Middle Child is taking her state graduation test this week. They do it in 10th grade, in case you don't pass the first time. Which she won't. There are 5 sections: reading, math, writing, citizenship and science. I'll be happy if she passes just a few sections. Having some learning disabilities makes weeks like these tough on her. I spent most of last summer working with her, doing practice tests online. I thought the test would be more like common knowledge most people need to know when they graduate. I was wrong. There's a lot of higher level thinking involved, applying concepts that they have learned into new situations. She has no trouble memorizing, so if the test was full of vocabulary, geography and the periodic table, she'd ace it! No such luck, though.It got me to thinking about how education has changed since I was in high school. Classes like industrial arts and home economics are gone, replaced by engineering CAD and international current events. Schools no longer have sewing machines; they have Smart Boards. My kids have never participated in a spelling bee. They will never know the sound of a room full of typewriters dinging. Instead, they've done power points on how a compact disc works and on AIDS. They have intruder drills and we had fallout shelter signs. I complained about climbing a rope in gym. They complain about having to wear a heart rate monitor in phys. ed.
My kids stopped having spelling tests in 5th grade. Cursive writing went by the wayside by 5th grade also. All their papers need to be typed. Does anyone else remember having to write big, long term papers in blue ink, every other line? And if you made a mistake, you were told to just cross out the error with one line (no scribbling it out). One thing I find odd is that my kids never learned Roman numerals. Book publishers and movie/TV producers still use them, but maybe that's not important enough? I do hope my kids understand the metric system, which I am still trying to learn. By high school, I had teachers who were half-heartedly teaching it, saying we'd need it for the future. Hmm.....25 years later, I still buy my milk by the gallon.
Like I always tell my kids, it's not really about what you learn, it's more about the process.
I missed that your middle is LD. The combination of fresh perspective (theirs and ours) and frustration is something unique to our parenting situations, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI've noticed with my kids' education a certain, I dunno, lack of rigor, as compared with when I was in school. The fact, as you say, that they just don't do spelling bees anymore, strikes me as a major loss (and no doubt accounts for why so many people seem unable to differentiate between 'there', 'their' and 'they're', or between 'your' and 'you're').
ReplyDeleteBut some of the stuff we had has just morphed according to the changes - the CAD class sits where my old drafting class used to, and the computer classes where they're learning Word and Excel take the place of the old typing class (and gosh, don't you wish you'd had some form of word-processing, where you could just make the changes you need to, instead of retyping the whole page?) I don't really miss hand-writing papers (altho my kids' penmanship is atrocious even by my, uh, standards).
Too much class time is spent on what amounts to politically-correct indoctrination, at the expense of actual instruction. But I'll stop now, before I get into full-blown rant mode. . .
You may buy your milk by the gallon, but you buy your liquor by the liter!
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in NJ, we never had the EOG tests or tests to graduate (this may have changed in the decades since I have left the state. Pretty much, if you were smart enough to pass your classes, the state said, "good enough for us" and handed you a diploma.
I too learned to type on a typewriter (the next year they converted to computers), and I hated climbing the rope (never could do it).
It's about learning how to learn. And also the socialization part of school is important. In my mind, the biggest downside to education today is the necessity of teaching to the standardized tests that school rely on for funding. Thank you Mr. Bush for leaving no child behind. Pah.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, my area still has spelling bees - both my boys were in the county bee in elementary school.
Laggin - Yes, it is....she asks me on a daily basis, "What's the point?" in regards to some of the homework and I often have no good response!
ReplyDeleteDesmond - You've hit on another pet peeve of mine - the indoctrination of the school's values. Thanks, but I can teach my kids what "cooperation" means at home; we don't need Word of the Month. Unfortunately, this is what our society has come to thanks to absent and/or bad parenting.
Russ - You got me on the booze. The graduation test just came into effect with the class of 2008 in our state.
Citizen - I did my rant on NCLB a while back....and school funding issues plus teacher unions are the biggest detriment to public schools, in my opinion.
