Lack of content in schools

[Anonymous]

OP, I agree with you, but how do the teachers keep the kids busy for 6.5 hours? Teacher here are masters of killing time, and don't tell me they are too busy teaching to the test. The 1st graders took a test the other day and I bet they all got 100%, because it was so pathetically easy and not because the teacher had prepared them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, if you're in the DC area, the only way to have your kids learn grammar, spelling, geography, history, and science is to leave the public school system. We did, and it's so much better. My kids learned more in the first month of school this year than they did for the entire year last year.

It’s more of a National problem. Some public schools (scattered throughout the country) actually still teach that stuff. I would guess it’s that most do not... I am a teacher and I agree it is a major problem. But we cannot teach what we want and how we want. It is (stupidly) paced out and scheduled for us.

Which schools or districts actually still teach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teach your kids what you want them to know. There are a million free resources out there. You can complain all you want, but any change will be far too late for your child to benefit. You don’t have to stay at home or homeschool, but, if it is really important to you for your child to know a thing, you teach it.

I love this answer. “Teach your kid geography/history/social science on your own! What’s wrong with you, expecting that school will teach your kid any of that!”

Ridiculous.

It is practical advice, you just want some SJW kudos as you feign outrage and continually fail to actually accomplish anything. Carry on pissing into the wind, the rest of have stuff to do.

WTF are you prattling on about? I have an exceptionally successful career, as does my husband. As a result, we send our kid to private school, where she learns content.

You can continue to bitch about how parents should just accept that schools won’t teach it. We take care of our kid.

And I have no idea where the hell you got SJW from.

I know what she means. We pulled our kid from a lackluster pk-12 progressive DC school. It’s lower school academics were beyond slow and lackluster, it coddled the kids, and it went way overboard with its SJW curriculum at the direct expense of civics, Grammar, spelling, foreign language exposure, traditional social studies (geography, context, history), Etc.

The gaps in spelling, grammar, math facts, and historical context were huge and needed heavy supplementing or tutoring. And after a year of that we left the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, if you're in the DC area, the only way to have your kids learn grammar, spelling, geography, history, and science is to leave the public school system. We did, and it's so much better. My kids learned more in the first month of school this year than they did for the entire year last year.

Not even remotely the case for my kids. One of whom is a millennial. Two in MCPS HS now.

Then you are not in a position to speak.
Go to an elementary school. See what they’re doing (remotely). You will not recognize any of it. You will be shocked at how different it is than what your own kids experienced. In a short amount of time, educators have dramatically changed how they teach. They focus on strategies, and don’t try to pass on knowledge or information. So, no social studies, science, geography, no grammar or spelling or vocabulary work. It’s completely bizarre.

+1

I listened to a grade 2 math lesson on zoom where the teacher let five students incorrectly answer a math problem for 20 minutes out loud, then briefly “instructed” on a correct way to do it. My kid was beyond confused. If raining such bad habits between that kind of “lesson” and that inventive spelling krap for k-3. Oh and no punctuation and all run on sentences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teach your kids what you want them to know. There are a million free resources out there. You can complain all you want, but any change will be far too late for your child to benefit. You don’t have to stay at home or homeschool, but, if it is really important to you for your child to know a thing, you teach it.

We can advocate change and improvement for other children. We can want a better education, even if our children do not directly benefit.

Exactly. I can supplement at home, but it’s ridiculous to assume everyone will or can.

There is no time to supplement! I would love to. My kid is online for 6 hours a day and when 3pm comes he is DONE. no way i could supplement at that point, but i agree very much that its sad they are missing out on so much.

As a parent you have three options:

1) Complain to the school board. You know exactly where that complaint is going to be filed.

2) Switch to a private with a decent curriculum.

3) Better to light a candle than curse the darkness: do what you can. Maybe some bedtime reading coming from "Story of the World" or an older literature textbook, a bit of practice with multiplication tables in the car, have the kid write a letter to grandma during the weekend. Perhaps more heavy duty supplementation when the kids are off for Christmas or Summer vacations. It's lousy, you shouldn't have to do it, but nobody else is going to do it for you.

