve, and he's being taught by people just a tad over (or perhaps even under) the median, he's screwed. And by "screwed" I mean, he won't learn anything, and his boredom will be construed by the simpeltons in the schools as bad behavior.
Oh, and if he's big, they'll call him a bully even if he's the one getting teased.
Parents who are smart enough to know better who care about their kids are going to revolt, or are already revolting against government school systems. Pretty soon the only people left in those schools will be the children of parents who themselves aren't bright enough to figure out how stupid the supposed "educators" are, or else kids whose parents just don't give a shit, or who aren't around.
Posted by: The Regular Guy at March 12, 2013 12:53 PM (qHCyt)
Posted by: BumperStickerist at March 12, 2013 12:54 PM (9P+hO)
-----
I just got an email from OFA (email address: “info@barackobama.com”). The subject line: “This Isn’t Meant to Scare You.” I figured I’d share it with you:
Friend –
Megan Allen is a fifth-grade teacher in Tampa, Florida. At her elementary school, 90 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
Many live in poverty, with unstable home lives — some have parents in prison, others go hungry over the weekends. But at school, they’re winning science fairs, challenging themselves, and eating two hot meals a day.
For MeganÂ’s 36 fifth graders, school is a safe place. The budget cuts known as the sequester could change that.
In the county where Megan teaches, 142 schools stand to lose $3 million in funding. The sequester could also slash as much as $2 million in federal funding for special education.
When those cuts kick in, Megan’s students could lose teachers that help them every day — for example, the folks who coach them through tricky arithmetic, or give those who are having reading trouble the special attention they need. The Head Start programs that got these students ready for kindergarten will be dramatically cut down. Their class sizes could go up, leaving less time for individual attention.
The sequester isn’t a list of numbers made up to scare you. It’s a very real thing that will negatively impact real people — like Megan’s 36 students and their families.
Congress needs to hear those stories. They need to know that their inaction has consequences — that’s the only way we’ll put an end to these cuts.
Share your story right now on how the sequester is affecting your community:
http://my.barackobama.com/Share-Your-Sequester-Story
Thanks for speaking up.
Lindsay
Lindsay Siler
National Director of Issue Campaigns
Organizing for Action
----
The are soliciting sequester sob stories here:
http://tinyurl.com/azakl7h
Posted by: Serious Cat at March 12, 2013 12:54 PM (UypUQ)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 12:54 PM (GFM2b)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:55 PM (bxiXv)
Which is why Liberals love to get their hands on our young.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 04:43 PM (2xMNt)
---------------------------------------------------
Why do you think they're pushing government-run prekindergarten? They want the kids' first words of "dada" or "mama" to be toward them.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 12:55 PM (1q3PD)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 12:56 PM (nUH8H)
447 ...The system has been deliberately broken. Deliberately.
Yes...with malice aforethought.
So, to answer Ace's question in the title of "Malice or Incompetence":
Malice.
They did it on purpose.
And they maliciously continue to cloak their intentional incompetence by claiming they 'need more money'.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 12:56 PM (2xMNt)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 12:56 PM (xAtAj)
Posted by: Y-not on the phone at March 12, 2013 12:56 PM (5H6zj)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 12:56 PM (XYSwB)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 12:58 PM (bxiXv)
Yes. Because I was watching it for its historical accuracy. Just like I watched Star Trek for its strict adherence to the laws of causality.
You should read the article, Allen. It is right up your alley.
Incidentally, as someone who can claim some expertise in the area myself, I would say that the author is generally correct, with the caveat that medieval monarchy wasn't really centralized either. Also, I think he overestimates the freedom the "Thing" had - there is some evidence that the free farmers were already fairly constrained prior to the viking era (farms seem suspiciously standard-sized for a society that supposedly wasn't tightly regulated).
Still, he makes some good points.
Posted by: Grey Fox at March 12, 2013 12:58 PM (d1fAu)
Then, when you teach them English, they often use this same system rather than phonetics to learn English words.
In our children's school they teach both phonetics and also have special words called "sight words" i.e. Whole Word...these are words that cannot be correctly spelled/sounded out by phonetics.
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 03:14 PM (dZQh7)
-----------
You do know that the Chinese use the romanized version of the Chinese language, called Pinyin, in schools now to facilitate the children's learning of their Chinese characters. This allows the children to read and sound, using phonetics out what each character means and memorize it. Once they get started doing that then the teachers don't have to tell them what the pronunciation of each character is supposed to be and they can learn by themselves.
I've heard it allowed the government to cut the teaching workforce by a 1,000%.
(Just kidding about that last line.)
Posted by: Dusty at March 12, 2013 12:58 PM (KR2Ca)
Posted by: ace at March 12, 2013 12:58 PM (LCRYB)
Fair enough.
I haven't cut open a cat-5 in years.
In part because it just became easier to buy them pre-clipped.
Also because once I cut one open to shorten it (I was a cable neat freak at the time) and got burned (metaphorically) because the cheap thing wasn't the normal order or wires. Pitched it and bought a shorter cable.
Posted by: tsrblke (work) at March 12, 2013 12:59 PM (b3IgE)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 12:59 PM (xAtAj)
Posted by: madamex at March 12, 2013 01:00 PM (+kvQd)
Posted by: MDH3 at March 12, 2013 01:01 PM (GKyUC)
Posted by: rickb223 at March 12, 2013 01:01 PM (GFM2b)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 01:01 PM (XYSwB)
Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at March 12, 2013 01:02 PM (e0xKF)
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 01:02 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: MDH3 at March 12, 2013 01:02 PM (GKyUC)
Dumb down the people until you can have an easily controlled proletariat.
Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at March 12, 2013 04:50 PM (e0xKF)
------------------------------------------
THIS......in a nutshell.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 01:02 PM (1q3PD)
Posted by: MaxMBJ at March 12, 2013 01:02 PM (deaac)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:02 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 01:03 PM (nUH8H)
The federal government's own study shows the effects of Head Start dissipated 2-3 years before they got to Megan's fifth-grade class. But anyway.
Posted by: HeatherRadish™ needs a beer at March 12, 2013 01:03 PM (/kI1Q)
Talk about malice or incompetence!
"Uh oh – it seems the Ukrainian Navy has a small problem on their hands. After rebooting the Soviet Union’s marine mammal program just last year with the goal of teaching dolphins to find underwater mines and kill enemy divers, three of the Ukrainian military’s new recruits have gone AWOL. Apparently they swam away from their trainers this morning ostensibly in search of a “mate” out in open waters. It might not be such a big deal except that these dolphins have been trained to “attack enemy combat swimmers using special knives or pistols fixed to their heads.” So if you are planning a family holiday to the Black Sea this week, I think it’s best you avoid any “friendly” dolphins that might approach – especially if they have KNIVES or PISTOLS strapped to their heads."
Posted by: WalrusRex at March 12, 2013 01:04 PM (Hx5uv)
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at March 12, 2013 01:04 PM (QF8uk)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:05 PM (bxiXv)
468 Y-Not brings up a guilty point - those of us who are responsible parents are kind of making things worse by taking our kids out of public school.
Posted by: Paul Zummo
utter horseshit. It's my CHILDREN that would suffer, from poor education, bad morals, horrid politics, and social pathologies if they were in "government school"
Them being there would do less than nothing to slow the decline, and simply hurt them in every way possible.
How's this for guilt: Don't you love your children enough to remove them from such cesspits?
Posted by: imp at March 12, 2013 01:05 PM (UaxA0)
Posted by: Hand Solo at March 12, 2013 01:05 PM (9/kKc)
Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at March 12, 2013 01:06 PM (e0xKF)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 01:06 PM (nUH8H)
Posted by: MDH3 at March 12, 2013 01:06 PM (GKyUC)
Just because you're a conservative doesnt mean you have to reject new approaches to learning, nor are all new approaches bad.
Posted by: MaxMBJ at March 12, 2013 05:02 PM (deaac)
--------------------------------------------
School recess on the playground has merit. You're going to have to do better than that.
Posted by: Soona at March 12, 2013 01:07 PM (1q3PD)
Posted by: madamex at March 12, 2013 01:07 PM (+kvQd)
Of course, there may be a distortion to supply & demand in my scenario.
Posted by: Serious Cat at March 12, 2013 01:07 PM (UypUQ)
There is a story that Gauss was 5 years old and was told, as a punishment, to add the numbers from 1 to 100.
He quickly came up with 5050. How did he do it?
Clearly
1+ 2+ 3+...+100+
100+99+98+...+ 1
is twice the amount you want. But if you look at the numbers on top of each other, you get 100 sums of 101. So twice the amount you need is 10100. Divide by 2. Voila.
Of course, in Europe, despite them being obsessed with unions, they have a long history of rewarding excellence in education. We have a long history of egalitarianism, both for good and for ill.
These days, mostly for ill.
Posted by: AmishDude at March 12, 2013 01:07 PM (T0NGe)
Posted by: Paul Zummo at March 12, 2013 01:07 PM (Ud5vq)
Can we teach economics to kids?
www -- dot -- helenspage -- dot --com/p/milton-friedman-for-kids-absolutely-an-e/478
Posted by: jc at March 12, 2013 01:08 PM (i8c5b)
Posted by: R.Bell at March 12, 2013 01:08 PM (Cm6lr)
Wait, what the fuck?? You're YOUNGER than me?
How is this possible?
Time to kill self.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 01:08 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: SFGoth at March 12, 2013 01:08 PM (dZ756)
Posted by: MDH3 at March 12, 2013 01:08 PM (GKyUC)
Brandon, you forgot the flying through air jet-propelled squids fueled on Brawndo and Red Bull.
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 01:09 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:09 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: jc at March 12, 2013 01:09 PM (i8c5b)
God, what an idiot Ace is. It's worser, not worse. Sheesh.
Posted by: Kevin at March 12, 2013 01:09 PM (3tyeL)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:10 PM (bxiXv)
I should fucking sue.
Posted by: Dr. Evil at March 12, 2013 01:10 PM (v9K50)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 01:10 PM (nUH8H)
Posted by: Infidel at March 12, 2013 01:10 PM (O/fK8)
How is it that so many regular commenters are products of Maryland schools?
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 01:11 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 01:11 PM (TOk1P)
Paul, that's good news. Sometimes the Catholic schools are less than ideal, too. Always better than gubmint skoul though.
They make a lot of really good Catholic homeschool programs. The only drawback is a weak science curriculum. Panders to the inerrant literalists (which isn't Catholic dogma, by the bye)
Posted by: imp at March 12, 2013 01:11 PM (UaxA0)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:11 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: Serious Cat at March 12, 2013 01:12 PM (UypUQ)
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 01:12 PM (kXwK3)
484...well I'm only 29
No shit? I thought you were in your 40's, Ace.