They still teach (to some degree) the metric system? I vaguely remember having a unit on it in third or fourth grade, but never once having lessons on it again. If they still are, I'm doomed come homework!
ReplyDeleteLast summer, I bought the kids workbooks to prep them for their next grade level. The fifth-to-sixth grade workbook? Sweet heaven! There were so many pages filled with lessons I had no clue on, and I like to think I'm a reasonably smart person! I kept telling my son, "Let's skip that one and go back to it anotherd day. Oh, um, let's skip this one..."
I have just started with the whole public school adventure..not too sure what to make of it yet in my neck of the woods.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest is in 10th grade and is taking the state test as well. She also is "challenged" and I am hoping that she passes the tests. She has up to six chances to pass and I've got my fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing to think of all the things kids don't have to learn. My wife is a private school teacher and they insist on many things that fall by the wayside in public school...
our school actually does still do spelling bees and now boys and girls both tack shop and home ec. my son is currently hating home ec and pretty sure he will fail because he can't thread the sewing machine.
ReplyDeletethe thing that gets me is what you lead with, the standardized testing, and all the wasted time prepping for it. in the time since my oldest started school to now that my youngest is in 7th grade i have seen such a monumental shift away from things of value to standardized test prep. i've seen some really fine curricula gutted to make time for "this is how you fill in the bubble sheets." the local history study has been removed. foreign language study has been delayed to later grades, don;t even start me on the absurdity of the math program now....it's disheartening.
I'm pretty darn sure I wouldn't want schools run the same way now that they were then. Yes, there are nostalgic and maybe even valuable traditions that are no longer done but some of the things that were allowed (encouraged, really) like harrassment, bullying, and abuse are less tolerated these days.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, when I was in school they had separate tracks students could follow that could be slightly tailored to their strengths. Seems like we've lost that in our current drive to integrate and homogenize the educational experience.
Also, I can tell you that, at least in the world in which I work, it's all metrics - millimeters and kilograms and megapascals (oh, my!). Once you get a feel for it, it really is a lot nicer to work with. . .
ReplyDeleteBesides, it's a hoot to drive over to Canada, and get on the freeway, with the 'Speed Limit 120' signs. . .
And heck, you buy your pop (or is it 'soda' where you live?) in 2-liter bottles. . . A few years ago, the little dairy store where we buy our milk switched from gallons to 4-liter bottles; more milk, actually, and they charged the same price, but people didn't want 'em, and they were forced to switch back. Never understood that, at all. . .
FADKOG - Believe it or not, many folks DO use metric. Wait until middle school science. And math...it's definitely a "use it or lose it" subject.
ReplyDeleteJody - For every complaint I have about public schools, I can point to a dozen top quality teachers who've been wonderful for my kids.
Mike - We will have to keep each other posted. I'm just hoping mine passes at least one of the tests on this first round! Yesterday she told me the prompt for the writing test was "talk about a time you were late." She said she was a blank because she's never been late - yeah, thanks to ME! She made something up; I was too afraid to ask.
Lime - Not only is all the prep a lot of wasted time, but this entire week of taking one test a day and then shortened classes is a colossal waste. She's watching Forest Gummp in English class. I just cringe.
ReplyDeleteXavier - I agree; the zero tolerance for bullying and the like is a vast improvement over what we dealt with as kids. However, our schools still do tracking here. Lots of folks complain that the schools cater to the AP students and the special ed populations and that the "average" student is left behind. I had three kids in all three of those different categories and I tend to agree that the laws cover those in the high and low ends better.
Des - Oh, I know that metrics are easier to use. I just can't picture what the different measurements look like in my own head compared to inch, cup or mile.
Citizenship?? ... Part of the testing is on citizenship? -- Is that really a class?
ReplyDeleteGood grief, you weren't kidding when you said school has changed since our days.
Citizenship. Hunh. I've never even heard of such a thing in school.
LB - Citizenship is just a fancy word (or old fashioned word??) for Social Studies/Government. Or as Middle Child would say, "BORING!"
ReplyDelete