Posted on 09/08/2010 9:35:24 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
A look inside a teacher's mind could help you understand lesson plans and maybe even guide your child to perform better.
1. If we teach small children, don’t tell us that our jobs are “so cute” and that you wish you could glue and color all day long.
2. I’m not a marriage counselor. At parent-teacher conferences, let’s stick to Dakota’s progress, not how your husband won’t help you around the house.
(Excerpt) Read more at shine.yahoo.com ...
No government employee should be permitted to join a union. Such unions are Government Unions and contribute mightily to Government Party and the Citizens’ parties. The government party necessarily uses its considerable strength to take money by political meanss from everyone else to give to the government employees. They are a natural constituency for higher taxes and more spending. They are a major force for the division between subjects and the ruling class.
Our Daughter is a budding artist and writer. She attended our local Catholic school up through 8th grade (they don't have a Catholic High School Near us.)
Each year she drew or painted a picture for each teacher and wrote a long letter expressing all the things she liked about the teacher and what she learned in class. (She is an excellent student ranked in the top 5 every year.)
As she got older of course the art got better as well as the writing. Each year every one of her teachers would write a long letter back thanking her for her gifts and thanking her for helping out in class (she would help a couple of students in her classes that had learning disabilities)
Last year she entered public school and at the end of the year did the same thing. Her art work is very good now. (she has taken blue ribbons in several local art shows) out of the seven teacher she gave gifts to last year only one wrote her a letter back (He is the pariah of the school, a conservative who pays his union dues under protest (its the rules here he can't get out of it).
My good friend works as Janitor at the school and found two of her pictures in the trash. There are not scribbles but intricate portraits worked in acrylics on canvas one of which won 1st place in a local art show. He brought them to me and I told him I would need to hide them because it would break her heart to know two of her teacher just threw the pictures away. He asked if he could keep them and now they are proudly displayed in his music room in nice frames.
Part of me thinks that the system was set up to take the parenting responsibilities away from parents. The more the state takes on, the less parents feel like they have to step up.
That’s a theory I guess. Fact is, parenting is hard, and there are no tests for it, and no real licensing, not that I would advocate for it.
However, what is now ALSO gone, is the social stigma that comes from being a loser. This country HAS EMBRACED loser. There were just places you didn’t show up to if you couldn’t conduct yourself correctly. If you were a bad parent, you were shunned. The behavior of the children reflected on the parents, and the parents made it a point that their kids knew who they were representing besides themselves.
We went from being a country that asked, “Why?”, to a country that is now asking, “So what?”
Something's seriously amiss here. If the curriculum and the tests were in sync, the teachers should have been teaching the material since September. If the tests evaluate what's taught in the year's curriculum, why is there a panic in March to teach the kids how to take the test?
Aren't the tests supposed to gauge the students' abilities with regard to their grade's subject matter? If not, what is their purpose?
The "history" taught in public schools almost everywhere is the politically correct joke. Much more time is spent teaching far less information than 30 years ago was the case and it declines from year to year. When I was in elementary school in the 50s (a ragged private Calvert System school) I learned more history, world and US, by the time I returned to the States and public school at the end of 4th grade that the schools did not catch up to me until 9th grade. AND THAT WAS MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY AGO!. It is far worse in modern classrooms. And the teachers have no notion how bad it is because their own education was mostly rapidly degrading public school and then there is Teachers' College.... I paid attention when my wife went through that at UF. In the whole time she got about two terms of good practical instruction and the rest was mostly latest fads and educationist fantasies. The only profession more addicted to Fads is Psychology.
We used to allow the states to direct the curriculum for the schools. Then the civil rights movement took decision-making from the states and moved it to federal. There are sound reasons for that, but 40 years later, it seems that it could be re-evaluated.
My observation is federal money involves mostly Title 1 or special education funds (which is most helpful). But, the tail is wagging the dog when school administrators focus on how many students can ‘qualify’ for these federal funds so they can be more.
We have lost the sense of nurturing our children when they can no longer go to a school that is close to their neighborhood. We exist to strive for diversity. Even in very poor neighborhoods with total minority population, the local administrators should be able to decide how best to deliver a “Standardized Curriculum” for the local needs without fear of bias or prejudice. It really SHOULD be all about the children. But not sentiments directed from those housed by the Potomoc.
Does anyone here on Free Republic think that having a parent-teacher conference with any of these so-called "teachers" would be worthwhile?
