Posted on 05/12/2023 6:57:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A four-day school week is being proposed. This is probably one of the worst ideas ever (other than allowing the mutilation of children).
American children are not reading at grade level, are not proficient at math at grade level, and are not being taught basics like civics and how to write using cursive. Soon no one will be able to read the original founding documents — the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, etc. Is this where we want our country to be? Who will be the creators, the inventors, the authors and great American thinkers we have had?
When I was a child (I just turned 78), other than kindergarten, we had a pretty full day of school, plus homework. Somehow I still found time for other activities — dance lessons, piano lessons, acrobatics, voice lessons, and lots of involvement in my church. And then there was reading. Lots and lots of reading. I had an "aunt" who was a kindergarten teacher and gave me age-appropriate books every year for Christmas.
In those days, the TV was controlled by the father or mother of the house. There were no remotes or devices to play on. If your parents said the TV stayed off, it stayed off. We spent time together as a family, eating meals together, playing board or card games together — and reading, usually on our own.
We also talked to one another — something else that is fading from our society. We didn't just talk about our day's events; we discussed national and international issues. Notice I said "discussed." Often there were disagreements, but never raised voices or name-calling. You could actually have a civil discussion with someone whose political values didn't align with yours.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“scratchy steel point pen”
Those are known as “scratchy steel point word processors” these days.
What problem are so-called teachers and administrators trying to solve with a four day school week? I highly doubt it has anything to do with making student proficient in reading and math.
As some of you know, I homeschooled my children. Time was an interesting problem in homeschooling, at least when we started homeschooling. Many think you need to mimic the amount of time teaching that government schools do. However, homeschooling parents quickly discover that they don’t need to school the same amount of time as government schools. Far less time is required.
We also discovered that time shouldn’t be the focus in homeschooling. It is a matter of what to value most out of the many variables in homeschooling and education in general. We valued mastery above all else. Note, mastery isn’t proficiency; which is what many government schools give lip service. I don’t think they even strive for proficiency, to be honest.
Mastery was our goal. We used enough time to achieve mastery. Most days our lessons were complete by the time Rush was on the radio, noon. The kids still had “homework” to do, but even that didn’t take too much time. It was just enough to master the day’s lessons. We made a point in being efficient.
We didn’t teach the next lesson unless there was mastery. So the approach was simple. If a lesson wasn’t mastered on the first day, a different approach was taken the next day. We would sometimes school on Saturdays, but not all subjects. The one thing we never did was run have long school days. That included homework, which was really just practice what was learned in a lesson. We didn’t call it homework.
My children were free to roam the neighborhood by the time government school kids arrived home from their school day.
Public school is 6-8 years of actual education padded out to 12 with crap and indoctrination. In some districts its little more than daycare. The less of that the better.
20% less pay to start! That would end that idea!
Kids are not being taught reading, writing, arithmetic and history right now.
BTW kids need the summer off to be kids.
Not in ours. The potentates of education feel that it creates a problem for parents, which when our district is considered inner city, I can sort of agree with that.
Other districts say it’s to help on teacher retention and opportunities to plan and for professional development.
Regardless, the people that actually keep schools functioning will always be on a 5 day week.
Agree the Dept. of Education is the Dept. of relaxation and big bucks.
Feed the teachers union and they feed the votes.
Every state gets federal tax dollars for their school systems. If they don’t adhere to the Dept of Education directives their funds are endangered. All of those tax dollars need to go back to the States and the federal govt needs to be out of it. The Dept of Education needs to go.
Are they going to cut Teachers pay by 20% ????
Works for college
I think a 4-day school week would be fine. The reason it’s often opposed is many parents don’t want to be responsible for their kids another day of the week.
Field-hands in the Marxist paradise don’t need education.
Ahmen! I think we are going to see many govt agencies go bye bye real soon.
You know when Trump said in a speech the other week that “we’re going to tear down a lot of buildings”? I think he means those empty govt buildings in DC. IRS, FBI, Federal Reserve and a bunch of others are abandoned and they aren’t even cutting the grass or trimming the shrubs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.