Posted on 01/01/2013 5:32:24 AM PST by IbJensen
——McGuffey Readers——
My wife and I passed our copies we used for homeschooling our children to our home schooled grand children ....
I seriously doubt many college graduates could comprehend the third reader...
I have referred to the “Obamaphone” woman and those of her ilk as the “Worthless Class”. They contribute nothing to society but prey on the goodness of those who still believe in the American dream. The combination of the “Ruling Class” and the “Worthless Class” will control politics and societal evolution for the next 50+ years.
Maybe those old racist southerners were not so far off with some of their voting laws. I would propose a return of Voter ID, Poll Taxes, Literacy Tests, tax stubs and maybe even a deed to real property to vote. Welfare recipient’s are also disqualified
Elitist? Maybe, but at least we should eliminate the “Low Information” voter. (The voter that is really too ignorant to vote) Some of whom are really too stupid.
I sincerely doubt that. Large percentages of Americans never went past grade school in those days. And many only had a few years of schooling. I would guess a lot of people had the rudiments of reading and writing, but many most likely never read a book other than the bible after they got out of school. And I doubt many of them read the bible much. By 1940, only fifty percent of Americans had graduated from high school.
Reading accounts of major league baseball players from those days, many were semi-illiterate farm boys who liked saloons, drinking, and loose women a lot more than libraries and going to the opera. They were probably typical of many of the adults from that era.
A pox on both parties.
The Republicrats and Democans are the two faces of the Big Government party. America desperately needs a second party.
I’m with you, Tupelo!
I read all the posts through number twenty five and no one has mentioned the biggest bottleneck in the school system.
teachers colleges and education degrees
The schools can be fixed. Stop hiring education degrees. for grades K-6 hire high school graduates with a 3.0 or better GPA. Use the ASVAB to screen for those with an aptitude for teaching. For those who are going to start yelling, the high school grads did better in one room school houses than the ed degrees are doing now. For grades 7-12 some subjects can easily be taught by high school grads. for the math and science courses hire math or science degrees. Schools today seem to be engaged in feather bedding. there is no need for a principle, two or three vice principles and a half dozen assistant vice principles. The school I attended, 55 to 67, had a grade school principle, a principle for grades 7-12, a secretary for each, three custodial staff, three cooks and 28 teachers with a student body of 600. that was all. Schools now have more personal that don’t teach than they have that teach.
Exactly. When we started homeschooling I realized this, since I have a complete collection of bound Harpers magazines from number 1 on the 1840s to 1900, when the magazine began its' slide into liberal trash.
From that magazine and other books and magazines I figured Americans were the most literate in the mid to late 1800s.
Realizing that the influence for this must have come in the early to mid 1800s I began collecting more school books from that era.
The reason for the success appeared quickly.
I was taught to read in a one room school in Vermont before the state was invaded by the NY, NJ and CT trust fund hippies.
We were taught by an excellent, old rogue teacher who used the phonics she knew. This consisted of the single letter sounds, dipthongs and tripthongs (2 and three letters sounded together).
She (and I) believed there were a lot of words in english you couldn't read using phonics.
There were two sets of phonics rules that fell by the wayside and have been forgotten since the 1840s to 1850s. Those are the silent letter rules and the substitute letter rules.
By using these rules, our younger daughter, who wasn't infected by the public school system was reading at above second year college level at 3rd grade.
This isn't unusual as once you know the rules and have a 1930s or earlier dictionary, you can read anything.
I've had many discussions with so called teachers who use this ridiculous "whole word" program to "teach" reading.
Except for the few rogue teachers, this is a waste of time.
Most are so completely indoctrinated with the propaganda from the colleges that there is no way they will even consider listening to anything a lay person has to say.
There are two books, by Rudolf Flesch, "Why Johnny Can't Read - and what You Can Do About It" in 1955, and "Why Johnny STILL Can't Read" in 1981 that document and explain the sordid money trail that keeps the farce of the whole word program going.
The Whole Word system has kids memorizing 20,000 words like Chinese characters. They are taught to guess at words they don't know by the surrounding context.
Few people are going to remember 20,000 of anything they try to memorize.
When these crippled students hit math, history and science, there are many words not included in the 20,000.
The ignorant reading teachers scoff at phonics as "rote learning". They just look at you like a deer in the headlights when you ask them, well, which would you rather memorize, 20,000 of ANYTHING or 120? There are roughtly 120 phonics rules which enable you to read almost ANY word in the english language.
An older dictionary allows you to comprehend it.
