It’s so hard to figure things out

[Anonymous]

Just retired math teacher here. The move to no textbooks has been a real issue.

A good textbook is extremely helpful. It contains the bulk of what I will need to teach, along with exercises to practice the skills and concepts, and then can be supplemented. Without a good textbook, I have to create many if not most of everything that's in it in addition to the normal supplementary materials I find or create. By the end of my teaching career, with textbooks becoming "unpopular," I spent all my time trying to find what would be in the textbook, and had very little time to plan and supplement.

This takes up the time I used to have available to plan how I will actually teach the material - how I will work with kids to help them learn. The lack of textbooks (combined with the implementation of the block schedule system) meant my kids were learning less and less math because I simply didn't have time to "do it all" - not complaining here, just stating a fact. It was very discouraging to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Yikes, sounds like the answer to why some parents are happy is because they invest a lot of time and energy at home. This sounds like a lot of pressure to put on parents compared to a generation ago, and this is on top of longer work hours and commutes. Is it any wonder that everyone is stressed out and has no time to build a real community? When I went to school (graduated 16 years ago), my parents were not involved except for providing an environment conducive to studying and some “fun” supplementing like museums, travel, and of course SAT prep books. I still did extremely well. I am now feeling stressed out that I will have to spend hours teaching my children at home to fill in the gaps from their school education. It will be stressful for me to take on a second job as private tutor, and stressful for the children because they will get very little break from academics. Even if I were to invest in a private tutor, it would give me a break but not the children.

You are in Fairfax County. Yes, it is a lot of pressure to be in the rat race in this area. If your kid is a high achiever, the "gaps" you fill are the ones that get your kid ahead. Have to do a little bit of everything-- revamp your household schedule to prioritize things for your kids. If you don't want to be in that rat race, you can totally opt out. But I'll tell ya, once you hear that Larla is doing ballet and piano, and taekwondo and kumon, you're going to feel that you aren't doing enough for your kids if they aren't overscheduled like everyone else.

Yes it is stressful. Been there. And it doesn't really end when your kids get out of FCPS-- ha, go take a look at the college forum!

Are you purposefully misunderstanding? This is not about ballet or piano or taekwondo or soccer or Kumon to get 2 grade levels ahead. Nobody expects schools to teach that. This is about having to fill in academic gaps even for a regular, average-to-above-average NT kid because of gaps in curriculum, online learning not being conducive to actual learning*, teachers being stressed out by all the demands, etc.

*I am referring to online learning during in-person school. Excluding pandemic virtual learning from this as it was a difficult situation and I can’t blame the school system since most blue states/counties took the same approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I happened on this thread from Recent Topics. My kids are in MCPS, and the same could be said of that school system!

OP, the truth is that education starts at home. Kids with highly-educated parents who prioritize their kids' education already start with a distinct advantage. These parents will encourage their kids to read great books at home, they will engage them in discussion at the dinner table or elsewhere, expose them to current events, history, science, etc outside of school. They will do their best to live inbounds for the best schools, and be aware of any special programs their kids can benefit from. Since they pay attention to their children's progress, anytime their kid's content mastery fails, they will be ready to re-teach or hire a tutor, because they know learning builds on itself year after year. These parents are informed about the newest college admissions strategies and statistics, and plan their children's tracks through middle and high school according to their child's level and what they can realistically achieve.

So in this context... it doesn't really matter what teachers fiddle with which copies of what textbooks! I deplore the fact that MCPS has no textbooks except in AP classes. I had beautiful and engaging full color textbooks in my private school. But this is decor. It's illusion. Real instruction can and does happen without all these nice extras. YOU need to be on the ball, OP. The school is just one of the tools in your toolbox. You need to fill in the gaps and teach your children whatever you want them to know that the school is not addressing. This is how my kids learned to write in cursive and read the classics, because God forbid MCPS delve into these things!

I'm the OP of the textbooks thread. To a great degree, I agree with what you say. And as parents, we do try to engage our kids in discussions on current events and academic topics outside school. Not necessarily in structured basis, but as it comes up (except for during COVID, when we had to take on a more active role in teaching). The problem isn't a desire or an inability to teach our kids outside of the classroom...it's that we also want our kids to have a life. If we have to reteach everything our kids should be learning in school, they'd never have any time to play with their friends. FCPS' absolutely asinine bell schedule means our elementary age kids, who consistently wake up at 6:30am regardless of what time they go to sleep, don't start school until 9:20am and don't end until 4:05pm. We have to get ready and leave for work, so the dead time between when they're up and ready till when they leave for school isn't an effective time for teaching them. Since school ends so late, and one of ours takes a bus, he doesn't get home till close to 5pm...during a good chunk of fall through now, it's dark, or close to it by the time we get home. If we teach right when he gets home, it means he'll have no time to play with friends or participate in any sports, so we let them both play till around 6:00-6:30pm, then they do home work until dinner, then finish homework and are in bed by 8:30pm. If elementary schools started at a more reasonable hour, like around 7:45-8:00am, We'd have no problem letting them play for a bit, then spending an 1-2 hours teaching them after school, but as it is, I think it's wrong to screw over our kids and take away any fun they have because their school system can't get its crap together.
Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of having one of us stop working to home school or to send our kids to a private school. I admit, we screwed up when we moved here and didn't do any research on the schools. I just remembered when I grew up here in the 1980s, the school I went to in the same neighborhood we're in had very good teachers and a challenging curriculum (that included textbooks ). I remember back then FCPS was considered one of the best schools systems in the country. So we failed to consider the changes that had happened over the intervening 30 years when we moved back to my old neighborhood...shame on us. It's all still so frustrating to hear one of your kids say they're bored and feel like they're not being pushed to their full potential. At least the one in AAP feels somewhat challenged; we just hope the others get in when they're old enough.

