My now 7th and 9th graders, who were both in AAP at the same school, never learned grammar, and my 9th grader has struggled in Spanish because he doesn't know English grammar. |
Yeah the gen ed classes have it rough with the huge range. It’s tough. |
It's actually because of the way you are teaching it. When I was a kid, things were drilled into us over and over and over again. Now you go over something for one week, move on to the next thing, the next thing, and maybe come back to it 6 months later for another week before you move on again. I don't know who decided this was a good way to teach, but the reason kids aren't retaining things is because you're not giving them enough exposure or time for it to sink in. |
My 5th grader's teacher said they are being told to use UFLI now for a normal general education class. Not intervention. |
+1 this is true! The teacher will mention on one day how to use quotation marks with dialogue and then there are no follow up, practice worksheets on it. On a different day, they may talk about contractions briefly and then again there are no follow up activities for a week or two to drill the concept and the wide range of contractions into the minds of the young children. This is for most topics —-only brief exposure. Then the teachers say that they taught it, but it wasn’t practiced and practiced and built upon. It’s not effective. |
Lazy students incentivize lazy teachers. And also lazy administrators; less homework means less work for everyone. Since this is the now the norm, it's more important than ever to not be a lazy parent. |
I am previous teacher poster. I can assure you I revisit parts of speech daily in my word study block. I spiral back previous concepts in HW and Number talks. The kids are not retaining the way they should. I see this with previous students I tutor. They completely forget something that was taught by myself and revisited throughout the year. |
I will add, not saying all teachers do this. Some truly don’t teach certain concepts. But many do and revisit and practice certain things throughout the year are some kids are still not getting it. |
I think it's a mix of both. Less practice. More things to cover spreading each item thin. And technology distracting us. |
We parents feel for teachers like you, really we do. You guys and the kids who get left behind get the brunt. I don't know how one would change laws and policies so all kids could get their needs met. It's a thorny problem for sure. |
+1 to the past two quotes. We're a low tech family and my kids have great attention spans and retention. But they only got homework in 1st through 3rd grade (kid who was in those grades during Covid barely has ever had homework) and many years their Tuesday folders come home nearly empty and there's very little on Schoology. I have no concept of what they are doing for the 4 or so academic hours of the day those years. |
Ok, but why would this be? Are we saying kids are regressing in terms of mental development? I'd find that pretty hard to believe. |
Been documented for over a decade now that the tech we have is changing our brains: https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750 |
Technology is a huge part. Lack of parental involvement in kids education. Kids need for instant gratification. All of it. |
Believe it. |