And I learned 'phonics' by reading the phonetic spellings of words in dictionaries.
But I was kind of a weird kid who started reading dictionaries when I was in first grade.
An old, thick, unabridged Dictionary was my 'map' to learning to read.
It's good to teach kids to learn 'how sounds are spelled'.
Such as the "Fuh sound is spelled with an F or a PH".
But spelling out whole words and sentences, phonetically, can lead to kids having trouble with how they are really spelled.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 01:12 PM (2xMNt)
Yes, I remember now he mentioned this schtick a month or two back. He lies about his age, not in a lie-to-deceive sense but in a vanity-is-all sense.
There's no way he could be three years younger than me. I assume he's mid to late '30s.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 01:12 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:12 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 01:13 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:13 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 01:13 PM (nUH8H)
It's a good thing I had taught them to read at home.
Posted by: Laura Castellano at March 12, 2013 01:14 PM (luhCM)
>No, actually we're not. We're doing exactly the opposite
I'll throw out a curve here: it would be better for the public school system's future if all of us who either homeschool our kids or send them to private/parochial school, chose, for one month, to send them to public school. Imagine the overcrowding (for which, these schools tell us, our tax dollars have been going to cover). The workload for the teachers. Taxpayer funds wouldn't breed a solution in this case - it's too late to build new buildings, hire new teachers - innovation would. And innovation would spread quickly.
I long viewed the schools as the Catholic Church's trump card against Obamacare. "Want to tell us how to cover our employees? Feel free to take our students." But no, never happened. Could've been the best thing for the system.
Posted by: Kevin in ABQ at March 12, 2013 01:15 PM (XrGnJ)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:15 PM (bxiXv)
Y-Not
CAC
Jeff B.
Serious Cat
(Am I missing anyone?) Lotta representation for Maryland given it's a small-ass state. I'm guessing a lot of us grew up with government employee parents, which is why we're from around here (and also why we're politically-oriented too, most likely).
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 01:15 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: Cicero, Semiautomatic Assault Commenter at March 12, 2013 01:15 PM (8ZskC)
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 01:16 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: Joe at March 12, 2013 01:16 PM (7pOq5)
I remember him from that too...and suddenly I was thinking "holy shit, he was doing that shit when he was FOURTEEN?"
I didn't instantly rule it out, you know. I was an extremely precocious kid with an Eighties fixation at that age myself.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 01:17 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 01:18 PM (xAtAj)
Posted by: Shandiss at March 12, 2013 01:18 PM (n9DIV)
I have the same build and general appearance as when I was 24, ergo, I haven't aged in 16 years (in fact still able to wear pants I bought at age 22).
Thus, I'm 24.
Posted by: imp at March 12, 2013 01:18 PM (UaxA0)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 01:18 PM (XYSwB)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 01:19 PM (nUH8H)
In Chicago Public Schools they teach kindergartners sexed but can't teach high schoolers how to read.
In many areas, sending our kids to public school is a form of child abuse.
Posted by: Prescient11 at March 12, 2013 01:19 PM (tVTLU)
Posted by: Marcus at March 12, 2013 01:20 PM (wyKgi)
http://en.bijin-snap.com/2013/03/13/no-888/
***
I labor under the delusion that I can play the guitar. Accordingly, I listen to a lot of guitar music. I came cross Xuefei Yang. As you may have guessed, she's not from these parts. But she's smoking hot and can really pump the nylon.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ad9bpnc
Posted by: WalrusRex at March 12, 2013 01:20 PM (Hx5uv)
Conjunction Junction and my name is Bill is the only educational things I watched on TV and thats only because they stuck them in between cartoons.
I grew up watching Bonanza , Wild Wild West, Rifeman and Rat Patrol. Didn't learn much about what Big Yellow Birds did but I did learn you can solve all of your problems with the correct amount of firepower.
Posted by: polynikes at March 12, 2013 01:20 PM (m2CN7)
Y-Not
CAC
Jeff B.
Serious Cat
(Am I missing anyone?) Lotta representation for Maryland given it's a small-ass state. I'm guessing a lot of us grew up with government employee parents, which is why we're from around here (and also why we're politically-oriented too, most likely).
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 05:15 PM (bcLhD)
No, my folks were actually in medicine (nursing and Dentistry). I got into politics just because I liked to watch the news often (my first "guy" was actually Ross Perot from the '92 race while in High School.) He got me concerned about the debt.
Posted by: Serious Cat at March 12, 2013 01:20 PM (UypUQ)
Posted by: HoboJerky, now with 45% more DOOM! at March 12, 2013 01:21 PM (xAtAj)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 01:22 PM (XYSwB)
552 Ace is *not* 29. At least not in human years.
How long do Ewoks live?
In Ewok-years, 29 is probably 42...in human years.
Yeah, we're probably being punked.
But hey, if women can lie about their age, then men should be able to as well.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 01:22 PM (2xMNt)
Let me provide a different point of view:
My kids go to public school and they get a good education.
They do "everyday math", well, every day. The questions are great at encouraging critical thinking about math application rather than rote memorization. I have an MS in engineering from a real school--I understand math and I wish we had been taught math the way my son is being taught.
