New educational standards in Georgia and Arkansas - hope you’re paying attention, FCPS

[Anonymous]

If you’re very smart you probably have career options with much better pay, so that makes sense.

SAT scores are from HIGH SCHOOL. Even some very bright kids don’t try their best on that.

I think a lot of the flack against memorization and public speaking comes from parent complaints. Too many parents complain their kids’ teacher “tortured” their kid when they had to present a report to the class and now the teachers decide to move away from that because there’s parents wanting them to get fired over something that silly.

I agree that multiplication tables should be memorized and kids should do presentations/public speaking.

There’s also another factor though. Inclusion model in most schools. You now have kids who can’t read anywhere near grade level or who have crippling anxiety. As a sub in a very nice school district, I’ve seen experienced teachers handle this. The teachers do pull popsicle sticks to have kids read but they also give them the option to pass. Most kids do not pass, even the ones who struggle to read. I have seen a few kids who get pulled into reading groups who do sometimes choose to pass. I think this works well as we don’t need kids being so anxious about getting called on to read when they truly struggle to read on grade level, that they start faking sick and get anxious to go to school!!

There’s a lot of factors with this stuff. It’s not just “oh teachers have a low average SAT score.”

Anonymous wrote:Ok. Know I am going to get flamed here but there is one simple reason why public schools across this country are failing including FCPS.

The best and brightest no longer go into teaching. Most of the good teachers left are near or at retirement age. Those few good ones that enter the profession are driven out by the poor and mediocre.

The average SAT score for those pursuing education degrees is 1060. They find out they can’t teach and move into administration and chase one fad after another.

They couldn’t memorize their times tables so that must have been a poor approach. They hated public speaking so we shouldn’t make kids do it. They felt bad because other kids had better grades, so now we have effort and mastery grading or no grades at all.

It is time for the US to adopt Finland’s model before it is to late - https://hechingerreport.org/teacher-voice-in-finland-its-easier-to-become-a-doctor-or-lawyer-than-a-teacher-heres-why/

[Anonymous]

I and my kids hate STEM. We are poets at heart. We would love this.

STEM people are robots.

[Anonymous]

NP. I think the point the person is trying to make is that unfortunately the best and brightest aren’t going into teaching in the US but rather it is the bottom of the barrel. As a result the education system as a whole suffers.

In other countries like Finland, teachers and education are valued and so the education system functions well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Memorizing classic words doesn’t mean they understand them. I’d rather my child understand the purpose and meaning without being able to recite word for word.

+1. I can’t believe OP thinks memorizing is something worth praising and recommending.

Memorization is part of learning. It is a simple as that. How did you learn your times tables?

Someone a few posts back pointed out that memorizing math facts isn’t the same as memorizing something like poetry.

Still, memorizing 9x7=63 doesn’t mean you understand what 9x7 means.

And people who are actually good at math don't need to memorize it because they have more reliable methods like 7x(9+1)-7x(1)=70-7=63 or the finger trick.

Mathematicians have far more important facts to remember.

I find it hard to believe someone who cannot memorize times tables will go on to become a mathematician.

Arithmetic is just one branch of mathematics.

No it isn't. If you disagreed, find me someone who did their PhD in arithmetic.

[Anonymous]

Just ask Taylor Swift to write a song on any passage you think should be memorized. Abracadabra, a bunch of kids will have it memorized in a week!

[Anonymous]

I don't mind the idea of memorization at some grade level, but I prefer a public speaking unit. Our 6th graders in an FCPS elementary have been doing a Toastmasters unit at the end of each year. After classroom presentations, the students vote for a small group of willing kids to present in front of a school assembly. I think it's fantastic. And very applicable to life skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't mind the idea of memorization at some grade level, but I prefer a public speaking unit. Our 6th graders in an FCPS elementary have been doing a Toastmasters unit at the end of each year. After classroom presentations, the students vote for a small group of willing kids to present in front of a school assembly. I think it's fantastic. And very applicable to life skills.

Sounds like POG POL (Portrait of a Graduate, Presentation of Learning).

Public speaking has not been taken out of the ES curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. I think the point the person is trying to make is that unfortunately the best and brightest aren’t going into teaching in the US but rather it is the bottom of the barrel. As a result the education system as a whole suffers.

In other countries like Finland, teachers and education are valued and so the education system functions well.

It's a fallacy that the "bottom of the barrel" goes into education in the US--that is based on the scores of people who have education as a major, not the majority of teachers who major in their subject. The states that offer education as the most common undergraduate major for teachers tend to have lower SAT scores altogether.

