How English is taught in Texas likely to change

Houston Chronicle ^ | 7/04/06 | Janet Elliott

[Clara Lou]

I posted this because of the potential national effect.

[Enterprise]

bump

[Clara Lou]

Board member Terri Leo, R-Spring, said at last month's work session that she's worried students aren't reading enough classic literature.
This is true. Our students miss so much.

[weegee]

...the plan to rewrite the English standards is viewed by some as the opening shot in an effort to put a conservative imprint on the state's curriculum.

The "opening shot" to take it BACK from liberal educrats? When the media is liberal, there is never any need to paint a full picture of how things PRESENTLY are.

[weegee]

"Dead white males" were tossed out nationally when PC Clintonoids ran the world.

[Thane_Banquo]

Me failed English? That's unpossible!

[Clara Lou]

I think that it's an opening shot to deliver the curriculum from the mush it's become.

[Liberty Valance]

If I had to read that friggin' book about Pip, then everyone has to! ;o)

[TXnMA]

"We could see a lot of textbooks that are based on personal and political beliefs of a majority of the state board teaching basic skills rather than on facts that students need to learn liberal propaganda."

[Still Thinking]

"This is really going to be the big battle in public education over the next few years ? what is it our students are going to learn," said Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, a group that monitors the state board for influence by the religious right. "We could see a lot of textbooks that are based on personal and political beliefs of a majority of the state board rather than on facts that students need to learn."

The last sentence sounds like what the kids got when the liberals were in charge, so I guess this guy must be in favor of the conservative changes. ;-)

[Paloma_55]

I didn't realize they speak English in Texas. :)

Yall - As in "Yall got a nice pickup!"

Y'all - As in "Y'all better get outta here before the sheriff arrives!"

Sumpin - As in "Sumpin stinks around here!"

[Liberty Valance]

I didn't realize they speak English in Texas. :)

Yes we speak english in Texas. Pero hablemos espanol tambien. Und wir sprechen ein Deutscher auch.

[texpat72]

My kids and I were laughing the other day about the way we Texans talk.
We have "hins" (chickens),
"pins" (a place where you keep your sheep)
and "dins" (kinda like a living room)

[Clara Lou]

This is really going to be the big battle in public education over the next few years
What we have is a conflict between teaching approaches. There's what I call a constructivist [Deweyian] approach, where the students are given material and each student gets his own "learning" from the material. So, 22 students in a class will each come away from the material with different, personalized learning. That's nice, but it's hard to test students objectively, which is what the TAKS test does. With this approach, a lot of important learning falls through the cracks if the teacher isn't alert.

The teacher-centered approach [the one that most of us experienced if we were educated in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and distinctively non-Deweyian] means that the teacher gives the students lessons with specific objectives. Kids don't get to pick what they learn from the lesson.

As in most things, each approach has advantages and disadvantages. I teach fisrt-year Spanish at the middle school level, and I use the teacher-centered approach. That's because my students better learn what I tell them to in order to be ready for 2nd-year Spanish. I find myself teaching them things about English that we all used to learn in elementary school--both vocabularywise and grammarwise [for instance, the difference between "infinitive" and "infinity," what a direct object is, etc.]

[Paloma_55]

Here in Caleeforneeeya, we have our own way of speaking too, but it depends on whether you are in the North or South end of the state as to how you speak.

For example, in SoCal a typical phrase is "Like dude, the sun is like, perfect for like, taking a walk or like, surfin dude. Let's take the 5 over to the 208 and hit some waves."

Whereas, in NoCal it would be "Pssssssssst, Whoa man...the sun is totally freaking me out man! I think I better go for a walk in the woods man... by the way man, have you seen my pants?"

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Same here. Having to teach English BEFORE I can teach Spanish. Absurd.

[MamaTexan]

This is true. Our students miss so much.

Yep Our twin girls are 2 and 3 levels above grade average because we have a home version of summer school where they learn basic Math, History and English.

They tried to put the youngest in an accelerated course. When I asked her what she thought about it, she said- "Mom, it would be okay if we were assigned good stuff with pirates or spaceships, but all they ever give us to read is about characters getting in touch with their feeeeel-ings!"

Needless to say, she's not going. She can just to continue to work her way through my book collection and the local libraries.

:-)

[Clara Lou]

Would this interest your ping list?

[Clara Lou]

Sounds as though you have something great going!

[MamaTexan]

We have "hins" (chickens), "pins" (a place where you keep your sheep) and "dins" (kinda like a living room)

ROFL!

I had the hardest time getting one of my girls to understand that 'dog' is NOT spelled D-A-W-G!