Thanks for your honesty. We didn’t do our research on schools either. Very naive of us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Yikes, sounds like the answer to why some parents are happy is because they invest a lot of time and energy at home. This sounds like a lot of pressure to put on parents compared to a generation ago, and this is on top of longer work hours and commutes. Is it any wonder that everyone is stressed out and has no time to build a real community? When I went to school (graduated 16 years ago), my parents were not involved except for providing an environment conducive to studying and some “fun” supplementing like museums, travel, and of course SAT prep books. I still did extremely well. I am now feeling stressed out that I will have to spend hours teaching my children at home to fill in the gaps from their school education. It will be stressful for me to take on a second job as private tutor, and stressful for the children because they will get very little break from academics. Even if I were to invest in a private tutor, it would give me a break but not the children.

You are in Fairfax County. Yes, it is a lot of pressure to be in the rat race in this area. If your kid is a high achiever, the "gaps" you fill are the ones that get your kid ahead. Have to do a little bit of everything-- revamp your household schedule to prioritize things for your kids. If you don't want to be in that rat race, you can totally opt out. But I'll tell ya, once you hear that Larla is doing ballet and piano, and taekwondo and kumon, you're going to feel that you aren't doing enough for your kids if they aren't overscheduled like everyone else.

Yes it is stressful. Been there. And it doesn't really end when your kids get out of FCPS-- ha, go take a look at the college forum!

This poster nailed it. My daughter is now a surgeon. She went through Haycock, Longfellow, and McLean HS. She received a pretty solid education, but what pushed her to excel was a lot of parent help at home (writing help) and paid work with a tutor (mastering chem, calculus, etc). It was exhausting and expensive. The extra work wasn't necessary, but realize (in the classroom) that the squeaky wheels get the grease. The kids who are struggling get the teachers' (extremely limited) time. Average kids and above just float on by, maybe grasping the material, maybe not.

OP here. I am a cardiologist and could have chosen surgery. I didn’t need any parent or tutor help at home. My HS English teachers taught excellent writing skills and provided a lot of feedback on essays etc. My HS science and math teachers had plenty of time to pay attention to me. That’s exactly my point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just retired math teacher here. The move to no textbooks has been a real issue.

A good textbook is extremely helpful. It contains the bulk of what I will need to teach, along with exercises to practice the skills and concepts, and then can be supplemented. Without a good textbook, I have to create many if not most of everything that's in it in addition to the normal supplementary materials I find or create. By the end of my teaching career, with textbooks becoming "unpopular," I spent all my time trying to find what would be in the textbook, and had very little time to plan and supplement.

This takes up the time I used to have available to plan how I will actually teach the material - how I will work with kids to help them learn. The lack of textbooks (combined with the implementation of the block schedule system) meant my kids were learning less and less math because I simply didn't have time to "do it all" - not complaining here, just stating a fact. It was very discouraging to me.

OP here. I understand you 100%. I’ve taught a couple of med school courses and if they took the textbooks away and asked us to figure out how to communicate the information to our students it would be so stressful! I can’t imagine how they expect grade-school teachers to do it. Yes, the curriculum is easier, but classroom/behavior management is much more challenging so it balances out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Yikes, sounds like the answer to why some parents are happy is because they invest a lot of time and energy at home. This sounds like a lot of pressure to put on parents compared to a generation ago, and this is on top of longer work hours and commutes. Is it any wonder that everyone is stressed out and has no time to build a real community? When I went to school (graduated 16 years ago), my parents were not involved except for providing an environment conducive to studying and some “fun” supplementing like museums, travel, and of course SAT prep books. I still did extremely well. I am now feeling stressed out that I will have to spend hours teaching my children at home to fill in the gaps from their school education. It will be stressful for me to take on a second job as private tutor, and stressful for the children because they will get very little break from academics. Even if I were to invest in a private tutor, it would give me a break but not the children.

OP, it looks like you’re one of the problems. If you consider helping your kid with homework a “second job” then you’ll be unhappy and stressed. It called parenting - and involves helping with school work.

Are you really equating filling in curriculum gaps with homework help? The latter is absolutely the responsibility of parents. The former is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just retired math teacher here. The move to no textbooks has been a real issue.

A good textbook is extremely helpful. It contains the bulk of what I will need to teach, along with exercises to practice the skills and concepts, and then can be supplemented. Without a good textbook, I have to create many if not most of everything that's in it in addition to the normal supplementary materials I find or create. By the end of my teaching career, with textbooks becoming "unpopular," I spent all my time trying to find what would be in the textbook, and had very little time to plan and supplement.

