Root cause of issues at MOCO schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an example - how many MCPS students read classic literature for English? I remember reading the Odyssey and the Tempest in 7th grade. For the Tempest, we had a fieldtrip after we finished the play to watch a production of it at Arena Stage. I think for all of us, it was our first experience watching a play.

I went to the Eastern magnet in the early 90s and we did not read the Odessy in 7th grade. I don’t think we read the Tempest either but I can’t be sure. I’m pretty sure we didn’t do any Shakespeare until high school either, though we might have done A Midsummer Nights Dream at Eastern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an example - how many MCPS students read classic literature for English? I remember reading the Odyssey and the Tempest in 7th grade. For the Tempest, we had a fieldtrip after we finished the play to watch a production of it at Arena Stage. I think for all of us, it was our first experience watching a play.

Is classic lit not part of MCPS MS English?

Well, define "classic". You can click on this link: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/english/middle/grade7/ and then click on the individual units to find the lists of reading choices.

For the Odyssey, do you remember the part in the Odyssey where Odysseus tells Telemachus to go hack the bondswomen into pieces with his sword, and Telemachus says no, that's too good for them, so after they make the bondswomen clean up the mess from killing the suitors, they take the bondswomen into the courtyard and hang them?

"Sobbing desperately, the girls came, weeping, clutching at each other. They carried out the bodies of the dead and piled them up on top of one another, under the roof outside. Odysseus instructed them and forced them to continue. And then they cleaned his lovely chairs and tables with wet absorbent sponges, while the prince and herdsmen with their shovels scraped away the mess to make the sturdy floor all clean. The girls picked up the trash and took it out. The men created order in the house and set it all to rights, then led the girls outside and trapped them - they could not escape - between the courtyard wall and the rotunda.

Showing initiative, Telemachus insisted, "I refuse to grant these girls a clean death, since they poured down shame on me and Mother, when they lay beside the suitors."

At that, he wound a piece of sailor's rope round the rotunda and round the mighty pillar, stretched up so high no foot could touch the ground. As doves or thrushes spread their wings to fly home to their nests, but someone sets a trap -- they crash into a net, a bitter bedtime; just so the girls, their heads all in a row, were strung up with the noose around their necks to make their death an agony. They gasped, feet twitching for a while, but not for long."

And then they rip off a man's genitals and feed them to the dogs. Just the thing for 12-year-olds!

If I were going to pick a Shakespeare play to assign to seventh-graders, it wouldn't be The Tempest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another serious problem with MCPS is all the parents who prep their kids so that a mediocre child appears slightly gifted in order to game the system.

half the gifted students don't even apply since it's so damn far away.

Without those students who you claimed 'gaming" the system, MCPS could have seminar test scores as PGPS or DCPS. You should be thankful for the achievement those students made: higher SAT scores, higher AP participation and test scores, more NMSF, winning academic competitions, etc. The presence of those students enhances the reputation of MCPS.

I should be grateful to kids in MCPS who take AP classes and get high SAT scores?

Yes, a strong public school attracts middle class families,therefore it promotes more service industry, real estate market, and more big and small businesses. As the tax base increases, goverment can provides better service to the residents and help more needy family or person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an example - how many MCPS students read classic literature for English? I remember reading the Odyssey and the Tempest in 7th grade. For the Tempest, we had a fieldtrip after we finished the play to watch a production of it at Arena Stage. I think for all of us, it was our first experience watching a play.

Is classic lit not part of MCPS MS English?

Well, define "classic". You can click on this link: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/english/middle/grade7/ and then click on the individual units to find the lists of reading choices.

For the Odyssey, do you remember the part in the Odyssey where Odysseus tells Telemachus to go hack the bondswomen into pieces with his sword, and Telemachus says no, that's too good for them, so after they make the bondswomen clean up the mess from killing the suitors, they take the bondswomen into the courtyard and hang them?

"Sobbing desperately, the girls came, weeping, clutching at each other. They carried out the bodies of the dead and piled them up on top of one another, under the roof outside. Odysseus instructed them and forced them to continue. And then they cleaned his lovely chairs and tables with wet absorbent sponges, while the prince and herdsmen with their shovels scraped away the mess to make the sturdy floor all clean. The girls picked up the trash and took it out. The men created order in the house and set it all to rights, then led the girls outside and trapped them - they could not escape - between the courtyard wall and the rotunda.

Showing initiative, Telemachus insisted, "I refuse to grant these girls a clean death, since they poured down shame on me and Mother, when they lay beside the suitors."

At that, he wound a piece of sailor's rope round the rotunda and round the mighty pillar, stretched up so high no foot could touch the ground. As doves or thrushes spread their wings to fly home to their nests, but someone sets a trap -- they crash into a net, a bitter bedtime; just so the girls, their heads all in a row, were strung up with the noose around their necks to make their death an agony. They gasped, feet twitching for a while, but not for long."

