What are your kids NOT learning in school?
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Anonymous
| How to use their hands and brains (together) to solve problems is missing in most school systems, though an attempt is being made in MoCo. In other words: design. True success, not just doing your job well but advancing the field, is measured by whether or not you can design a solution to a problem. |
Anonymous
| problem solving is useful for your career only after you've gotten the knowledge you need. I would never hire someone for a STEM position if they had problem solving instead of in depth knowledge (and I've been involved in hiring/firing for many years). My fear with the new race to the top initiatives is that the 'problem solving' will take away from the learning which already isn't intensive enough, especially for our best learners. (for ex. the algebra kids learn now before they take the HSA isn't the algebra of generations past, it's watered down so that data analysis can be put it...there's your problem solving aspect). |
Anonymous
| Great question OP. After reading the public and private threads on here, it seems that no school is "good enough." I, too, have wondered what parents want. These responses have been very interesting. |
Anonymous
On the other hand, in law, I usually don't care if anyone has substantive knowledge. It is much harder to teach problem-solving, writing, and public speaking than it is to teach substance. |
Anonymous
| Interesting perspectives on the problem-solving. Even though I went to a top-rated county public school system, I felt I didn't learn any critical thinking and problem-solving until college, and that really bugged me. I teach it to my kids now. I'd love the school to throw some in, but don't feel it's completely necessary. I would like them to learn STEM subjects in whatever way sets the stage for mastery. I am an attorney who's pretty good at math and science on a practical level. But I have no idea what the best approach is for learning it (New Math child myself). |
Anonymous
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Those of you in the "real world" professionally, how is the writing of recent college grads? Do you feel they are competent enough to write a memo, business letter, proposal, etc.?
On my end (HS teacher) the writing I see is pathetic. Grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc. Do you see the same thing or does that somehow get better? |
Anonymous
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Very important question/thread.
Our kid is not there yet, but I have some hopes for changes regarding the future of education: I agree with the people who mentioned critical thinking, problem solving, writing skills, analytical skills. If most subjects were taught with a focus on that, you have the tools to learn any new content. Aside from that, World history, international relations, geography, are subjects that need a curriculum overhaul IMHO. I cringe when I read about memorization of capitals, or the current state of history teaching -in the history sequential thread-. Who expects our children to be world citizens if they spend whole semesters -apparently repeatedly?!?- on the history of Maryland or Virginia? World history and geography as an elective? 20th century history gets a few weeks coverage, once or late or both? Again just "the facts"? Geography as being able to point on a map and rattle of memorized capitals? Really? |
Anonymous
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1. Grammar
2. Cursive writing |
Anonymous
| I hire people fairly frequently, and hiring people for admin type jobs out of college means they probably can't write and can't create and elaborate on ideas. The other type of people I hire are people with masters degrees in social sciences, and their writing is often stilted, wordy, and awful. So I now give intensive, in person writing tests to everyone I hire, and toss CVs based solely on the lack of that skill. |
Anonymous
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1. no ELL in middle school (even though he needs it badly). Thus not improving in his language reading and writing skills
2. No new math concepts in the past 2 years. 3. No history/geography 4. No real science (consists of reading very difficult texts provided by teacher). |
Anonymous
Because many teachers cannot write themselves. English is my 4th language and I do quite a bit of editing for my English native fellow teachers. Language learning somehow seems to end at the end of 5th grade, and then these elaborate projects start happening in Middle School, with little content but lots of fluff. No wonder parents are paying big bucks for privates. |
Anonymous
That was my initial reaction when I found out my son was going to be studying VA history all year in 4th grade, but I was actually quite impressed by the breadth of the curriculum and how it draws in all kinds of information that I would not have expected. Using VA history as a "point of view," if you will, he learned about, among other topics, European colonialism/exploration, the slave trade (and its roots in African/European history), the social structure that made land ownership impossible and the religious strife in Europe that led to emigration to the New World, all kinds of economic lessons and how economies grew out of and communities were influenced by the natural geography of the land, all kinds of interesting things about Native Americans in Virginia that I certainly never knew, lessons about how our government works and its roots (in the context of the institution of the House of Burgesses as a self-governing body), lessons about the movement of peoples from rural to urban communities. He learned about the civil rights movement in the context of learning about desegregation of schools in Virginia, which led to lessons about Brown v. Board of Education, the role of the Supreme Court in protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority, etc. Imagine how surprised I was when I one day mentioned something about the English in India and my nine year old lit up and said, "I know about that--Martin Luther King was influenced by Ghandi, who was this guy who led a nonviolent protest against the English so that the Indians could govern their own country." These are just a few of many examples. Having dug into the curriculum and seen how much has been wrapped into "Virginia history," I have to do a 180 from my original position. |
Anonymous
| wrt keyboarding, i was under the impression that most kids start picking it up very adeptly in middle or high school thanks to all the internet usage/chatting/emailing they do. no? |
Anonymous
Writing! I have a DC in ES (4th grade) and have seen very little writing aside from standard BCRs. I think the writing curriculum is extremely weak in ES (can't speak for MS or HS). I manage young staff of recent college graduates at an IT firm and for the most part, I think their writing is atrocious too. It is very discouraging. Even though they are IT professionals, they have to be able to write a design document to deliver to a client, memos, training materials, etc. Grammar, spelling (even with spell check) capitalization, sentence structures, organization, and ability to be concise are all areas that need to be improved. |
Anonymous
| I am a college professor, and the skill I see most lacking is the ability to write an essay. Not just a book report, but an essay with an argument that is sustained through the paper. Also, students don't know basic rules of writing--how to cite (using quotation marks, block indent, Chicago Manual of Style, footnotes/endnotes, etc.), avoiding passive voice, etc. This is a skill that transcends subject matters. |