This takes up the time I used to have available to plan how I will actually teach the material - how I will work with kids to help them learn. The lack of textbooks (combined with the implementation of the block schedule system) meant my kids were learning less and less math because I simply didn't have time to "do it all" - not complaining here, just stating a fact. It was very discouraging to me.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I could fit into both categories. I’m relatively happy with FCPS and I think they waste too much of teacher’s time. I am a parent and a teacher. I taught when we had textbooks and there were just as many discussions about how it was bad when teachers only taught out of the book. I still spent a ton of time finding supplemental resources.

My own kids are teens. Their backpacks are heavy. No, I don’t want them lug textbooks back and forth. Most subjects have electronic books that my kids don’t access. 20 years ago a lot of students never opened the physical book anyway. Not that much as changed.

Kids are now given textbooks to keep at home - no more lugging back and forth. At least, at my kids' schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is still considered one of the best school systems in the country.

I liked the late start for ES because my kids weren't early risers.

Different strokes for different folks.

Good lord, some people are gullible. FCPS is NOT one of the best districts in the country, except according to FCPS.

+1
It *USED* to be - but not for a couple of decades, maybe more. They are definitely resting on their laurels by continuing to tout their "excellence."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is still considered one of the best school systems in the country.

I liked the late start for ES because my kids weren't early risers.

Different strokes for different folks.

Good lord, some people are gullible. FCPS is NOT one of the best districts in the country, except according to FCPS.

+1
It *USED* to be - but not for a couple of decades, maybe more. They are definitely resting on their laurels by continuing to tout their "excellence."

Have you looked at the PISA scores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Yikes, sounds like the answer to why some parents are happy is because they invest a lot of time and energy at home. This sounds like a lot of pressure to put on parents compared to a generation ago, and this is on top of longer work hours and commutes. Is it any wonder that everyone is stressed out and has no time to build a real community? When I went to school (graduated 16 years ago), my parents were not involved except for providing an environment conducive to studying and some “fun” supplementing like museums, travel, and of course SAT prep books. I still did extremely well. I am now feeling stressed out that I will have to spend hours teaching my children at home to fill in the gaps from their school education. It will be stressful for me to take on a second job as private tutor, and stressful for the children because they will get very little break from academics. Even if I were to invest in a private tutor, it would give me a break but not the children.

OP, it looks like you’re one of the problems. If you consider helping your kid with homework a “second job” then you’ll be unhappy and stressed. It called parenting - and involves helping with school work.

Are you really equating filling in curriculum gaps with homework help? The latter is absolutely the responsibility of parents. The former is not.

What would those curriculum gaps be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Persons A and B say on one thread that they have been really happy with FCPS

Persons C and D complain on another thread that FCPS does not have textbooks, teachers are wasting their valuable planning time finding and copying a mishmash of worksheets, kids are online much more than they should be.

*If* the facts that Persons C and D give are accurate, I agree with them. Paper learning is much superior to online learning. And teachers should not have to find their own materials. They should be given a standard set, which they are allowed to deviate from if they like. But why are Persons A and B so happy then? Did they luck out with a school that has textbooks and/or teachers who are experienced enough that they have essentially developed their own curriculum and the kids don’t have to be online all the time? If so, that is a big deviation across schools.

Why is it confusing? We are happy with the education our child is receiving but I would love to have some type of textbook and far less time on computers. I am not a fan of ST Math or Lexia. But he is doing well over all.

Oh, we also supplement because he loves math and wants to do more challenging math.

There is no perfect situation. Textbooks are nice but there is room to learn outside of them. I would like a textbook because then I know what he is being taught not because I think they are the answer to everything. DS is in Advanced Math but could stand more challenging math. Private schools are not likely to provide more in terms of a challenge in math or science, at least that is the impression that I get from looking at the private school board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PP who wrote the diatribe about how FCPS was a utopia when she attended, but is now terrible due to the late-start elementary schools, forgot to mention that the ES’s had late starts back then, too.

The difference is, back then when FCPS was actually decent, we were challenged...time at school wasn't a waste so we didn't need to get supplemental education from our parents or a tutor after school. We were free to go out and play instead.

[Anonymous]

To OP: talk to actual, physical people rather than reading the deranged ranting a here on KarenForum. Anon randos are not real life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Persons A and B say on one thread that they have been really happy with FCPS

Persons C and D complain on another thread that FCPS does not have textbooks, teachers are wasting their valuable planning time finding and copying a mishmash of worksheets, kids are online much more than they should be.

*If* the facts that Persons C and D give are accurate, I agree with them. Paper learning is much superior to online learning. And teachers should not have to find their own materials. They should be given a standard set, which they are allowed to deviate from if they like. But why are Persons A and B so happy then? Did they luck out with a school that has textbooks and/or teachers who are experienced enough that they have essentially developed their own curriculum and the kids don’t have to be online all the time? If so, that is a big deviation across schools.

Sorry, not gonna happen. It’s 2023, not 1993. Try the Catholics.