Schools seem to be teaching kids a lot more a lot faster

[no gnu taxes]

We took our 5 year old to kindergarten registration yesterday and I am surprised at how much kids are expected to learn there these days. Don't know if it is the same way everywhere.

Back when I was in school, kindergarten was strictly private and kids only learned things like social "niceties" and basically just played and colored for activities.

Kids now are expected to know their alphabet, know how to write their name, be able to count to 20, and know all of the basic colors and shapes BEFORE they start kindergarten. I didn't know those things when I started 1st grade. By the end of kindergarten, they are doing basic math and composing short essays.

[cripplecreek]

Gotta get the basics out of the way so the real marxist indoctrination can begin.

[rlmorel]

Sure...they teach them everything but how to think for themselves. At least they aren’t making them sit through “An Inconvenient Truth” anymore.

[proxy_user]

We do everything backwards. We try to stuff academic knowledge into little kids who should be learning to play games on the playground, but when kids get to the prime learning age of 10-14, we let them go off and do their own thing.

[cripplecreek]

Now days they’re teaching them about the evils of capitalism.

[rlmorel]

If they aren’t up here in Massachusetts, they probably aren’t teaching them about homosexuality yet, either.

Yet.

Out in Orange, MA, they prohibited an 11 year old kid from hanging his picture of an American flag on the wall because it might offend “one of the other students”.

No lie.

[windcliff]

Kids who watch Sesame Street learn this knowledge quite quicklyM
. It’s visual repetition.

[cripplecreek]

If I had kids that’s definitely what I would be trying to do one way or another. The schools are too far gone.

[bvw]

It’s almost like they know more in third-fourth grade than any future grade. The lack of real moral guideline and training means that the kids become feral once the hormones start kicking in.

I’m speaking from my experiences during two recent years doing substitute teaching in all grades in over a dozen schools.

Yes, the technology is really great, far more information and educational materials available to anyone anywhere. But the textbooks are horrid, the moral guidance absent, the classroom demeanor too chaotic to learn in many classes.

Still up to third grade, it’s reasonably good. After that — shameful, except that the modern school establishment knows shame not.

[apillar]

It really depends on where you live. Here in rural West Virginia where the teachers tend to be nearly as socially conservative as the general population, the liberal indoctrination crap is slim to none. The teachers at my kids school even ignore the stupid nutrition rules the state passed that bans candy and “unhealthy” snacks at school parties, they just let the parents pass them out and pretend not to notice.

[FourPeas]

Since the kids need to know it before starting school, it sound more like the parents are doing the teaching.

It gives the school more time to indoctrinate the young minds about Heather’s two momies.

[Da Coyote]

Don’t worry. After 12 years, they’ll be totally illiterate.

[Snuph]

As I recall, not only did we know colors shapes ABCs and numbers. we had to know how to read basic words and sentences. Of course that was the 60s....... My children just graduated HS and the senior year sole requirement was to eat lunch.(no actual classes were required!)

[FourPeas]

If I may, what inspired you to sign up today to post this?

[Reddy]

Learning the basics has been pushed down so that kids are now expected to learn what they used to learn a grade or two early.

Five year-olds should be playing and learning how to get along, not academics. As a sweet friend (preschool teacher) of mine once said, “Future employers can train people to do the job, they need people who can get along together.”

[rlmorel]

I am angry and cynical about public education. I have been poking around the recovery.gov website, which is supposed to provide transparency to how stimulus funds were spent in your state.

While attempting to figure out how much a new visitor center at a state park in Sudbury, MA cost that had THIS blood pressure-raising sign in front of it:

I was unable to determine how much this thing cost (at least millions) but I did stumble across some stuff that I am going to try to post on here when I get it together.

They make the website and data so obtuse that even I began to lose focus after a while. But after downloading quarterly data into a spreadsheet and manipulating it, I found that in successive quarters, there were large outlays of stimulus funds, two million dollars here, two million dollars there to an entity called Minuteman Nashoba Health. These were by far the largest chunks of outlays. So when I looked it up, you know what it was?

Healthcare for teacher's unions. Damned healthcare for unions.

MY TAX DOLLARS, THAT THE GOVERNMENT TOLD US WAS CRITICAL TO KEEPING THE COUNTRY AFLOAT, ARE BEING USED FOR A LUXURY WELCOME CENTER THAT PROBABLY PROVIDES ONE FTE, AND IS BEING USED TO PROP UP LAVISH UNIONS.

Sudbury is one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts. and they were getting millions and millions in just a couple of quarters I looked at to pay for teacher's health care.

To say I am pissed is an understatement. So I am not in a mood to talk about how great public schools are today.

[Vendome]

They really do of themselves alot and have to resort to contrived studies alot.

[dangerdoc]

Last chance to learn before the union teachers get their claws into them.

[cripplecreek]

I was a hold out on closing the public schools until Glenn Beck turned me on to this little gem a month or so back. "We are one" teacher's toolkit.

Teachers Toolkit (pdf)

It includes this handy little "student pledge form".

AS A STUDENT who believes in acting collectively and who supports workers’ right to bargain for good jobs and a better life, I am interested in doing one or more of the following (please check all that apply):

I want to connect with the union movement on my campus or in my community.

I want to help organize a teach-in like today’s for others on my campus or on a different campus.

I want to support workers’ organizing and collective bargaining struggles on my campus and in my community.

I want to learn about the AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute programs. Please e-mail me information.

I would like to become a member of Working America, the community and student affiliate of the AFL-CIO. (www.workingamerica.org)

I would like to talk to someone about becoming an organizer for Working America.