Posted on 07/25/2008 10:31:21 AM PDT by reaganaut1
My wife and I have 3 children (ages 1, 3, and 5), and we recently purchased a home in Winchester, Massachusetts, because its schools have a good reputation and its students do well on the MCAS . I looked at the "Academics" section of the school district web site and found "Math literature lists" (what happened to textbooks?) for various grades. The 4th grade list at
http://mail.winchester.k12.ma.us/~mkerble/mathlists4.doc
lists dozens of books, including
Count your Way Through Africa
Count Your Way Through Arab World
and 7 move "Count your Way" books
Amazon says the "Count your Way Through Africa" book "uses the Swahili words for the numbers from one to ten to introduce the land, history, and culture of Africa."
A school teacher who reviewed the book says
"Learn How to Count in Kiswahili! [...]
A very nice informative book that taught me a lot about the African continent and how to count in Kiswahili too! I wll share this with my class during Black History Month."
Fine, teach about Africa in social studies class, but this has nothing to with math! Even if the books were a serious effort teach kids to count, that ought to be mastered in 1st grade or kindergarten, not 4th grade. They need to work on abstract concepts such as fractions and decimals.
"Homeschool!", I hear you Freepers shout. We probably will not, since my wife is a doctor, but it's clear that if we send him to the public school, we had better take the math education into our own hands. We have been using the Singapore Math series, and our precocious 5yo is already in book 2A adding and subtracting 3-digit numbers with carry over.
Winchester is an affluent, mostly white (with some Asians) suburb of Boston, where most students do go on to college. I suppose most kids learn math anyway, maybe directly from their parents or through tutoring programs like Kumon. But what are we paying teachers to do? It reminds me of the recent article about "renegade parents" who teach their kids basic skills such as long division at home, because they are not covered in school.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2008/07/15/renegade_parents_teach_old_math_on_the_sly/ .
I’d also like to see your list - thanks!
“You should have asked us before moving there, really. Not joking around, not being funny...I used to live there.”
Ok, better late than never. Please tell me what you think. Another town we considered is Lexington, which has its own problems: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2002875/posts .
You moved to Winchester, an upscale moonbat enclave. Do as other Freepers have suggested and look into the local parochial schools.
Last year the principal of the middle school, being the PC kind of guy he is, cancelled the field trip to see “Miracle on 34th Street”,
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/14591550/detail.html
Oh no, we can’t have the kids exposed to Santa!
Meanwhile, his son, a special ed teacher, is trying to get the kids to have sex with him...
http://www.wickedlocal.com/winchester/news/education/x1470895021/Principal-s-son-arrested-on-child-enticement-charges
I agree, Freepers are great sources of relocation info.
Sadly, all those choices are poor. Pehaps out on Route 2 beyond Concord things may get better.
An analogy might be to visualize a...Ohh.. Garbage pail on a hot day sitting in Harvard Square. It can certainly be smelled out to the Route 128 belt. These "Better" towns have residents who can afford to fantasize about their Glorious Red Dawn, because they are insulated from realworld cares by their incomes.
In short, any place you would care to live probably has that attitude, including my present town, though about 35%-40% vote R in some towns on the South Shore.
It is embarrasing to confess that it is such a Liberal Pesthole. Possibly the other few MA Republicans may offer better suggestions. For commuting practicality, your (and my) options are pretty limited. The very things that attract human beings, also attract Liberals.
(Trying to keep it light, though it is depressing to type....)
I do not see the problem with your home schooling.
If your wife is a doctor and makes more money than you, then you do the home schooling. It is not a female oriented activity.
If you send your children to American Public Schools, they will come out dumber than a stump and hate school.
The choice is yours!
You’re to be commended for seeing the light! Now consider homeschooling, because it isn’t just in math that the public schools fall short, and the private schools aren’t necessarily better.
Consider, among other things, that learning math from one’s parents brings more benefits than merely learning math...as wonderful as that is!
All time spent with a parent, whether learning math or building sand castles or baking cookies or playing with the hose or praying, is quality time. Think carefully before you delegate these God-given opportunities to strangers.
Over here!
http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/
http://www.wheresthemath.com/blog/2007/02
http://www.weaponsofmathdestruction.com/
http://www.pwcteachmathright.com/
http://math.berkeley.edu/~wu/
http://instructivist.blogspot.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/education/08education.html
http://www.nychold.com/
These are some of the websites that I have compiled over the past few years.
Anything within 128 is either liberal infested or has gone ghetto.
You have to go out to the 495 area, the south shore or New Hampshire. Even within those areas, it pretty much is town by town.
Reason: Because the parents are doing **tons** of afterschooling!
So??????....Just **where** and **when** are these academically successful institutionalize children learning???
I say that almost **all** of what an academically successful institutionalized child learns is at **home**, before and after school!
The only thing the government school is doing is sending home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow. The parents and child are doing nearly 100% of the work. The school is merely organizing the curriculum, administering tests, grading projects, and wasting a lot of the child's day.
So...if, as teachers say, that parental involvement is the key to the child's learning, why not just homeschool! The child and parent are doing that anyway in “afterschooling”.
Afterschooling is really much more work than homeschooling. In homeschooling the parent needs to teach and/or the child needs to learn something **once**. The afterschooling parent needs to deprogram the child from the indoctrination acquired all day, and then teach.
Right, and too close to the state line, NH has been infested with The Correct, much to the disgust of the NH residents. They always want to bring their Workers' Paradise WITH them. WHY do they MOVE, then? The same thing is said about Californians who flee to Colorado, etc.
They foul their nest with demanding things For The Children™, then flee the taxes.
I've been reading Tom Friedman's “The Earth is Flat”. He spends a fair amount of space describing on-line ( webcam) tutoring from **India**!
These Indian teachers are **extremely** well educated, very dedicated, and highly professional. They earn about $200 to $600 a month!
If I had to do homeschooling over, I would advertise on Craigs List for an Indian elementary teacher for my entire homeschool program. Homeschooling is very efficient! It only takes about 2 hours of direct instruction a day. So...A personal Indian teacher would be **very** affordable if paid by the hour.
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.