Posted on 02/10/2009 7:09:05 PM PST by reaganaut1
Being taught about famous people and events in Wisconsin history in Spanish is not how some Waunakee parents want their fourth-graders learning social studies at school.
"We as parents have been in such an uproar over this," said Keith Wilke about the district’s elementary language program in which students learn Spanish by having the language integrated into social studies lessons for 30 minutes three days a week in first through fourth grades. "They’re force-fed Spanish."
This is the third year for the program, which has added one grade a year since 2006 and is designed to continue until fifth grade.
"A fair amount of (social studies instruction) has been in Spanish," said Wilke, who has a daughter in fourth grade. "The kids are to the point where they don’t understand it."
Concerns over teaching more complex topics in Spanish isn’t a surprise to district leaders and a meeting Thursday has been set to address those issues.
"We realized the area that we were going to have the most concern ... was the fourth grade," said Randy Guttenberg, district superintendent, who also said that administrators have monitored the fourth-grade program all year. "The content in social studies becomes more complex at that point."
Topics covered during social studies in the younger grades, such as community and family structure, fit well with learning a language, he said.
But once students start tackling more specialized topics such as Wisconsin history — including information about landforms — adding a foreign language to the mix can make learning more challenging.
(Excerpt) Read more at madison.com ...
Just be glad they’re not in Arabic..............
I want my country back.
Maybe they should be teaching history in the elementary grades instead of social studies, too!
According to the article, they are teaching history, which is why the children are becoming confused. The subject matter is too difficult for the immersion program. Social studies contains a lot of history.
The kids will be able to take direction from the illegal aliens they’ll be digging ditches with on make-work Stimulus jobs.
I’ll take it one better, they will understand the language of the country they emmigrate to while looking for a job when they grow up...
> I’ll bet many of these same people who are outraged (and rightly so) voted for the very Democratic Congressmen, Senators, and yes presidents who are responsible for the mess they now have. Wisconsin is a very liberal state. You Badgers reap what you sow. You have sowed a very bad seed. You have yourselves to blame.
Good luck fixing this problem.
They won’t understand you. It has to be in Spanish.
With pot legalization, someone’s gotta haul those bales north.
Si!
Amen!
Take your pick!
According to the article, they don’t start anything as complex as real history until 4th grade. They should be studying history years before that, IMO.
Social studies are probably the worst subject to be taught in a foreign language.
The most important American political and civil discussions were all made in the English language- a translation really wouldn’t do the subject real justice.
There aren’t that many years before that. 4th graders are only 10. I am sure they learn about George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln earlier, but most history is too complex to be taught much earlier. My kids learned state history in 3rd grade. By 4th grade they remember nothing about it.
This atrocious story was on our local news. My husband and I were stunned and disgusted. Then we remembered who is in charge at the schools, liberal teachers and administrators, right on up through the Dept of Ed at the state level. Liberals as far as the eye can see.
Waunakee is a small community about 30 minutes from here. A college friend of mine was from there, and 20 years ago Waunakee was small town America. It still looks the same today when I drive through, more houses but still very much the same feel to the town, but of course the schools everywhere have become more liberal as the years go by. A short drive south from Waunakee is the Berkeley of the midwest, Madison. The source of all liberal evil in Wisconsin.
They will be if the zero gets his way.
I’m not afraid of the illegal Mexicans. They want to cut my grass, not cut my head off..........
Not all of them want to cut your grass.
There are an increasing number who do want to cut your head off, or kill you in some other way.
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