Posted by: Grim at March 12, 2013 01:23 PM (gyNYk)
Demographically, Chicago is about 33% Black, 33% Hispanic and 33% white. But the Chicago public schools are only 7% white kids. All the white liberals on the north side are not quite liberal enough to send their kids to the crappy educational cesspools they so vehemently defend. They send them to private schools.
We need a re-boot folks. The inmates are running the asylums.
Posted by: Chi-Town Jerry at March 12, 2013 01:23 PM (f9c2L)
My formative moment was (unsurprisingly) the '94 Republican Revolution. I remember it well because it was the first time either of my parents had ever voted Republican (except for our local Congresswoman, the beloved Connie Morella) and they never, ever went back afterwards. A hugely catalyzing moment in my young life.
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 01:23 PM (bcLhD)
Posted by: rickl at March 12, 2013 01:23 PM (zoehZ)
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at March 12, 2013 01:24 PM (g7q64)
Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at March 12, 2013 01:25 PM (6E7W2)
Posted by: Detroyt Publick Skoolz Teachah at March 12, 2013 01:25 PM (pmsMR)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 01:26 PM (nUH8H)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 01:26 PM (XYSwB)
Well, Jedi did come out in '83 technically making ewok kind 29.
I also made my debut in '83. Good year. Unless you work on the Death Star. Not so good a year then.
Posted by: Jollyroger at March 12, 2013 01:26 PM (t06LC)
554 -
Egad. I can't wear pants I wore when I was 22. Because I can't fit into them, and because they are out of style... but mostly because I can't fit into them.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 01:27 PM (TOk1P)
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at March 12, 2013 01:27 PM (g7q64)
http://youtu.be/MWFs1DAYfWY
And well with two who needs a multipass?
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 01:28 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 01:28 PM (XYSwB)
570 Who here expects Obama at same point in the rest of his reign to issue an executive order to try to ban home schooling or have someone in the Congress try to get through laws on this
Not 'ban' it...just try to regulate it to death.
I've already heard a few little rumblings of this, from some of the libnozzles on tv.
Such as "Quarterly Learning Reports" that must be filed, or other new forms to file.
Posted by: wheatie at March 12, 2013 01:29 PM (2xMNt)
Cue the Scorpions song that deals with this topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvTXgG_teTU
Posted by: Blanco Basura at March 12, 2013 01:30 PM (xKC/c)
Posted by: Brandon In Baton Rouge at March 12, 2013 01:30 PM (e0xKF)
All your bases are belong to us.
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 01:30 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: BumperStickerist at March 12, 2013 04:54 PM (9P+hO)
My son became involved in boxing at an early age (and I became a boxing dad, taking him all over a three-state region for years). Eventually, Jake won two state championships. The problem? Some of the bullies in middle and high school knew Jacob was state boxing champ. They also knew he was strictly forbidden to hit anyone outside the ring unless it was a desperate case of self-defense. My boy was trained by his coach, a former professional heavyweight, to be a banger; that is, Jake wasn't taught to go for points with quick, light jabs, which is common practice in amateur boxing. He was trained to go downstairs, to go for heavy body blows, to hit hard. By the end of the third round, some of his opponents literally ran from him in the ring. At 16, he once knocked the heavy bag chained to the rafter in the garage and sent it flying. He was forbidden to hit anyone--even in fun--because he could (and can) do serious damage. We didn't want and he didn't need that kind of trouble.
So those little bastards knew this and would prove themselves to their buddies by trying to provoke him. They would call him names, get in his face, get physically close without touching, that sort of cowardly horseshit. He would come home practically crying with frustration. I told him the usual comforting stuff, but now, a few years later, I think it bothers me more than it ever did him.
I fucking hate bullies. They grow up bad and--insofar as I can tell--stay that way.
Posted by: troyriser at March 12, 2013 01:31 PM (vtiE6)
Posted by: It's not a coincidence at March 12, 2013 01:31 PM (pmsMR)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 01:31 PM (XYSwB)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 01:31 PM (wR+pz)
Posted by: It's still not a coincidence at March 12, 2013 01:32 PM (pmsMR)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:32 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 01:32 PM (nUH8H)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:33 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectual at March 12, 2013 01:33 PM (wR+pz)
When even low information parents begin to realize that the education bureaucracy is hostile to everything they hold dear, that reservoir will quickly drain. Here is a story that illustrates it.
My former district had a strong and mutually beneficial relationship with a large church in our district. The church provided space for after-school programs for our students. The school allowed the church to promote its youth programs with bulletin announcements and posters around campus.
When the local congretation voted to disassociate itself from the Presbyterian Church USA over the gay ordination issue, the shit hit the fan. The "tolerance" lobby in the school district advocated total severing of any relationship with the church.
Fortunately, wiser heads in the district office realized what a slap in the face such an action would be to the very people who supported the district and the issue died from benign neglect. Sadly, that kind of common sense is lacking in most districts and we're witnessing a nationwide radicalization of public education.
When that radicalization is fully recognized by the same people who have heretofore supported schools and school tax levies, public schools will be done.
Posted by: Jim Flimsey at March 12, 2013 01:33 PM (T9V22)
Posted by: North Korea[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:34 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at March 12, 2013 01:35 PM (g7q64)
Posted by: Merovign, Dark Lord of the Sith's Other Mobile[/i][/b][/s] at March 12, 2013 01:36 PM (bxiXv)
Posted by: nc beaches at March 12, 2013 01:36 PM (XYSwB)
Great and? Practical is not the end all be all of math. Rote to become comfortable with technique, and practical to teach how to formulate RW conditions into solvable problems BOTH have a valid place in curricula. In the typical order, rote first, practical problems second. Over focusing on time consuming practical problems is not necessarily the most efficient way to get the most out of every students mathematical capability.