Answer: COMPLETE **WASTE** OF TIME!!! ( Yes, I am shouting.)
My original post quoted a public school teacher regarding the length of time spent on the whole standardized test experience. You’ll have to address your questions to her.
While our daughter was in Catholic school we went to every parent teacher conference. (She got glowing reviews and the teachers would point out her strong points and suggest she pursue them even more. Art and Writing.)
Last year in public school we got no notice of parent teacher conferences. We called the school and they said we would get a letter.
No letter ever came. Finally we found out the parent teacher conferences had all been held. We were confused so we contacted several of her teachers and they all told us she didn't need a conference those were only for problem students. I told them I wanted one anyway and they said it wasn't necessary and they didn't have time for students who didn't have problems. (Though the one Conservative teacher said we could meet at a local diner and he would answer any questions we had. He was pleased with her progress in English and said we should encourage her writing as much as possible)
I called the school and talked with the Principal told him I wanted to talk with my daughter's teachers at school meetings he said they only allowed so much after school time for teachers because of the rules. He said I should be glad that she didn't need a conference. I asked what rules and he told me the rules in the teachers contracts. See the rules state only some many hours can be devoted to parent teacher conferences at school. even if a teacher wants to meet more hours than the rules state they can't. (I still don't believe its in a contract but several people I've talked to claim it is in there.)
My problem with this situation is I want to take my measure of her teachers but apparently contact between parents and teachers is frowned upon in our local public school. This is quite a shock to us because in the Catholic school the obverse is frowned upon.
Also such meetings helped the parents rid the Catholic school of a horrible teacher who was constantly late to class and meetings who didn't manage to get half of her curriculum covered and who stood around in the office discussing her sex life during school hours with anyone who would listen including the priest. (She now teaches at the local public school)
It's your taxes that pay for that school. How about demanding more PT conferences or a permanent webcam in the classroom so you can know just what your child (and the teacher) is doing in there.
The teacher is spot on.
Hah. They are trying to get the security cameras done away with as it is because a teacher in a neighboring school fell and the security camera video ended up on youtube.
So why is your daughter still in that school?
Yeah, I can see that Public School Education is about equal to doe snot . . .
The only other choice is a school that is deemed worse. I was all for homeschooling but the Catholic School teachers told us she would be fine as long as we work with her at home. (We do.) Her former math teacher checks with her each week to make sure she is learning what she needs for college. (Math is her weakest subject.)
It’s the time-wasting that so offends me. You’re basically homeschooling her anyway so why is she in a school with such a toxic atmosphere?
I’m not attacking you; it’s something that genuinely puzzles me when I run across it. Thousands, maybe millions of people are putting up with garbage like that, fixing it on their own time, when the only thing that would really make a huge difference would be to pull out en masse, taking the funding and the teachers’ jobs with them.
I totally agree. I think the evenings should be for family time and not more school work. Like you said, the reading is fine. My oldest son has some learning problems so a little bit of homework for him can easily stretch into a couple of hours. Last night I spent from 6 to 8 helping the middle kid then from 8:30 to 10:00 helping the oldest once he got back from Boy Scouts. Even the kindergartner gets homework though it’s just reading and drawing a picture about the story thank goodness.
I usually give between 15-20 minutes max. homework to my students.
I use it to reinforce the learning of the classroom lesson of the day.
I then use that as a diagnosing tool to see if the kids understood what was taught.
BTW, I would check with your children's teachers. If it is important enough to assign, it is important enough to grade.
I forgot to mention that I teach one subject (Life Science)7th grade.
The rules at our local school are for her to be involved in any extracurriculars she must attend at least one class and by doing so they still get the full funding per student. Also to be eligible for many of the scholarships she must attend a school (Home Schooling doesn't count towards most of the requirements.)
She has already sewn up a 20K private local scholarship because she has met the requirements and they give it out each year to one girl and one boy with the best grades and who went all 9 years to the Catholic school. She is the only girl eligible in her graduating class so all she need do now is get her diploma.
She has a chance at over 70K in local Scholarships besides the one she has sewn up. The teachers of the Catholic school sat down with us and showed all the money available. Most of it requires you attend the Catholic School and get good grades so we grin and bear it and check her work daily. Her former Math teacher tests her every week to make sure she is maintaining her High grades and to make sure the public school teachers are doing what they are supposed to.
The local Catholic teachers are wonderful they will work with any and all former students to make sure they are prepared for college.
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.