Posted on 03/29/2009 5:59:20 AM PDT by aberaussie
Starting this August, elementary and middle-school students in one school district in Westminster, Colo., won't be assigned to grade levels based on age. Instead, they'll fall into multi-age levels based on what they already know and will move up only as they master new material.
The concept makes sense to many education experts because it matches how kids actually learn: One student needs three hours to figure out fractions while another takes a full day.
(Excerpt) Read more at parade.com ...
They should do what other professionals are expected to do by their licensing boards and by their fellow professionals. They should quit. They should refuse to participate in malpractice even if it means they are fired from their jobs.
I agree. As Thomas Sowell and others have pointed out, the rot in public education is top to bottom, side to side, through and through.
The schools of education are run by extreme leftists whose primary goals are indoctrination rather than education.
The entering students in schools of education are predominantly those with the lowest IQ and SAT scores (that's from Sowell's research). Yes, there are some smart teachers, but they are in the minority.
The certification processes (controlled by the teachers' unions) in most states hinge on indoctrination rather than real qualifications.
The teachers unions are driven by political goals rather than educational goals. Their spending on political action is much greater than on any improvements in education or classroom conditions.
The list goes on and on. Public Education is beyond reform. The only way to improve it is to quit funding it. Return the education tax dollars to the parents, and let the parents decide how best to provide education for their children. The public schools would have to compete with other options in the education marketplace.
Same here. My oldest two were reading proficiently by the time they were five. They would have been going to school with kids who still didn't know their colors (for real - they lived next door to us)
There were several other factors involved in that decision, but that one played a major role.
One room school houses had this down.
When we used Saxon, we did it a little different. All I made the kids do was the practice part of the lesson for those first 30 or so until they either got to new material or, like you, started missing problems.
Even after that, if we came across a chapter they had down cold, we’d skip it and go on to the next.
My one daughter is what would be called a late bloomer. She struggled with reading because of vision tracking problems and really didn’t read until 5th grade. If I read the stuff to her, she got every answer. She knew it all, it was just a matter of getting it down on paper.
Now in 11th grade, her classwork far outshines that of her brother and sister who showed their abilities at a much earlier age. The youngest one is MUCH better at the practical application of what she knows. Even though the oldest tested smarter, it’s all in the theoretical stuff like relativity and string theory and all.
Sounds like France has a pretty lousy system.
Mr. mm has had engineers that he works with who know about Saxon Math tell him that it is by far the best curriculum for preparing kids for a real life, practical application of math.
When engineers tell you that, you listen.
FYI ping
Why would anyone forget?
Being a fisherman, it's really important to know these things, unless you just want to sit outside.
Hey, I’m not arguing it - I think it’s a basic piece of “general information” that, like you said, can help you with things but people were fishing and hunting long, long before they had a clue about orbits of stars and planets.
People forget all sorts of things, surely you can understand that. Do you remember the Pythagorean theorem? If you need it for your job, maybe. Most people have no idea.
As for sun and seasons, people can grasp the East to West rise and set and seasons without knowing the “fact” that Earth orbits our satellite, the Sun. In fact, most people don’t know the Sun is a star. I never knew it before - or if learned it, forgot. See?
I disagree. The idea that all kids advance at the same rate is a major part of the problem in education.
If the majority says the earth is flat, is the earth now flat? Does it really matter?
You make a plausible argument for ignorance. Not you, just the people you are arguing for. Somehow I can't fathom someone say he is intelligent and lives in a modern society like the USA, who doesn't understand the clock of our very lives and our planet. It's not complicated. But hey that's just me.
Now photosynthesis and cellular respiration, maybe not so much so.
If you didn't know that about 75% of the earth's surface is covered in water and just said a lot of water, I can understand.
The problem with our modern secularists is they have replaced facts with psuedo-crappola. This effects the reasoning ability, limits our ability to use deductive reasoning because our fact base is so corrupt. This now effects the public at large to our detriment. People argue as if what they see on TV is true, because it's on TV for instance. They don't understand what they are arguing about, but assume 'if seen on TV then it must be fact". Bad decision, easily manipulated by evil. And that is where we are at today. Unable for most to rationalize our world, and find reason in our very freedoms.
This is what I was focused on, not the fact that it is true or necessary.
I would also argue that intellect is not the same as intelligence.
It makes sense to me, but I worry about young girls in class with older boys (and other issues involving older kids with younger kids). If everyone was well behaved etc it wouldn’t be an issue (it used to be the norm) but these days....I saw plenty when I was teaching HS, 20 year old boys in freshman classes, hitting on the 14 year old girls.
“I think the intent here is more like “and then they shall all be equally stupid.””
You couldn’t be more wrong.
The problem with public school nowadays is that the smart kids sit around waiting for the slower ones to catch up.
This gives the exceptional ones more ability to achieve.
Or maybe even move the fast learners up a grade or two.
Of course liberals have their own solutions, send their kids to private high achiever schools.
“They didn’t all learn to sit up & walk at exactly the same age. They don’t all wear the same size shoes. Why do we expect them to all learn math & reading at the same pace?”
Excellent point.
This relates to what the real issue in our society is, namely that we are a nation of individuals first and part of a group, second.
Expecting everyone to progress at the same rate is part of the collectivist mindset.
“I am not sure you are serious, but having faster learning students twiddle their thumbs while the slow ones twaddle, doesn’t seem like a good use of human capital.”
I may not have been clear in my response.
My point was that the exceptional ones sit around waiting on the slower ones, and that is bad.
“Maybe a better approach would be to speed up the slow lane?”
That’s not possible. There exists a slow lane for a reason.
“Or maybe even move the fast learners up a grade or two.”
Even when kids are ready to learn academics at a faster pace they are usually not mature enough to handle being moved up with the older kids. Putting several grade levels together works better from the standpoint that it’s not just a couple of bright younger kids thrown in with the older ones.
“I saw plenty when I was teaching HS, 20 year old boys in freshman classes, hitting on the 14 year old girls.”
Yikes! Talk about unintended consequences!
Yup. I always wondered if those girls’ parents knew they were in class with boys that old. (and of course, you know that was the cream of the crop...NOT) Personally, I think if we are going to continue to educate kids until the year they turn 21 (which was the law in TX at the time) then once they hit 18 and still are not going to graduate within a semester, they should go somewhere else, because at that point, most of them clearly need something other than traditional schooling. I can tell you, that most who were in school until 20 never did graduate. They were just biding time, staying eligible for free lunches, etc.
When we lived in Midland TX, all 3 of my sons went thru their gifted program (elementary school). It was a pull out program (they went somewhere other than their regular school one or more days per week, depending on their grade). This worked out well for them because they were challenged in the gifted classes, and still had to keep up with their regular work, which meant they didn’t have time to be bored. It was a full plate, but I think they would have died of boredom otherwise.
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