Second I don't get how an engineer complains about how they were taught math in an overall sense. Whatever you liked or disliked, apparently it worked.
Posted by: MikeTheMoose DOOMCASTER! at March 12, 2013 01:37 PM (0q2P7)
Posted by: AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) Channelling Breitbart at March 12, 2013 01:37 PM (nUH8H)
Posted by: Ed Anger at March 12, 2013 01:38 PM (tOkJB)
In kindergarten, we were all mixed together for the first three months or so...to allow the teachers time to discern the relative learning abilities of each student. Following that, we were separated into three tiered groups of two classes each, with each class comprised of 25-30 students. These tiered groups were each geared toward the abilities of the students, and the system kept in place through the 6th grade. We were never told this, but were able to figure it out by the 3rd grade; it was easy to see who was struggling and transferred to a lower tier classroom (or vice versa).
By the time I was a Junior in HS the "Long March Through the Institutions" had made its way to our backwater SD. Many of the teachers and administrators staved it off as long as they could, but retirements and pressure from the TEA finally won out.
Posted by: Country Singer at March 12, 2013 01:38 PM (CgcOa)
But is this what actually happens in Whole Word teaching? Do they actually supply to them the key?
Posted by: Tami[/i] at March 12, 2013 01:40 PM (X6akg)
Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at March 12, 2013 01:40 PM (kXwK3)
Posted by: MDH3 at March 12, 2013 01:41 PM (GKyUC)
My niece, Mrs. Reed's great-grand daughter teaches high school math in Indiana. She never gives up on her students. She had one young lady who refused to do her math assignments and made a point of taking out drawing paper and drawing during every class. Annie asked her what her career plans were. The girl said, "I am going into commercial art." Annie told her you need math for that. The girl said, "No, I don't." Annie said, "If I prove that you need math, will you start doing your work." The girl agreed. Well, Annie contacted a commercial art studio and asked them what computer programs and other items an applicant would need to know. She told the girl, to be a successful commercial artist, you will need math for all of this long list of things." The girl was stunned and she kept her part of the bargain and did the work.
Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Wily Wrepublican Wench at March 12, 2013 01:42 PM (kXoT0)
Posted by: Damn Sockpuppet at March 12, 2013 01:42 PM (YmPwQ)
Liberals hate rote memorization for some reason. They want to transcend basic humanity. I contend that is why they hate the Constitution, free will, and capitalism. They don't want you to make a decision on your base human wants...they want you to negate your own wants for the higher purpose of everyone's wants...only as a liberal...you get to decide what everyone else SHOULD want. That is why they are socialist.
In Ace's case, he is exceptional. He tied Snoopy and Bakery to images and activities and I am sure that illiterate people do the same to function in our society. But most of us don't regardless of whether we are smart or not. We are able to use all kinds of technology but fuck me seriously you guys if you think I will re-invent the Xerox machine. Or even the latest moron meme.
If I have said it once, I have said it enough for it to qualify for rote memorization...people who learned by rote memorization put people on the moon.
And they didn't do it with fancy graphing calculators and big computers, they put pencil to paper and crunched the numbers old school. Who in this age can calculate trajectories through space without a calculator? Damn few, I say.
Why? Because the calculator did the rote memorization for you.
Posted by: sgmstv at March 12, 2013 01:45 PM (Owwmo)
We homeschooled our daughter. All parents do up until they turn their children over to the professional educators who vote socialist by a wide margin. We had extensive contact with one of the local homeschool groups. Some homeschool parents were professors at the local University. They also gave group lessons. We hired foreign Spanish-speaking students to coach our daughter in their native language. $15/hour cash. When she got to be in her mid teens she decided homeschooling wasn't cool and wanted to go to public school. We talked with the school administration to work out the details.
They evaluated her and her work portfolio and told us they wanted to place her two grades ahead of her age-peers. We said we would go one year ahead but not two. This told us right away about the horrible human cost of public education. Millions graduate each year and will never perform to the higher level of performance they could have reached with a better system.
Our daughter fell in with class-peers who were not the finest influence. When we found she had been smoking pot, we pulled her from public school and returned to homeschooling. We were not her friends.
A year later, when the smoke cleared (so to speak), she wanted to graduate with her class-mates. So we went back to the administration and asked them. Their answer was that she was one credit shy of graduation. We appealed to the full school board. They said that they could not give her credit for her work portfolio because they did not have anyone who was qualified to evaluate it. Nobody at the school was fluent in Latin. But she was welcome to enroll for one more semester to gain the necessary credits to graduate.
In the mean time, she had been accepted for the summer semester at a local university. On the way home from our last meeting with the school board, we asked that since she had already been accepted it the University, then why did she need a high school diploma. We could not think of a reason.
After graduating from University with two undergraduate degrees, she went on to get her Masters with honors. Today, after working in the international refugee resettlement field, she owns and runs her own vintage retail shop.
Posted by: theBuckWheat at March 12, 2013 01:45 PM (nmcha)
By the time I was in the sixth grade, my mathematical talent far exceeded my real world experience and this would be the case until about my third year of college; Where the math that I knew was more advanced than my understanding of the world at the time to the extent I couldn't place my most current math skills in a real world context, because I couldn't understand the context. If I had patiently waited back in the sixth, and seventh grades when I didn't yet really understand a checkbook, and held off on algebra because practical examples were beyond me, it could have forever slowed my development.