I have posted the complete set of rules on one of my web sites in "cheat sheet" form to print out.
Who wants to bother memorizing even 120 of anything?
You begin to remember the most used rules as you use them. When you hit a word with a seldom used rule, that's why you have a cheat sheet!
Eventually you pretty much forget you are using the rules, it's just automatic.
The speedy "sight reading" just comes naturally as time goes on.
Many people learn enough phonics from different sources such as Montessori, reading the Bible (an older copy), re-incarnation from a soul that was alive in the 1800s or just figure it out on their own. The rest are out of luck.
The inability to read unknown words is what causes many people to have to go to classes to learn just about anything new.
They are unable to read the information they need to figure out things for themselves.
This was particularly obvious when computers were being introduced to our school system.
Almost all the teachers were saying they needed classes on how to operate and use computers.
Several of us asked why they didn't just read the manuals and figure it out like we did?
The reponse was that they couldn't learn that way. Translation, they were unable to read an comprehend the manuals because there were many words they couldn't read.
If enough folks bypass this mess by homeschooling and properly teaching reading, our country may survive.
If not, watch the movie, "Idiocracy". Don't rent it, buy it, you're going to want to watch it several times to catch all the nuances and to show to others.
And now here he is, getting ready to start his second term as VP, a heartbeat from the presidency.
Never saw that coming...but I can imagine what's coming next and I doubt it will be pleasant. We have an uncanny knack for doing what doesn't work, as our educational system demonstrates.
It will no doubt get better when obama nationalizes education like he promised he'd do, along with nationalizing our healthcare and energy.
Excellent post, Mogger ! I’m going to keep it as a reference.
I started school in the mid 1950’s at a four-room schoolhouse (two grades per room, one teacher) in a village here in Ontario. We learned reading using the phonics method. Every child could read comprehensively before entering Grade 3. Then again, kindergarten wasn’t available, so most of us had a little “kick-start” learning at home before entering school. I’ve always been thankful for my early schooling.
Only the educated are free.
Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD)
I was born with a talent in reading. My parents read to me every night, and I picked up words. In first grade...I was reading 5th grade texts.
I had a similar argument with my children's first grade teacher in the early 90's. They introduced "whole language" reading the year my daughter was in 1st grade. I told her teacher that phonics is the only way to learn to read and if she did not teach the phonics way of reading, I would do it at home and I did. Had my 4 year old son also learning phonics with his sister, he knew how to read and spell almost everything by the time he was in her first grade class, 2 years later.
BTW, phonics also helps with spelling. I was taught phonics in the 50's in southern CA, spelling is easy if you know the sounds letters make alone and in groups.
Brilliant Post. Brilliant response.
I wouldn’t consider myself to be the most literate person in the world, but I have found that the books purloined from my grandfather’s extensive library, from the 30s, are wonderful sources of information. Gramps was a lawyer in Idaho, and very well read. He had books espousing many perspectives, which are fascinating to read these days, particularly those blessing communism. How wrong they were, yet how persistent, and successful, they still are.
I hope that the message of your posts sees a wider audience. America’s future depends upon it.
Idiocracy comes to life.
“Americans bought critical changes in behavior, beliefs, and worldviews. By applying advertising and agitation in just the right proportions, our adversaries learned they could create a mob mentality and suppress independent thinking. Technically, this is called the science of coercion. If done properly, one can fool nearly all the people all the time.”
This is how Agenda 21 will become successful.
We keep making the mistake of projecting our thoughts and beliefs on the Democrat voters. What do you think about your vote? Have you even considered what a “vote” is? We look at our vote as an expression of our beliefs. We “vote” for people who we think will best represent our beliefs and thoughts. Is this what Democrat voters think? They see their vote as an investment. They are “investing” in the Democrat party. And, like all good old-fashioned investors, they expect dividends. We have to understand that they think differently than we do. They aren’t stupid. Somehow, these “stupid” people manage to find their way to the polling stations and find the Democrats on the ballot. These stupid people beat us this last election. They probably consider us to be quite stupid. I know the leaders of the Democrat party consider us to be quite stupid.
“Understand yourself and understand your opponents, and in one hundred battles, you will not be defeated.”
Good thing you weren't ordering a plain omelet, and she's lucky you weren't Jack Nicholson's character in the movie "Five Easy Pieces".
(kudos for your patience)
We have a complete original set. We used them a little, but mostly books from 1830 to 1850.
In New Hampshire you just have to send or bring a letter to the principal, or the district office or the state board of education stating you are going to homeschool and a copy of your curriculum.
