I’m confused - why are people developing their own curriculum if the school is assigning work?

[Anonymous]

^ also, private and tutor pay is way too low. I’m 30 and unmarried. Even if I were married I don’t want to have to relay on someone else to get by. Public school pay isn’t amazing, but it’s okay I guess. I’m living with my parents right now so that my whole entire check doesn’t go to rent though. But I can’t afford to make private school or tutor pay. I hope all the families sending their kids to private school this year spoil the teachers because they’re paid almost nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School is not about learning it's about beating the next guy. Parents have turned schooling into a competitive sport.

If they "add" stuff to the curriculum, their kids are "better", "smarter", "will get ahead".

It's the fallacy that working hard will get you ahead ... so when somebody is not doing well they can just look down on them and say.. well you didn't work hard enough. When their kids fail they can say, "I did everything right" so it's somebody else's fault.

We are taking this "lack of teaching" and sport time to be more in tune with music, nature, hiking, growing, watching series together, just chiling... all the things missing from school life normally.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Helicoptering

Irrational Upper Middle Class fear that their kids won't get into a good enough college

This is not it. Some folks have kids that are bored. My youngest kid just does whats assigned and that's it. That's his personality type, he does a good job but then he needs some downtime. He doesn't want any extra work, he doesn't want to learn another language, he just wants to finish his math homework and go ride his bike around the block. My oldest is very different. When he was younger, I would constantly hear how bored he was. Everything was boring. So we introduced supplementing. He would easily go through a book a week in K, so I'd assign him a book report (just a few sentences and a picture). He wanted to learn Spanish. He wanted to do piano. And then he wanted to do guitar. He took apart a computer and then wanted to learn coding in 4th grade. His schedule is busy and he loves it, he gets up at 6am and he's ready to get the day started. Some kids thrive on always being on the go, they thrive on being challenged, that's their personality type. As long as parents aren't forcing their kids to do things and the kids are happy and engaged, why not add to the watered down curriculum of public schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where is the family finding time to compete other curriculum work?

I’ve seen some people adding languages and other assignments but is that being turned in somewhere to the school or just to the parents? Etc...

Our 2nd grader is not doing well with the screen time, volume of “homework,” organizational expectations. Comments from the teacher like “you have to learn this for next year when it’s tricky” aren’t helping nor are the days and days of real-time assessments. The kid is 7 and is shutting down.

So yeah, big talk w the school and likely pulling out to tutor/homeschool by a third party. We’ll follow what we like from the school and it will be outcome based.

[Anonymous]

I got a curriculum because the school hasn't provided one. My K is just supposed to show up to synchronous classes (which, given it is K, are sort of a mess, let's be honest). I was lost as to what my kid was supposed to be learning, particularly when I couldn't sit in the synchronous class. So, I just wanted to be able to figure out what was an appropriate amount and type of education for K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Helicoptering

Irrational Upper Middle Class fear that their kids won't get into a good enough college

This is not it. Some folks have kids that are bored. My youngest kid just does whats assigned and that's it. That's his personality type, he does a good job but then he needs some downtime. He doesn't want any extra work, he doesn't want to learn another language, he just wants to finish his math homework and go ride his bike around the block. My oldest is very different. When he was younger, I would constantly hear how bored he was. Everything was boring. So we introduced supplementing. He would easily go through a book a week in K, so I'd assign him a book report (just a few sentences and a picture). He wanted to learn Spanish. He wanted to do piano. And then he wanted to do guitar. He took apart a computer and then wanted to learn coding in 4th grade. His schedule is busy and he loves it, he gets up at 6am and he's ready to get the day started. Some kids thrive on always being on the go, they thrive on being challenged, that's their personality type. As long as parents aren't forcing their kids to do things and the kids are happy and engaged, why not add to the watered down curriculum of public schools?

because they get ahead of the class and are a headache for teachers

let your kid play more this is elementary school for goodness sakes

math acceleration is pointless

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Helicoptering

Irrational Upper Middle Class fear that their kids won't get into a good enough college

+1000

[Anonymous]

Who has time to supplement their child’s education? My DH and I work full time, we have zero extra time for this crap. Why, why, why are we paying taxes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who has time to supplement their child’s education? My DH and I work full time, we have zero extra time for this crap. Why, why, why are we paying taxes?