When you compare graduate SATs ed grad programs do score lower than others, but that's primarily because it's a wider swatch of people who go on to grad school in education--only the most academic go on to other graduate degrees, but to even get a teaching license in many states you have to do a master's/post-bac program and many school systems require a master's degree to improve your pay/keep your licenses. Teachers enroll in master's programs while full-time teaching and don't prepare for the GRE as they have to just meet the minimum benchmark to get in the program--there's not a lot of pressure to get into a more 'elite' program via higher scores because you are likely going to the closest one because you are a full-time teacher.

That said, Finland DOES make it very hard to become a teacher and teachers are highly respected and it shows in student learning outcomes so I agree with you there.

[Anonymous]

Why do people care about the SAT scores of future teachers? The most important qualities in a public school teacher are the ability to deal with the decision fatigue that comes with the constantness of the job and the ability to put up with an incredible amount of BS coming from every direction. Most DCUMs wouldn't last a month as a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people care about the SAT scores of future teachers? The most important qualities in a public school teacher are the ability to deal with the decision fatigue that comes with the constantness of the job and the ability to put up with an incredible amount of BS coming from every direction. Most DCUMs wouldn't last a month as a teacher.

FWIW, I was a teacher with great test scores. I was a very good teacher. However, I knew some great, great teachers who I am sure did not have test scores as high as mine.
Teaching is an art. Science and knowledge are important, but connecting is also important.

I have to add, though, that I started teaching before women were encouraged to pursue other careers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't mind the idea of memorization at some grade level, but I prefer a public speaking unit. Our 6th graders in an FCPS elementary have been doing a Toastmasters unit at the end of each year. After classroom presentations, the students vote for a small group of willing kids to present in front of a school assembly. I think it's fantastic. And very applicable to life skills.

+1
That gives me hope.

[Anonymous]

Here are some letters to the editor in response to the piece in the OP:

I am happy to read that Georgia and Arkansas have reinstated memorization of great poetry and speeches in school, though not without opposition from “modern educators” (“Kids and the Power of the Spoken Word” by Mark Bauerlein and David Mikics, op-ed, June 15). My college writing instructor asked all his students to memorize poetry. Even at that time, such rote learning wasn’t fashionable. But over the decades, reciting the poems I committed to memory has provided me entertainment on long road trips and served in conversation as proof of my erudition—or at least my willingness to bore other people.

More seriously, it gave me the words for feelings and experiences that I have had over the years, enriching my life as a source of amusement, comfort and inspiration. Having the words themselves in my head has been infinitely more meaningful than some teacher’s analytical (and possibly ideological) parsing of those words.

John Ninomiya
Sedona, Ariz.

My grandfather, John Jamieson, was born in Scotland in 1890, when education relied heavily on rote memorization and recitation. He had to leave school at 13 to begin working but continued to learn all his life. He could recite classical speeches, long poems or entire acts from Shakespeare’s plays, and always had an appropriate quote.

In his final years, Pop lost his hearing and finally his sight, but his mind was still sharp. In that world of darkness and silence, he entertained himself by recalling all those famous words he had learned, beginning as a young child in school. Surely that was not, as modern educators apparently believe, “empty repetition, mechanical and prescriptive.”

Susan Jonas
Danville, Ky.

Memorization is vital in math, as well. It is virtually impossible to teach fraction addition, factoring or negative numbers to a student who can’t immediately add, subtract or multiply with the basic tables. Yet current thought suggests that students will eventually become fluent in math only if they can understand the larger concepts behind computation. Try tutoring middle-school or high-school math students who haven’t memorized the basic facts.

Judy Keyes
Milwaukee

We have to ignore the English teachers’ objections as bogus. Remember, it was the English teachers who objected to marking errors on students’ papers because it would damage their psyches. Look what that got us: a nation of cupcakes and poor writers. Good for Georgia and Arkansas!

Em. Prof. Carol G. McKenzie
California State University-Los Angeles

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are some letters to the editor in response to the piece in the OP:

I am happy to read that Georgia and Arkansas have reinstated memorization of great poetry and speeches in school, though not without opposition from “modern educators” (“Kids and the Power of the Spoken Word” by Mark Bauerlein and David Mikics, op-ed, June 15). My college writing instructor asked all his students to memorize poetry. Even at that time, such rote learning wasn’t fashionable. But over the decades, reciting the poems I committed to memory has provided me entertainment on long road trips and served in conversation as proof of my erudition—or at least my willingness to bore other people.

More seriously, it gave me the words for feelings and experiences that I have had over the years, enriching my life as a source of amusement, comfort and inspiration. Having the words themselves in my head has been infinitely more meaningful than some teacher’s analytical (and possibly ideological) parsing of those words.

John Ninomiya
Sedona, Ariz.

