Expectations for kindergarten classroom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should have very low expectations.

Our child missed the cut off date for FCPS and did kindergarden 2x. Once at montessori, once at FCPS.

They expect zero knowledge for kindergarden.

No stroke order taught for letters and numbers in kindergarden. Math education was sequences, no actual arthimetic until the last month of the year. Work sheets were, sub par.

First grade so far has been a joke. Today my kid learned..... how to read and write the letters A and C. He is bored out of his mind.

He actually learns stuff at weekend chinese school, but the vaunted FCPS schools are a complete and utter joke by my standards.

Your child spent a year in kindergarten and you still don't know how to spell it?
Also, Chinese should be capitalized.

Maybe, just maybe, first grade is not a joke. This is the first week. It is normal to expect some repetition. This is one way teachers evaluates what a child needs to learn.

This is the second week, they're doing 2 letters a day, and started this on tuesday. The first week... they colored and did a connecting the dots. My kid complains every day about this stuff. His "math" is learning single digit numbers, not even sequencing that they did last year.

He did sunshine academy over the summer. They did a placement test the first day! Then they put kids in different groups and started on actual arthimatic, wordly wise and 40 vocab/spelling words a day.

I'm not expecting the same level out of first grade that highly motivated kids, or their parents, are going to go for during a summer program, but I wasn't expecting this either. So yes, by my standards let alone montesorri standards, this is a joke.

My wife and I aren't products of the US k-12 system, which is why we send our kids to chinese school.

Sounds like you should look into private or homeschool, because public school is never going to satisfy you.

You're probably right. My experiences last year and this year have left us disappointed. It's not like my kid is profoundly gifted either, but I'm more concerned that he will be turned off learning from last year and this year and start acting out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

The top high schools in this area are top high schools worldwide, according to the PISA tests. Our system works, even without Cran schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

The top high schools in this area are top high schools worldwide, according to the PISA tests. Our system works, even without Cran schools.

I'm sure that more than a few kids there went to the various cram schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

And your teen suicide rate is one of the highest in the world, much higher than the U.S., most of which are attributable to school stress. But yeah, you’ve got it all figured out, dead kids are fungible anyway, right?

[Anonymous]

Maybe you should send your child to a school in China, if the Chinese educational experience is so great.

Do you not see how ridiculous it is to do all these extracurriculars based on memorizing and then complain
that your child knows more and is bored??

[Anonymous]

Is the video the daily news program?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you should send your child to a school in China, if the Chinese educational experience is so great.

Do you not see how ridiculous it is to do all these extracurriculars based on memorizing and then complain
that your child knows more and is bored??

No, I just wonder why the schools aren't more rigorous. Many asian parents wonder the same, and it is why they do all the educational extracurricular they do, and thats on top of having to memorize a couple thousand chinese characters. If these kids are able to do this kind of work, why does the school wait so long to differentiate beyond reading groups?

I'm just trying to maintain the level he was at when he finished Montessori kindergarten back in 2017, which for most kids in his class was roughly end of first grade beginning of second.

Why does it take so long to do a placement test, to figure out where the kids are? Just boot up iready and have at it. That could have been completed this week, after 9 full days of school.

He has to bring in a baggy with things to count on monday. They were doing (very) simple addition, at the end of last year in kindergarten! Yesterday they learned.... the letter I! Last year with the exception of one non-verbal child, every kid in the class could read and write at the very least simple sentences. I saw all the kids writing workshop stuff at an end of year presentation.

Even if I didn't send my kids elsewhere to keep up with his peers, I would still wonder why the heck this is so slow. Its not like I expect all the kids are going to go to a math kangeroo competition, but at an Oakton feeder school, most of the kids are capable of more than this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

And your teen suicide rate is one of the highest in the world, much higher than the U.S., most of which are attributable to school stress. But yeah, you’ve got it all figured out, dead kids are fungible anyway, right?

I'm not sure how well traveled you are, but you might find that other cultures in the world place premiums on other things and don't consider life and equality to be as important. China is highly competitive place, where people will do whatever they can to get an advantage over others. The attitude there is pretty much, if you can't make it you either didn't try hard enough, didn't cheat enough, or didn't have the connections.

I know that may sound horrible to a western mind, but that is the truth of life in Asia. Here in American we are competing against that mentality, and yes we are loosing on that front.

[Anonymous]

Americans value critical thinking skills over memorization. Memorization has its place. It does not mean the kids are smarter. It just means they have been trained to answer questions properly.