Posted by: MikeTheMoose DOOMCASTER! at March 12, 2013 01:48 PM (0q2P7)
Posted by: gm at March 12, 2013 01:49 PM (/kBoL)
Posted by: regular lurker at March 12, 2013 01:50 PM (yKOi7)
A lot of that had to do with hold-over law (Roman in many cases). Almost as much probably had to do with the amount of land someone could actually work. That tended to be pretty uniform
In Norway? Scandinavia wasn't part of the Roman Empire, Allen, and it was more than just how much a family could work - the dimensions of fencelinesm etc, were very similar from farm to farm, or halves of larger dimensions, IIRC. Standardization for taxation purposes, it looks like.
Also, an Anglo-Saxon hide was not uniform - it varied quite a bit depending on the land quality.
Posted by: Grey Fox at March 12, 2013 01:53 PM (d1fAu)
Posted by: teej at March 12, 2013 01:56 PM (M3APu)
Posted by: tina at March 12, 2013 01:59 PM (Z5kvH)
Posted by: Jeff B. at March 12, 2013 05:15 PM (bcLhD)
I'm a Terp who grew up in Laurel back when it was a sleepy racetrack town. Left for good in 74; was back to visit friends this summer. Father Hate ran for the House of Delegates in the 60s; as a Republican he got rolled. I miss the ocean, blue crabs and waitresses that call you 'hon. Nothing else, though...
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 01:59 PM (IV2Ec)
My sons 9th grade Science teacher was stumped by how rockets worked in space...and helicopters. Her block was trying to figure out what they were pushing against. Aircraft and Lift? Advanced Stuff. My daughters English teacher used something called Holistic Scoring. And used it improperly as I discovered after asking her about it and looking it up later.
If they were real Education Professionals instead of Union hacks they'd all quit out of embarrassment...but they aren't and they don't.
Posted by: BobJustBob at March 12, 2013 02:02 PM (W7Qrj)
Posted by: KJB at March 12, 2013 02:05 PM (ZhB0u)
Posted by: Ed Anger at March 12, 2013 02:07 PM (tOkJB)
That would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic. I'll bet she thinks Sarah Palin is really really dumb, though.
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 02:08 PM (IV2Ec)
I think I made her grouchy towards me from that day on.
Posted by: logprof at March 12, 2013 02:11 PM (+iA5G)
Posted by: Phinn at March 12, 2013 02:11 PM (x/5aM)
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 02:12 PM (IV2Ec)
"Great and? Practical is not the end all be all of math. Rote to become comfortable with technique, and practical to teach how to formulate RW conditions into solvable problems BOTH have a valid place in curricula. In the typical order, rote first, practical problems second. Over focusing on time consuming practical problems is not necessarily the most efficient way to get the most out of every students mathematical capability.
Second I don't get how an engineer complains about how they were taught math in an overall sense. Whatever you liked or disliked, apparently it worked. "
Studying math via memorization is like studying a screwdriver without ever seeing the screw. I didn't give a damn about trigonometry until I took physics and realized that trig actually meant something. Same with calculus. Memorizing Laplace transforms was the biggest waste of time of my college career--playing D&D was a more productive use of time than that.
Quite frankly, unless you're into a high-end computer field or an advanced researcher in math, physics, or chemistry, practical math is the end all, be all of math.
Posted by: Grim at March 12, 2013 02:18 PM (gyNYk)
Posted by: The Hobo Wears Celebrity Skin at March 12, 2013 02:22 PM (jopHG)
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at March 12, 2013 02:24 PM (g7q64)
I'm struck by the fact that he didn't know how to do percentages in college!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 02:28 PM (3Mkrp)
Posted by: The Hobo Wears Celebrity Skin at March 12, 2013 02:29 PM (jopHG)
Posted by: BobJustBob at March 12, 2013 02:32 PM (W7Qrj)
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 12, 2013 06:28 PM (3Mkrp)
I thought it was pretty stupid also; he ultimately got a Phd in math education, which I thought was funny. He isn't a dumb person by any stretch; I was just using him as an example of the glaring blind spots that get overlooked by the education industry.
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 02:35 PM (IV2Ec)
It also goes through a complete history of where "Whole Word" teaching got started. The author then goes through and systematically demolishes the premises behind it. Then he builds up why phonics is the correct method. This book is the straightest line between not reading and learning to read.
Cheap!
As for "Malice or incompetence", check out the blog "Invisible Serf's Collar". The author goes into the theories behind the current educational practices. Dense reading, but terrifying in what gets revealed. It is actually worse than you think.
Posted by: BC Monkey at March 12, 2013 02:35 PM (0P/c3)
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 06:16 PM (IV2Ec)
--Yep. You can guess how pissed I am that the school admin took the money and ran to the Big "10".
Posted by: logprof at March 12, 2013 02:42 PM (+iA5G)
Posted by: occam at March 12, 2013 02:44 PM (RL+yr)
My mom and dad just gave each other a WTF look and fortunately I got put in an accelerated program.