My grandfather, John Jamieson, was born in Scotland in 1890, when education relied heavily on rote memorization and recitation. He had to leave school at 13 to begin working but continued to learn all his life. He could recite classical speeches, long poems or entire acts from Shakespeare’s plays, and always had an appropriate quote.

In his final years, Pop lost his hearing and finally his sight, but his mind was still sharp. In that world of darkness and silence, he entertained himself by recalling all those famous words he had learned, beginning as a young child in school. Surely that was not, as modern educators apparently believe, “empty repetition, mechanical and prescriptive.”

Susan Jonas
Danville, Ky.

Memorization is vital in math, as well. It is virtually impossible to teach fraction addition, factoring or negative numbers to a student who can’t immediately add, subtract or multiply with the basic tables. Yet current thought suggests that students will eventually become fluent in math only if they can understand the larger concepts behind computation. Try tutoring middle-school or high-school math students who haven’t memorized the basic facts.

Judy Keyes
Milwaukee

We have to ignore the English teachers’ objections as bogus. Remember, it was the English teachers who objected to marking errors on students’ papers because it would damage their psyches. Look what that got us: a nation of cupcakes and poor writers. Good for Georgia and Arkansas!

Em. Prof. Carol G. McKenzie
California State University-Los Angeles

Very refreshing. Thank you for sharing!

Memorization is an important tool when learning a foreign language, from vocabulary acquisition to verb conjugation mastery - the foundations to communicating in a second, third, or more languages.

I have taught foreign languages to adults and children for over thirty years, and I can attest to this fact. The article and the research below further illustrate this point:

1.https://katiabrunetti2.medium.com/the-role-of-the-memory-in-languages-acquisition-18f8b04ab32f

2.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1126194/full

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are some letters to the editor in response to the piece in the OP:

I am happy to read that Georgia and Arkansas have reinstated memorization of great poetry and speeches in school, though not without opposition from “modern educators” (“Kids and the Power of the Spoken Word” by Mark Bauerlein and David Mikics, op-ed, June 15). My college writing instructor asked all his students to memorize poetry. Even at that time, such rote learning wasn’t fashionable. But over the decades, reciting the poems I committed to memory has provided me entertainment on long road trips and served in conversation as proof of my erudition—or at least my willingness to bore other people.

More seriously, it gave me the words for feelings and experiences that I have had over the years, enriching my life as a source of amusement, comfort and inspiration. Having the words themselves in my head has been infinitely more meaningful than some teacher’s analytical (and possibly ideological) parsing of those words.

John Ninomiya
Sedona, Ariz.

My grandfather, John Jamieson, was born in Scotland in 1890, when education relied heavily on rote memorization and recitation. He had to leave school at 13 to begin working but continued to learn all his life. He could recite classical speeches, long poems or entire acts from Shakespeare’s plays, and always had an appropriate quote.

In his final years, Pop lost his hearing and finally his sight, but his mind was still sharp. In that world of darkness and silence, he entertained himself by recalling all those famous words he had learned, beginning as a young child in school. Surely that was not, as modern educators apparently believe, “empty repetition, mechanical and prescriptive.”

Susan Jonas
Danville, Ky.

Memorization is vital in math, as well. It is virtually impossible to teach fraction addition, factoring or negative numbers to a student who can’t immediately add, subtract or multiply with the basic tables. Yet current thought suggests that students will eventually become fluent in math only if they can understand the larger concepts behind computation. Try tutoring middle-school or high-school math students who haven’t memorized the basic facts.

Judy Keyes
Milwaukee

We have to ignore the English teachers’ objections as bogus. Remember, it was the English teachers who objected to marking errors on students’ papers because it would damage their psyches. Look what that got us: a nation of cupcakes and poor writers. Good for Georgia and Arkansas!

Em. Prof. Carol G. McKenzie
California State University-Los Angeles

Very refreshing. Thank you for sharing!

Memorization is an important tool when learning a foreign language, from vocabulary acquisition to verb conjugation mastery - the foundations to communicating in a second, third, or more languages.

I have taught foreign languages to adults and children for over thirty years, and I can attest to this fact. The article and the research below further illustrate this point:

1.https://katiabrunetti2.medium.com/the-role-of-the-memory-in-languages-acquisition-18f8b04ab32f

2.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1126194/full

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't mind the idea of memorization at some grade level, but I prefer a public speaking unit. Our 6th graders in an FCPS elementary have been doing a Toastmasters unit at the end of each year. After classroom presentations, the students vote for a small group of willing kids to present in front of a school assembly. I think it's fantastic. And very applicable to life skills.

Sounds like POG POL (Portrait of a Graduate, Presentation of Learning).

Public speaking has not been taken out of the ES curriculum.

Um, sure, please tell us which ES your kids attend because I want to investigate why one school has public speaking and others do not. Thanks!