We had been bandying about the idea of homeschooling for a while, but were pushed over the edge one day when I was under our Volkswagen and asked our older daughter to read me something from the manual.
She was in 3rd grade and getting As and Bs, so I though this should be no problem. I had taught her a smattering of reading before 1st grade, but then made the mistake of assuming the school system would do the rest.
She was unable to read it.
I slid out and we went to our library and I pulled out 1800s readers from 1st to 3rd grade. She was illiterate.
That did it. I wrote the short letter, and a one page curriculum, listing almost all books from the early 1800s and we started homeschooling.
In subsequent years, the last assignment each year was for them to write the curriculum for the next year.
They were tested each year by a certified teacher as required by NH law, which I prefer anyway to see where we may be behind or ahead. As it turned out we were usually ahead.
Our "schooling" was a little different from most, it took on average 2 to 4 hours a day, but didn't end there. Math was mostly taught while on the road. No calculators or paper allowed until they could do all the basics in their heads. Spelling the same way. Most "tests" also on the road, no paper.
The chairman of the school board and the assistant superintendent had become two of my best friends.
The chairman was a retired electrical and mechanical engineer, former B-24 pilot who has been involved in the development of a LOT of things that are well know by everyone.
The assistant superintendent a retired Special Forces ops colonel who is fluent in several languages, has doctorates in education and economics. He's also been in the middle of a lot of events that have been in the news. He also was in a Harvard think tank on the teaching of reading. He came to our district, seeking a small school system where he could "give back", with a huge sacrifice in pay compared to what he could have gotten elsewhere. He was hoping in that manner to be able to work at improving the system.
It would be an uphill battle with the teachers, their union and the administrators all digging in their heels.
Neither had ever met (to their knowledge) a homeschooled student.
One day they asked me if I would like to come with them to Barre, VT to check out their ROTC program as they wanted to bring ROTC to our school. I said, sure, but could my older daughter come along?
on the hour and a half drive they grilled her to see what she knew (pre-arranged). As we neard the school, she was asked if she would mind coming up with some questions for students in the program and getting their point of view, as she was more likely to get a true answer from them than any adult.
These were all juniors and seniors. She pretty much interrogated them and had plenty for the return trip. Along the way, I was asked, even though we homeschool, could she join the track team (amazon woman).
I responded, sure, but don't you have age restrictions? I asked them just how old they thought she was, anyway?
They conflabbed for a while and finally decided on 17 or 18 as she was still "in school". Then they asked her. Twelve.
I asked them if they thought there was any 12 year old in our public school who could have interacted with juniors and seniors at or above their level as she just had?
They said, no. One of the objections almost all "educators" bring up is "socialization", and how you need kids in school so they learn to "socialize". It is true, a few homeschoolers isolate their kids, usually religious ones from our experience.
Most homeschooled kids learn how to interact with people of all ages and backgrounds, not the artificial limiting to those of their own age.
We had many "discussions" over the teaching of reading in our district, but the idea of using phonics just wasn't getting anywhere with the assits. super.
In exasperation, one day I told him our younger daughter, who was in 3rd grade would come in and read and comprehend any book in his extensive bookshelves.
A few days later we had our fun. She had along a Calvin and Hobbs comic book she was reading. He asked her to read from it. I sad, come on, that's just a comic book, challenge her. He insisted. She read to him, laughing in the appropriate places and answered all of his questions about it.
He turned to me, amazed, and asked me if I knew what level that cartoon was written for? I had no clue, how should I know, it's a kids' comic book.
He said, no, it's for second year college level.
I responded that we didn't just now prove my daughter could read well, we proved that if this was supposedly second year college level, our country was in deep doo-doo.
He mentioned a problem he was having. He had a number of tests he wanted to "test the test" to see if any were something we might like to use in the district. The principals and teachers were dead set against it as they were afraid of how the kids would do.
I told him we were paying 50 bucks each per year for testing, free testing, graded by him would be great! Our kids became the most tested kids around shortly thereafter. Part of their assignment was to critique the tests for him.
We read in the homeschooling magazines these wonderful stories of how kids take off with it and often go for it by themselves.
Our kids hated it. I made their lives miserable with multiplication, division, addition, subtraction and spelling on road trips. It paid off though, and looking back they are both glad we did it.
Eventually the lefties in our district drove out the assist. super.
Since then he's taught at Beijing University and a Mongolian University, and now retired.
While as in any situation there are some good schools and some good teachers, overall, if you can, homeschooling is the better way to go.
At the very least, kids need the basics of reading with phonics and basic math.
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