Posted by: logprof at March 12, 2013 02:47 PM (+iA5G)
Posted by: Robert at March 12, 2013 02:53 PM (zvv9V)
Posted by: logprof at March 12, 2013 06:47 PM (+iA5G)
My oldest Hatette went to a public high school (over my objections; her younger sister went to a private school) where her grammatical skills were horrible. Mrs H and I used to scream at the open houses that she couldn't put together a coherent sentence and the teacher looked at us dumbfoundedly and said "She's one of my best students". Not the right thing for her to say at that time. She ultimately was "suggested" at Bard College to go see a tutor; she called up all offended by that and Mrs H and I ordered her to do it or we'd drag her ass home where she could work for a living. After a few short sessions, the tutor undid all the shit that had been poured into her head by the dumbfucks and she's been an excellent, and published, writer ever since.
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 02:54 PM (IV2Ec)
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 06:54 PM (IV2Ec)
--Just reinforces the point made last week about why the hell conservatives are keeping their children in private schools.
Posted by: logprof at March 12, 2013 03:03 PM (+iA5G)
Posted by: pat at March 12, 2013 03:06 PM (jlQR7)
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at March 12, 2013 03:07 PM (g7q64)
Posted by: rickl at March 12, 2013 03:18 PM (sdi6R)
(I had trouble with the word Cachens)
Posted by: Geart Raagen's Gosht at March 12, 2013 03:22 PM (LsJAk)
I'm late to the party but I wanted to share this story:
One summer during college I was staying with my grandparents who lived in Alaska. My aunt and her family came to visit us for a few weeks. My cousin, T, saw me reading the first Harry Potter book one day and asked me about it. I told him what it was and asked him if he had read the books. He told me that he hadn't, and explained that he wasn't very good at reading. My cousin was born with an inner ear condition that required correction and which left him six months behind his peers in speech development. Anyways, while we were talking he revealed that his teachers were pushing the idea that he had a learning disability because he couldn't read as well as his classmates. It turns out they were teaching that whole word crap. I sat down with him and in an hour managed to teach him to sound out words as well as built up his confidence. He was so excited that he ran to show his mother, who nearly broke down crying.
Posted by: Colorado Alex at March 12, 2013 03:57 PM (DsPRa)
people learn to read. Especially the 1 billion Chinese people who's
language does not have phonetics.
Then, when you teach them English, they often use this same system rather than phonetics to learn English words.
In our children's school they teach both phonetics and also have
special words called "sight words" i.e. Whole Word...these are words
that cannot be correctly spelled/sounded out by phonetics.
Posted by: sexypig at March 12, 2013 03:14 PM (dZQh7)
-----------
You do know that the Chinese use the romanized version of the Chinese language, called Pinyin, in schools now to facilitate the children's learning of their Chinese characters. This allows the children to read and sound, using phonetics out what each character means and memorize it. Once they get started doing that then the teachers don't have to tell them what the pronunciation of each character is supposed to be and they can learn by themselves.I've heard it allowed the government to cut the teaching workforce by a 1,000%.
(Just kidding about that last line.)
Umm, in the Western world this is called reading to your kids.
Posted by: CBrown at March 12, 2013 04:03 PM (xsGW+)
Posted by: Assault Citizen Anachronda at March 12, 2013 04:12 PM (NmR1a)
Posted by: Socratease at March 12, 2013 04:30 PM (3V4IJ)
No kids myself, good friend has a son. Smart kid, nothing John Stuart Mill-like, but smart and in the "gifted" program. This happened a few years back, in his 6th grade year, I think.
One day my friend gets a call asking him to come to some meeting early AM at the school. "About what?" "Please come in, meeting will be short, we could use your help, it's about the gifted program".
OK, so he goes in. Turns out it's the principal and the gifted program teachers there, with one other woman, a mom of some other kid at the school (friend somehow knew woman was an illegal, don't know how). Anyway, meeting starts, principal asks woman what she wants for her kid, woman says she wants him/her in the gifted program. ????? Kids test into it, objective screen, you don't lobby for it.
Principal and one teacher say they're sorry, but kids test into program, can't lobby into it, etc. Woman gets upset. Principal asks my friend to explain. WTF??? He basically repeats what was said earlier, wondering WTF am I here doing this for?
After, the principal and a few teachers profusely thank him for coming to the meeting. Basically, these worms can't do any part of their jobs, including telling a parent hell no, your kid's scores are what they are, he doesn't get into the gifted program.
My friend was shocked. I was shocked, sort of. THIS is how useless, craven, contemptible, and dangerous a huge part of America's "education" establishment is. A virtual parody of themselves.
But nothing funny, even in a dark way, about what they wrought and are wreaking on America and the world. With the implicit consent or cooperation, in most cases, of the parents.
Who said this was an unserious country here in the comments a few days back? Yeah, I've been saying it just that way for several years, even before the national beclowning and degradation of 2008 to the present.
Posted by: non-purist at March 12, 2013 04:31 PM (afQnV)
Oh, and this was at an elementary in one of the nicest areas of a prosperous (somehow, sorta, despite everything) SoCal city. And the fucking teachers and principals can't handle a simple task of parent management.
And, in real terms and taking everything into account, they make multiples (multiples) of what teachers made here when I went to school (excellent schools, excellent educational results) - and that's WITHOUT their pensions that are helping break the state budget. Almost all teachers I had were spouses (2nd income in the house) or had second jobs in the summer (real estate, etc.).
Kinda suggests a general principle: there is an inverse relationship between levels of compensation and benefits and the levels of public-service mindset in public employees. Teachers, cops, fire. Heroes in my youth, viewed with default suspicion and even contempt in my middle age ......
