I am not sure I will ever be able to play Scrabble again. More words are being made up faster than I can learn them.
Both my father and mother grew up in families that got physical. Dad stated often that none of us three boys would ever EVER have a hand laid on us as punishment, by him, mother, or anyone else. BTW, at only six feet tall, I'm the runt of the family.
This education system is making our kids slide! Can we stop it? I met this morning for an informational meeting with our superintendent and some school board members. They are switching back to GRADING kids--A,B,C....CRT is not being taught here. But a main concern that I don't think is being addressed adequately are the consequences for bullying, stealing... Superintendent led with safety being a main issue. ( he was thinking bullying) I suggested a couple of ideas for teaching consequences, theoretically, but I don't think it went passed a 'we will have to look into that.' Taking responsibility? Uhmmmm But there are so many issues presented as our community grows. I met a younger woman who had one autistic child as I had. She looked at my cane and said people come to walk at the library where she works (tech school) sort of suggesting I could with permission. Maybe meet? Everyone needs an ear on occasion.
Good morning to all- I have not visited this site for a while- gave it a rest. When I read a statement such as "the educational system is making kids stupid" I know immediately that this person has no knowledge of the public school systems as they now exist. Are the schools the same as when most of us were in school? No. Were the schools better back then? No. The public schools teach a much wider range of students now, and the schools in general do the best job with most kids as can be done- anywhere. And what is taught in school today- at least in the general curriculum-is by and large determined by what topics are to be tested at the end of the year on the state's mandated achievement test. Teachers MUST teach the test and they must teach the material to be tested. That means that a lot of things- handwriting, civics, government, science in the lower grades- are just not taught, because they're not on the "test". The schools and the teachers don't make this happen- it's the way that things are done on the state level. And as far as public school "teaching" gender- that's the biggest pile of BS. The public schools don't have time to mess with stuff like that- they're too busy trying to get the skills covered for the end of year test. There's a whole lot of misinformation (lies, and more lies) about the public schools. If you really want to know what's going on in your grandkid's school, why not go and see if you can volunteer in any of a number of needed roles. I expect you'd find it very educational. good day to all- Ed
Then why does the United States compare so poorly to other countries on education, whereas that wasn't the case in the past? On one list I'm looking at, from OECD Library, the US is number 43. Great Schools lists the United States in the middle in an assessment of industrialized countries. On lists of the top ten, or top fifteen, the United States doesn't even make the list. Yes, that's part of the problem, but just because there are reasons for a problem doesn't mean that there isn't a problem. I'm sure we have teachers who would like to do better but if they're not allowed to do better, the excuses don't matter. I'm equally certain there are schools that are doing well, but they seemingly have to buck the system in order to succeed. Even in our little school, class time is wasted on promoting gender confusion, and I don't think most of the teachers want to spend their time on this nonsense. But they do because, as we've all seen, it takes both courage and independent thinking to buck the system, and most people aren't up to it, particularly not when an excellent benefit and retirement program are at stake. The teacher's union consistently supports indoctrination over education. There's too much evidence for that one, so that's not going to fly. This isn't a new development. Our educational system has been on an orchestrated slide for decades. My older brother was offered early retirement from teaching 5th grade because the school administration was concerned about his teaching Sunday School in church on Sundays. Because some of his students attended the same church, the administrators were concerned that this was sending the wrong message, and the teacher's union was no help. One year after successfully fighting the administration's insistence that he quit teaching Sunday School, he was offered early retirement. He was in his forties. There are good teachers and there are good schools but, overall, the US school system is failing, and I think it has more to do with priorities than competence. Indoctrination, rather than education, is the priority. In that sense, our educational system is doing very well.
The OP, though based on Common Core is a generalization just as your post is a generalization. I can easily find Public (government) schools and states that teach CRT and Gender Identification which probably won’t be found on any testing at the end of the year much less on an SAT. Matter of reality, many of the schools have even attempted to rename their classes in order to go around the bans that have been implemented by certain states and have been caught in the act. You’re a teacher but that doesn’t mean you know everything that is taught in the entire public school system of the U.S. which kind of leaves you in the same position as @Martin Alonzo: Having to look stuff up. Again, generalizations can be hazardous and more often than not, less than …..educational.