This is one reason the IQ tests that have been used in Fairfax are becoming useless. They were designed to present kids with unfamiliar information to determine how well they were able to figure out the answers. Now, they have somehow made their way into these "prep" classes and the kids have practiced the answers. And, yes, this is done mostly in the Asian communities. So, instead of being intelligence tests they have become achievement tests and they are no longer valid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

And your teen suicide rate is one of the highest in the world, much higher than the U.S., most of which are attributable to school stress. But yeah, you’ve got it all figured out, dead kids are fungible anyway, right?

I'm not sure how well traveled you are, but you might find that other cultures in the world place premiums on other things and don't consider life and equality to be as important. China is highly competitive place, where people will do whatever they can to get an advantage over others. The attitude there is pretty much, if you can't make it you either didn't try hard enough, didn't cheat enough, or didn't have the connections.

I know that may sound horrible to a western mind, but that is the truth of life in Asia. Here in American we are competing against that mentality, and yes we are loosing on that front.

It's "losing". And no, we're not. Where is the US most competitive globally? High tech, military, entertainment. Also health care. We are still competitive in those areas. Domestically, the US has always had some who value education and plenty who don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you should send your child to a school in China, if the Chinese educational experience is so great.

Do you not see how ridiculous it is to do all these extracurriculars based on memorizing and then complain
that your child knows more and is bored??

No, I just wonder why the schools aren't more rigorous. Many asian parents wonder the same, and it is why they do all the educational extracurricular they do, and thats on top of having to memorize a couple thousand chinese characters. If these kids are able to do this kind of work, why does the school wait so long to differentiate beyond reading groups?

I'm just trying to maintain the level he was at when he finished Montessori kindergarten back in 2017, which for most kids in his class was roughly end of first grade beginning of second.

Why does it take so long to do a placement test, to figure out where the kids are? Just boot up iready and have at it. That could have been completed this week, after 9 full days of school.

He has to bring in a baggy with things to count on monday. They were doing (very) simple addition, at the end of last year in kindergarten! Yesterday they learned.... the letter I! Last year with the exception of one non-verbal child, every kid in the class could read and write at the very least simple sentences. I saw all the kids writing workshop stuff at an end of year presentation.

Even if I didn't send my kids elsewhere to keep up with his peers, I would still wonder why the heck this is so slow. Its not like I expect all the kids are going to go to a math kangeroo competition, but at an Oakton feeder school, most of the kids are capable of more than this.

It takes weeks for school to really get started. That will be true throughout your child's school career.

And since kindergarten is the new 1st grade, that means that 1st grade isn't going to be much different.

There's no rush. The kids will get there. And they'll have plenty of time for piano lessons, playdates, learning Chinese characters, too. That's a positive, isn't it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a (South) Arlington student here.

The class watches a video every day. - NEVER HEARD OF THIS UNLESS IT WAS A SPECIAL TOPIC, END OF SCHOOL, RIGHT BEFORE A BREAK
DD brings home a bunch of letter tracing worksheets she did in class. - I THINK MINE STARTED OUT WRITING
Teacher gave DD a lollipop for being a good listener. NOPE
Teacher uses a behavior chart. NOPE
DD asked me why her teachers spend so much time typing on their computers. NOPE

Right, but FCPS is objectively the better school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you pay for "academic" memorization summer camps and Chinese school to jump your kid ahead of everyone else, and then complain that....your kid is ahead of everyone else? Its public school, dude.

Hate to break it to you, but this is how asian culture works. Chinese are highly competitive when it comes to academics. The school basically going back to pre-school level is unacceptable in my opinion. Today my son came home with a zip lock bag that he is supposed to put beans in to count.

We live in a global world, our kids will get trounced if they don't keep up with others. Our parents pushed us the same.

And your teen suicide rate is one of the highest in the world, much higher than the U.S., most of which are attributable to school stress. But yeah, you’ve got it all figured out, dead kids are fungible anyway, right?

I'm not sure how well traveled you are, but you might find that other cultures in the world place premiums on other things and don't consider life and equality to be as important. China is highly competitive place, where people will do whatever they can to get an advantage over others. The attitude there is pretty much, if you can't make it you either didn't try hard enough, didn't cheat enough, or didn't have the connections.

I know that may sound horrible to a western mind, but that is the truth of life in Asia. Here in American we are competing against that mentality, and yes we are loosing on that front.

Losing like we did to Japan in the 1980s?

[Anonymous]

Are you sure the "video" is not announcements. Our school has a morning news show on the "TV" produced by kids and a teacher.