Well, I do have time since I don't work. We probably pay less tax than you though, so I guess it even out, since I am spending about 10k this year on extracurriculars and tutors (a social pod for my K).

[Anonymous]

We’ve always supplemented with the goal that school is a sort of review. DH is East Asian and was raised this way and it worked for him in getting a PhD so why not (in effect school is supplementing the education we provide as parents). I think what most people miss though is that everything a parent does with a child is education. Spending the day in the woods out back or on the water is much better than just reading about the natural sciences. Speaking a second language at home is better than speaking it in a classroom for an hour a day three days a week. Discussing history and geography while in the garden or working on a project in the basement, etc, etc. We also have well stocked shelves in our library that cover everything and when asked a question neither of us know an answer to, we research it together. Bottom line is that my children’s education is my responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who has time to supplement their child’s education? My DH and I work full time, we have zero extra time for this crap. Why, why, why are we paying taxes?

You surely can't expect people to shell out $20,000 of their own money for forty-five minute Ibram X. Kendi speeches on Zoom. It's an honor and a privilege!

Anyway, you're stuck making the time unless you've got enough money for private school. Yes, it sucks. I'd advise you to figure out your best value-add as far as direct instruction -- probably reading in the early grades, math or writing afterwards. This is what will eat up most of your limited stock of time. For another subject, find a relatively self-service workbook with which your child can be sat down while you make dinner. Tack on whatever else you can in the odd hours: quiz multiplication & addition during car rides, children's classics and paired reading at bedtime, audiobooks while cleaning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’ve always supplemented with the goal that school is a sort of review. DH is East Asian and was raised this way and it worked for him in getting a PhD so why not (in effect school is supplementing the education we provide as parents). I think what most people miss though is that everything a parent does with a child is education. Spending the day in the woods out back or on the water is much better than just reading about the natural sciences. Speaking a second language at home is better than speaking it in a classroom for an hour a day three days a week. Discussing history and geography while in the garden or working on a project in the basement, etc, etc. We also have well stocked shelves in our library that cover everything and when asked a question neither of us know an answer to, we research it together. Bottom line is that my children’s education is my responsibility.

Yes. This. Raised by two black parents in a household that most on this board would consider "poor." My parents stressed education, supported and sent us to public school and also made sure we were additionally exposed to everything the pp said: trips to the museum, walks in the woods, science projects in the backyard garden, observing the eclipse, and tons and tons of books. Every one of their kids has an advanced degree and is happy in our respective careers. We are all raising our kids with the exact same model of supplementing the curriculum with project-based, the world is a classroom approach.

[Anonymous]

We were always supplementing and adding to the curriculum on our own for years. Are you really 100% satisfied with what your kids are being taught in school?

Why do you think schools cannot bridge the achievement gap?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were always supplementing and adding to the curriculum on our own for years. Are you really 100% satisfied with what your kids are being taught in school?

Why do you think schools cannot bridge the achievement gap?

it doesn't even have to be formal supplementing. Things as simple as expecting kids to read on their own and pushing the grade level of the books they're reading will make them better readers, give them larger vocabularies, and exposure to more complex sentence structures. Sitting down and watching planet life or cosmos, or some random documentary on a regular basis is going to help with science/history/social studies. Even just regularly having conversations with educated parents will make a child more likely to have speech patterns and diction that sound more educated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DL back in spring made me realize how wrong I was about the quality of public education in this country. I was bamboozled by all the bell and whistles of coding, art, music, extra curricular, clubs etc. I still think all that is great, but I was under the impression that a normal/classical curriculum was still being taught, only maybe in a different manner or schedule.

When DL came about and I was left to figure things for myself for one month (FCPS) and did some research, I realized the curriculum is subpar. I want my children to be well educated independently if they decided to go to college - although that is an expectation.

I want them to learn rules of grammar, spelling and how to write/read critically. I also want them to learn geography. I have no comments about public math or science education - it seems fine to me. But since we are in a pandemic and I am not sure what to expect, she is also enrolled on a math class.

+1

And my kids were in a 10 rated NOVA elementary.