And then they rip off a man's genitals and feed them to the dogs. Just the thing for 12-year-olds!

If I were going to pick a Shakespeare play to assign to seventh-graders, it wouldn't be The Tempest.

Fine, but it’s still important read these works to learn about history. Midsummer Night’s Dream is the Shakespeare we read in MS and I thought it was fine, theme-wise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an example - how many MCPS students read classic literature for English? I remember reading the Odyssey and the Tempest in 7th grade. For the Tempest, we had a fieldtrip after we finished the play to watch a production of it at Arena Stage. I think for all of us, it was our first experience watching a play.

Is classic lit not part of MCPS MS English?

Well, define "classic". You can click on this link: http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/curriculum/english/middle/grade7/ and then click on the individual units to find the lists of reading choices.

For the Odyssey, do you remember the part in the Odyssey where Odysseus tells Telemachus to go hack the bondswomen into pieces with his sword, and Telemachus says no, that's too good for them, so after they make the bondswomen clean up the mess from killing the suitors, they take the bondswomen into the courtyard and hang them?

"Sobbing desperately, the girls came, weeping, clutching at each other. They carried out the bodies of the dead and piled them up on top of one another, under the roof outside. Odysseus instructed them and forced them to continue. And then they cleaned his lovely chairs and tables with wet absorbent sponges, while the prince and herdsmen with their shovels scraped away the mess to make the sturdy floor all clean. The girls picked up the trash and took it out. The men created order in the house and set it all to rights, then led the girls outside and trapped them - they could not escape - between the courtyard wall and the rotunda.

Showing initiative, Telemachus insisted, "I refuse to grant these girls a clean death, since they poured down shame on me and Mother, when they lay beside the suitors."

At that, he wound a piece of sailor's rope round the rotunda and round the mighty pillar, stretched up so high no foot could touch the ground. As doves or thrushes spread their wings to fly home to their nests, but someone sets a trap -- they crash into a net, a bitter bedtime; just so the girls, their heads all in a row, were strung up with the noose around their necks to make their death an agony. They gasped, feet twitching for a while, but not for long."

And then they rip off a man's genitals and feed them to the dogs. Just the thing for 12-year-olds!

If I were going to pick a Shakespeare play to assign to seventh-graders, it wouldn't be The Tempest.

Fine, but it’s still important read these works to learn about history. Midsummer Night’s Dream is the Shakespeare we read in MS and I thought it was fine, theme-wise.

+100 It's important to read these works for the exposure to the language, depth, as well as history. The problem also with the "reading choices" is that the teacher chooses the few books the students read. Students should be reading at least one novel a month if not two, not two per year. My parents and the other parents never objected to the Odyssey or the Tempest. What about any Dickens? Or Mark Twain? How many MCPS students graduate without ever reading these?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another serious problem with MCPS is all the parents who prep their kids so that a mediocre child appears slightly gifted in order to game the system.

half the gifted students don't even apply since it's so damn far away.

Without those students who you claimed 'gaming" the system, MCPS could have seminar test scores as PGPS or DCPS. You should be thankful for the achievement those students made: higher SAT scores, higher AP participation and test scores, more NMSF, winning academic competitions, etc. The presence of those students enhances the reputation of MCPS.

I should be grateful to kids in MCPS who take AP classes and get high SAT scores?

Yes, a strong public school attracts middle class families,therefore it promotes more service industry, real estate market, and more big and small businesses. As the tax base increases, goverment can provides better service to the residents and help more needy family or person.

Yes. And those schools are segregated by race and/or SES. Make MOCO great again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

+100 It's important to read these works for the exposure to the language, depth, as well as history. The problem also with the "reading choices" is that the teacher chooses the few books the students read. Students should be reading at least one novel a month if not two, not two per year. My parents and the other parents never objected to the Odyssey or the Tempest. What about any Dickens? Or Mark Twain? How many MCPS students graduate without ever reading these?

Nobody is arguing against reading "classic literature".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+100 It's important to read these works for the exposure to the language, depth, as well as history. The problem also with the "reading choices" is that the teacher chooses the few books the students read. Students should be reading at least one novel a month if not two, not two per year. My parents and the other parents never objected to the Odyssey or the Tempest. What about any Dickens? Or Mark Twain? How many MCPS students graduate without ever reading these?

Nobody is arguing against reading "classic literature".

The point is MCPS has stopped teaching them and dumbed down the curriculum vs. what used to be the standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+100 It's important to read these works for the exposure to the language, depth, as well as history. The problem also with the "reading choices" is that the teacher chooses the few books the students read. Students should be reading at least one novel a month if not two, not two per year. My parents and the other parents never objected to the Odyssey or the Tempest. What about any Dickens? Or Mark Twain? How many MCPS students graduate without ever reading these?

