Posted on 03/25/2006 7:50:14 PM PST by mathprof
I have to disagree with this a little. You don't have to have "special" classes. You combine. That's how we used to get it all in, in 5 hours. One teacher. 5 subjects plus lunch , 2 recesses and music.
I'm looking at a Dick and Jane primer I bought for my grandkids:') There are a lot of different lessons in this reading book.
I watch my neighbor's kids get on the school bus every morning at 7:05. They return at 4:05. How much longer can their day get?
When I was in grammar school (ancient history, I know) school was from 9 to 3 with an hour for lunch.
My grandkids are in private school. They go from 8:30-3:00. They cover all the subjects plus Bible. They do get homework though. I can't see why public schools need to cut science and history when both can only help math and reading skills.
If they have to cut social studies to teach 3 r's that's a double win.
If they have to cut back science to teach 3 r's, then they weren't ready to learn science anyway.
My only concern is if they turn the entire school into remedial math for just 1 student. They need to find ways to let kids advance at their own rates and not the rate of the slowest student(s).
Me too. Of course, I had to walk five miles through the snow and be grateful that the school had walls.
From India....damn!
***had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music and other subjects...***
Considering the revisionist history taught in public schools today, it probably is a good thing. However, children NEED to learn about history. I wish SOMEONE would write a truthful history book for children. I can't find one anywhere.
You still teach science and history, but only make it available to kids who mastered the 3 R's.
I bid a job last August to set up a network to do exactly that for a local school district. Didn't get it. They ended up hiring an H1-B immigrant from India to do the job. True story.
Classes on how to turn on a computer and respond to software replaced core classes to the detriment of the student. It was a windfall for the computer industry and forced the market, but cheated the kids. The whole thing should have been an extra-curricular option or a home option. Nobody would have been cheated of anything.
Or Marxist Indoctrinational Basketballl, Or Stalinist, Hate-Bush Geography??
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In Pennsylvania, as a result of NCLB, students in certain grades have to take the "PSSA" test; a standardized test in math and reading (with plans to include science later on) that gauges how well students are doing. Well, that's what is SUPPOSED to happen. School districts set aside time prior to the test, and "teach to the test"; in addition, teachers somehow find out what material is on the test prior to it.
If that's not bad enough, children in Special Ed classes who are profoundly retarded are also "required" to take it (for now, it's only given in specific grades; not all students take it). For example, a child that I know had to take it, and his "testing" was for him to move an object from one side of the wheelchair tray to the other. Of course, he was not at all capable of even this, so his "aide" took his hand, placed it on the object, and moved his hand from one side of the tray to the other. AND, in order to "evaluate" him, they videotaped him doing this. No wonder per pupil cost has skyrocketed....
Seriously?
And science....
Our 3rd grade teacher had a piano in the room, and our reading books had stories about children all over the world and how they lived. There were also songs about each area that we learned.
So, in "reading" class, we learned social studies, geography, and music. Of course, that was back in the dark ages. ;-)
How is one to learn any other subject, if students cannot read at grade level ?
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