Good afternoon to all- I am a retired teacher. I taught in the public schools for nearly 40 years. I taught every grade from kindergarten to upper level college. I taught in several states in the Midwest and the South. I've worked in a lot of schools in a lot of places. I have a pretty wide experience in the public schools. I don't have to "look things up". I lived it. At no time in my teaching career did I ever mention or discuss "sexual identity" or really anything much at all on students' out of school personal behavior. I was too busy trying to teach sentence structure and other composition skills. I am not aware of any other teacher at any place I worked who spent time pushing any sort of "gender choice" information. I am certain that by looking over the entire country, a very few instances of what I would consider unnecessary and time-wasteful school activities can be found that take place- but it's not common. And to those who say that I don't know the school now because I'm retired- two of my kids are public school teachers, and I get to hear a whole lot of what's going on. And to those who say the US public schools can't keep up with other countries- well, in one way, they're right. Here in the US, we try our very best to educate EVERY kid who comes to school to each kid's ability. No other country does this. Most countries test their kids at some point, and those who show advanced academic abilities go on with school. The others get some sort of vocational training-maybe- and spend the rest of their lives working in a factory.-usually run by the government or some government protected company. More people have benefitted more from the US public schools than any other institution in our country. A kid in the US with special needs or special abilities is more likely to have those needs or skills recognized and developed than anywhere else in the world. good evening to all- Ed
18 of my 52 years as a teacher was high school. I attended school in a very small town; my graduating class was 28 as I remember. Our teachers worried that we were not getting what a larger school could provide. At the university I learned that they did pretty dammed good with us. When I and family spent a year in Austria (I married in Austria) on a sabbatical leave, elder son did grade 4 there, and did fine. Austria has the system that after 4th grade, students go to a 'Mittleschule' one of which prepares for blue collar jobs, the other preps for the university. I have to admit that this system is better than ours. Now, there are some changes with ours that I don't like, for example literature. In my high school years we studied American lit in 11th grade, and English in the 12th. Less literature is taught now than when I ended my HS teaching 18 years ago. Why is that????? looking at our Fl governor Desantis, whose minions are telling schools which books should and should not be taught. Could it be because he and minions are afraid of people who think too much?
"The Rules" I play with says if the word is not in the official Scrabble Dictionary then it can be challenged and if caught must be removed. Thus , use a Scrabble book ten years old or older, and hopefully not have too many new-fangled made up words to deal with nor to remember - just have good ol-fashioned fun. Home Schooling has gotten more difficult for a lot of parents , especially ones who trust the country leaders or the so-called education system , but is still possibly the best hope and best choice for those who learn how to home school from the time a child is born until whenever... as long as trusting God and not man, that is the highest hope and reward possible.
Good for you, but others are, and they are encouraged to do so. That's a good point, but we're not the only country that does that, and others are doing better with it.
When we started homeschooling many years ago, it was public school teachers who lead us to it, as they said they didn't want THEIR kids being taught in the environment in which they worked. We homeschooled for over 2 decades, 5 of our 6 kids have college degrees, and one graduated from a tech school and is making the most money of the 6.
According to John Taylor Gatto, the modern public and formal education system was formulated by industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller. It was copied from Prussia (that's Germany, not Russia), which discovered that standardization led to successes in various fields, including industrialization and even the military. (Its mostly-conscript army defeated the highly professional French army through a combination of basic training and the use of rail systems.) The goal of such a system is to create an army of workers and consumers, and it does so by using the same processes used in places like the military, prisons, and businesses: standardization (e.g., lesson plans, textbooks), quantifiable evaluation (e.g., grades), hierarchies (teachers, students), promotion (from one grade to the next), schedules (division of school work into subjects and periods, with a bell ringing to tell people what to do), and activities tied with corporations (like visits to factories, mechanized farms, and officers) and consumer spending (advertisements in schools, implicitly valuing getting good jobs in order to make lots of money, and then spend on "nice" things). This is taking place even in countries where schooling doesn't make kids stupid.
As a comedian I recently heard said,: “In school we were learning about how stupid Pavlov’s Dog’s were and then the bell rang and we all went to lunch”. Oh the irony.
Good morning to all- Mr. Mannheim- Your latest comment seems to paint our public schools in a negative shade because of the "standardization" which is basic to the public school system. Non-graded programs do exist in other schools, and "open schools" which featured wall-less classrooms and classes which were open to all kids and where kids could wander in and out of classes as their interest and ability dictated. These student-directed schools soon became totally unmanageable and unproductive. it was a good concept, but then reality stepped in. I am not a :structure" oriented person, but Brother, let me assure you that for many kids who come to our public schools unprepared, unready for academic work, "stricture" is what they need more than anything. Many kids come from such hellish homes and upbringings that it would be hard for many of us older folks to imagine. these kiddos need to know that the world CAN be a safe place, Can be a place where things happen at certain times and in certain ways, and CAN be a place where a kid can find success. And as far as schools being sponsored by businesses and kids taking field trips to see factories and other places of work- well, what is wrong with that? Many kids have no concept of what is possible in the world. I would value your concept of what our public schools should be and what they should do. I might learn something. And to Bobby Cole- The poor comedian obviously did not learn much from his schooling. Pavlov's dogs were not stupid- that's not the lesson- but I expect you know that already. you all be safe and keep well- Ed