Nobody is arguing against reading "classic literature".

The point is MCPS has stopped teaching them and dumbed down the curriculum vs. what used to be the standard.

DD just read Midsummer Night's Dream in 7th grade last year. She did a different Shakespeare play the year before, but I can't recall which one. They have done Call of the Wild. They do Animal Farm in 8th grade. She is not in a magnet middle school. It is -gasp- a DCC middle school. Where are your kids going to school that they are not reading classic literature?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+100 It's important to read these works for the exposure to the language, depth, as well as history. The problem also with the "reading choices" is that the teacher chooses the few books the students read. Students should be reading at least one novel a month if not two, not two per year. My parents and the other parents never objected to the Odyssey or the Tempest. What about any Dickens? Or Mark Twain? How many MCPS students graduate without ever reading these?

Nobody is arguing against reading "classic literature".

The point is MCPS has stopped teaching them and dumbed down the curriculum vs. what used to be the standard.

No, MCPS hasn't.

And the Odyssey (the whole thing, PP?) and The Tempest in 7th grade were not ever the standard, as far as I know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

+100 It's important to read these works for the exposure to the language, depth, as well as history. The problem also with the "reading choices" is that the teacher chooses the few books the students read. Students should be reading at least one novel a month if not two, not two per year. My parents and the other parents never objected to the Odyssey or the Tempest. What about any Dickens? Or Mark Twain? How many MCPS students graduate without ever reading these?

Nobody is arguing against reading "classic literature".

The point is MCPS has stopped teaching them and dumbed down the curriculum vs. what used to be the standard.

DD just read Midsummer Night's Dream in 7th grade last year. She did a different Shakespeare play the year before, but I can't recall which one. They have done Call of the Wild. They do Animal Farm in 8th grade. She is not in a magnet middle school. It is -gasp- a DCC middle school. Where are your kids going to school that they are not reading classic literature?

How many novels/plays did she read 6th - 8th grade? One or two per year doesn't cover the breadth of what used to be and could be taught. That's the point.

Anyone's child read Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Maya Angelou (not really a classic but a great author), William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald (any work other than The Great Gadsby), Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)?

Anyone's child read the following Shakespeare? Really, a whole semester could be devoted to comparing and contrasting works of Shakespeare, even if it was an English elective - Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Julius Ceasar, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest

Many classics could be intertwined with the Social Studies curriculum. Heck, have students actually read Frederick Douglas when you are discussing him in US History.

[Anonymous]

Students who don't grow up reading becomes adults that don't read. The net result is a population that gets their ideas / news from Instagram, Snapchat, or heaven forbid, Facebook (no one under 30 uses Twitter anymore).

The death of newspapers is a result. The last Presidential Election demonstrated the dangers unvetted information can cause. The downward spiral of our democracy is a direct link to people making decisions from the hip without taking the time to read and sort through multiple sources of information. MCPS is making our children digital zombies by increasing screen time and decreasing the material taught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

How many novels/plays did she read 6th - 8th grade? One or two per year doesn't cover the breadth of what used to be and could be taught. That's the point.

Anyone's child read Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Maya Angelou (not really a classic but a great author), William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald (any work other than The Great Gadsby), Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)?

Anyone's child read the following Shakespeare? Really, a whole semester could be devoted to comparing and contrasting works of Shakespeare, even if it was an English elective - Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Julius Ceasar, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest

Many classics could be intertwined with the Social Studies curriculum. Heck, have students actually read Frederick Douglas when you are discussing him in US History.

This looks like my high school English reading list from 1983 (if you add Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse, and subtract Maya Angelou). Why would you want to replicate that for middle-schoolers in Montgomery County in 2018? Probably, if there had been a DCUM in 1983, people would have lamented that the kids today, in the dumbed-down curriculum, were no longer reading multiple Walter Scott novels and an epic poem in blank verse by Matthew Arnold, as my father had to do in his high school English classes in 1950.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students who don't grow up reading becomes adults that don't read. The net result is a population that gets their ideas / news from Instagram, Snapchat, or heaven forbid, Facebook (no one under 30 uses Twitter anymore).

The death of newspapers is a result. The last Presidential Election demonstrated the dangers unvetted information can cause. The downward spiral of our democracy is a direct link to people making decisions from the hip without taking the time to read and sort through multiple sources of information. MCPS is making our children digital zombies by increasing screen time and decreasing the material taught.

There's probably way more reading today than there used to be - it's just that people are reading on their electronic devices, rather than in print on paper.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like MCPS has probably not changed the Shakespeare curriculum if PPs daughter read A Midsummer Nights Dream in 7th. I had 6th in elementary school (no Shakespeare) but 7th was A Midsummer Nights Dream, 8th was Julius Cesar, 9th Romeo and Juliet, 12th was Hamlet. I don’t remember 10th and 11th but there was one for each.