[Anonymous]

You know, I don't think I got a ton of content in my elementary education. But I was a voracious reader and absorbed a lot just from reading, watching television critically (you would be surprised what a person can pick up from just watching the evening news and shows like Murphy Brown), and listening to my parents and older sibling speak. I do think if you provide your children with a rich life, talk to them about current events and about things you experienced in your life, they will learn a lot of this stuff experientially.

Most of my content-rich knowledge came in high school and college, and I'm glad because I retained a lot more of it than I would have earlier. Sure, learning stuff like state capitals helped me start to understand the basics of geography, for instance. But I didn't really "get it" until high school and college.

I'm not opposed to more content-rich elementary education, but I do actually think the process stuff is much more important at that age. If I hadn't had excellent literacy in early elementary, I wouldn't have been reading everything I read later that helped me acquire a lot of content on my own, and also guided me toward taking the science and history and literature classes where I got more focused, academic instruction.

I do think we should be making sure to offer supplemental programs to kids who are unlikely to get this context at home though.

[Anonymous]

Always someone delusional from MCPS. (Read: employee) The one system in the region who developed its own common core curriculum (2.0) with Pearson Education Cabal which they had to abandon after a decade of nothingness. (Well county paid Hopkins 500,000 to tell them to drop it). And some schools are still teaching it after the Discovery (Channel) education mafia bribed MCPS curriculum developers and they had to start the RFP all over again!

Classic. Delusional DCUM parent who tries to convince others MCPS is somehow still ‘exceptional’ when it was the apotheosis of the issue.

[Anonymous]

OP I totally agree with you. On my days off I can hear what my kids are doing. It's complete nonsense. I supplement but as a previous PP said, the kids are so tired after being online for 4-5 hours. My upper ES have not had a math lesson in 2 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, if you're in the DC area, the only way to have your kids learn grammar, spelling, geography, history, and science is to leave the public school system. We did, and it's so much better. My kids learned more in the first month of school this year than they did for the entire year last year.

It’s more of a National problem. Some public schools (scattered throughout the country) actually still teach that stuff. I would guess it’s that most do not... I am a teacher and I agree it is a major problem. But we cannot teach what we want and how we want. It is (stupidly) paced out and scheduled for us.

Which schools or districts actually still teach?

Our DCPS does ES and MS do. My kids moved to a rigorous private school and were not behind in content, plus had some repeat content. They were behind in study skills and being generally studious though. The difference has not been in the content taught, but in the accountability for learning the content. If you look at your public school curriculum (at least ours), it is all there -- but the kids are not held accountable for learning it well, so many never do, and then the parents assume it wasn't even introduced. It was, you kid just wasn't paying attention and wasn't graded on it anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, if you're in the DC area, the only way to have your kids learn grammar, spelling, geography, history, and science is to leave the public school system. We did, and it's so much better. My kids learned more in the first month of school this year than they did for the entire year last year.

Not even remotely the case for my kids. One of whom is a millennial. Two in MCPS HS now.

Then you are not in a position to speak.
Go to an elementary school. See what they’re doing (remotely). You will not recognize any of it. You will be shocked at how different it is than what your own kids experienced. In a short amount of time, educators have dramatically changed how they teach. They focus on strategies, and don’t try to pass on knowledge or information. So, no social studies, science, geography, no grammar or spelling or vocabulary work. It’s completely bizarre.

This is bizarre to me, because I'm a teacher and you just list it off all the things that we do on a regular basis. So is this your teacher, the school, or the district?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I agree with you, but how do the teachers keep the kids busy for 6.5 hours? Teacher here are masters of killing time, and don't tell me they are too busy teaching to the test. The 1st graders took a test the other day and I bet they all got 100%, because it was so pathetically easy and not because the teacher had prepared them.