Posted by: non-purist at March 12, 2013 04:36 PM (afQnV)
Posted by: Jade Sea at March 12, 2013 04:46 PM (uZQRe)
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at March 12, 2013 07:07 PM (g7q64)
She only stayed there for a year and ended up in NYC at Hunter for a fraction of the cost (the first economical thing my children ever did for me; I was so proud). It's funny though that she met some lifelong friends in that one year. And btw she's still a lot to the left of me, damn it to fucking hell.
Posted by: Captain Hate at March 12, 2013 04:56 PM (/cTO2)
Posted by: AZ teacher at March 12, 2013 05:01 PM (FgLlm)
You get freedom. And an educated kid.
Posted by: ArrMatey at March 12, 2013 05:01 PM (Vf2XE)
1) There are conservatives in education who hate this system and do what they can to fight it. Granted, that isn't much, but we do exist. I would toss the NY Regents Tests for history right out the window, but then every student would be repeating the grade or not graduating. Given how credentialed our economy is, that's hardly doing them a favor.
2) Teaching isn't easy. You can argue otherwise after you explain how it is you all failed to educate America concerning how incompetent out President is.
Yes, public education is a disaster that should be scrapped entirely, and yes, unions should absolutely be tossed overboard. Ditch the centralized tests and the state (and increasingly federal) mandated curriculum. Unfetter the teacher, follow up on what is going on in the classroom, and then decide who is junk and who isn't.
Posted by: Aaron at March 12, 2013 05:06 PM (Tlix5)
Posted by: tired at March 12, 2013 08:21 PM (adOUE)
Posted by: Snarky the Bear at March 12, 2013 08:38 PM (/b8+5)
I was in public elementary school in North Carolina in the 1960s. It was like being in public elementary school up North in the 1950s: good, solid teaching of the three R's, but nothing fancy.
Then they gave us the achievement tests: I scored at the top of my grade. And the SRA series, self-paced: I loved that program. Started just three levels from the top and zoomed through it (I was already reading at college level; like a lot of you here, I learned to read before I went to school and happily hummed through every book I could get my hands on).
Best of all, they let those of us who were top-ranked go to the "Academically Talented Summer Program," which I ADORED. FINALLY to be in classes -- electives of our choice, no less! -- with the other Smart Kids! finally being taught at something better than a walking pace!
From that point on, even though I was in a public school system, I was really in what amounted to an academically gifted "pod" of some 35 students; we only saw the average Joes and Janes in gym class and homeroom. We had the best teachers and the most demanding curriculum.
I hear they used to have that kind of "tracking" (by IQ) in Northern public schools, but the pinkos decided it would be invidious, and they cut it out, root and branch.
Point is, America's public schools used to be rock-solid and able to teach almost every student well. Hell, we even had special content streamed to our high school in small-town North Carolina from the Research Triangle; we had college-level language labs; a big library, the works. We were integrated, too: 70% white, 30% black. No big problems; no affirmative action crap, either: not for race nor gender. You have a seat up high? you earned it, baby.
What these goobers have done to our great public school system, which USED to be a big part of the backbone of our once-great nation, is a fucking sin.
Posted by: beverly at March 12, 2013 09:18 PM (H7dQ0)
Like our old man said when they came up with that New Math shit, "I sure hope none of these people are planning on being engineers."
We said the Pledge of Allegiance before each grade school class commenced. We belonged to the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, and no one tried to teach us "fisting" in kindergarten. "Leave It to Beaver" was on TV, and yeah, that really was like our everyday life! (Manhattanites can never believe this.) Said "sir" and "ma'am" and stood up when our elders came into the room. Would never have DARED to sass a teacher: not only did our teachers have major wooden paddles hanging on the wall (usually imprinted with the sarcastic motto "Board of Education"), but our parents (married, one of each sex! how Weird) would have tanned our hides if we'd been even impertinent.
Funny thing about those "Boards of Education": just the sight of them on the wall was enough. No one ever got paddled, except once when one of the boys threw an M-80 firecracker down a commode in the boys' room, and blew it up. No one would fess up, so the two men teachers in the seventh grade lined up EVERY BOY and paddled each one of them in turn. The Boys were perversely proud of this; it was a big bonding experience. Not One Parent complained.
Posted by: beverly at March 12, 2013 09:25 PM (H7dQ0)
Posted by: Lance de Boyle at March 12, 2013 09:30 PM (lJ7VF)
Both my parents skipped grades. They told me that even if I got jumped 2 grades ahead (the max in 196
, I would still be bored -- and my social life would be nil. So I kept up with my "daydream with 90% of my mind, leaving 10% standing sentinel and recording things in case Teacher asks me a question." Our dad did get sent to the principal's office one day for daydreaming (in New Orleans in the '30s).
Posted by: beverly at March 12, 2013 09:51 PM (H7dQ0)
Believe it or not, thinking you're smarter than everyone else around you can, and often is, a learning disability.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 12, 2013 03:13 PM (TOk1P)***
Then place him in a higher grade, commensurate with his level of learning. You're placing more value on process than outcome.
Posted by: Klawnet at March 13, 2013 09:10 AM (ePxxX)
Posted by: torabora at March 13, 2013 04:08 PM (rU80N)
Posted by: torabora at March 13, 2013 04:12 PM (rU80N)
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Posted by: WalrusRex at March 12, 2013 11:01 AM (Hx5uv)