Killing time is the current flavor-of-the-month educational model. Teachers organize both math and language arts to have stations, where every station except one is filled with independent work. Most of the independent work is pure busywork, and no one is making sure that the kids are doing anything at all. In my kids' classes, every station turned into the "read independently" or "talk to your friends" station. They get 15 minutes every 2nd day actually learning from the teacher in math. In language arts, the highest reading groups might only see the teacher for 15 minutes every week or even every month. The teachers can use all of that extra time to focus on the struggling kids, since they are only rated based on the bottom kids passing the state tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, if you're in the DC area, the only way to have your kids learn grammar, spelling, geography, history, and science is to leave the public school system. We did, and it's so much better. My kids learned more in the first month of school this year than they did for the entire year last year.

It’s more of a National problem. Some public schools (scattered throughout the country) actually still teach that stuff. I would guess it’s that most do not... I am a teacher and I agree it is a major problem. But we cannot teach what we want and how we want. It is (stupidly) paced out and scheduled for us.

Which schools or districts actually still teach?

I don't know of any full districts that focus on content.. If you're in an area with charter schools and are fortunate enough to get in via the lottery, there are options for schools that still teach a content-rich curriculum. Charter schools seem to have less obligation than regular public schools to teach to the bottom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, if you're in the DC area, the only way to have your kids learn grammar, spelling, geography, history, and science is to leave the public school system. We did, and it's so much better. My kids learned more in the first month of school this year than they did for the entire year last year.

Not even remotely the case for my kids. One of whom is a millennial. Two in MCPS HS now.

Then you are not in a position to speak.
Go to an elementary school. See what they’re doing (remotely). You will not recognize any of it. You will be shocked at how different it is than what your own kids experienced. In a short amount of time, educators have dramatically changed how they teach. They focus on strategies, and don’t try to pass on knowledge or information. So, no social studies, science, geography, no grammar or spelling or vocabulary work. It’s completely bizarre.

This is bizarre to me, because I'm a teacher and you just list it off all the things that we do on a regular basis. So is this your teacher, the school, or the district?

People on this board are really scraping the bottom of the barrel with complaints about teachers, teacher preparation programs, and public schools. I thought your kids were falling desperately behind because they weren’t in school! Now they never learned anything to begin with because teachers are master “time killers”. Maybe what really takes up so much time is disciplining your children who have never heard that word no or been taught any respect or work ethic. Just a thought!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
People on this board are really scraping the bottom of the barrel with complaints about teachers, teacher preparation programs, and public schools. I thought your kids were falling desperately behind because they weren’t in school! Now they never learned anything to begin with because teachers are master “time killers”. Maybe what really takes up so much time is disciplining your children who have never heard that word no or been taught any respect or work ethic. Just a thought!

Hardly. If anything, DL has shown us how little is actually done in school. My kids are so much further ahead due to my supplementation than they've ever been in school, largely because unlike the teachers, I'm bothering to actually try to teach them anything. My kids have never had any discipline issues, are well behaved in class, and are above grade level in all subjects. Unfortunately, in FCPS, that means that they're completely ignored.

I'm not blaming teachers. Teachers have 30 kids packed in a classroom, many below grade level, and they're forced to be special ed teachers, ESOL teachers, and regular classroom teachers rolled into one. It stinks, though, for the bright, well behaved kids who are getting almost nothing from the teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, if you're in the DC area, the only way to have your kids learn grammar, spelling, geography, history, and science is to leave the public school system. We did, and it's so much better. My kids learned more in the first month of school this year than they did for the entire year last year.

Not even remotely the case for my kids. One of whom is a millennial. Two in MCPS HS now.

Then you are not in a position to speak.
Go to an elementary school. See what they’re doing (remotely). You will not recognize any of it. You will be shocked at how different it is than what your own kids experienced. In a short amount of time, educators have dramatically changed how they teach. They focus on strategies, and don’t try to pass on knowledge or information. So, no social studies, science, geography, no grammar or spelling or vocabulary work. It’s completely bizarre.

This is bizarre to me, because I'm a teacher and you just list it off all the things that we do on a regular basis. So is this your teacher, the school, or the district?

May I ask where you teach? If you do teach those subjects, that’s quite rare and kudos to your district. But please know it’s no longer the norm