Underachieving kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People who think a business proposal is important are missing some key points, for one, they don't go into detail about the expenses of running a business or cover even rudimentary math.

It's all about whether you are going to sell puppies, sports equipment or cupcakes. The kids make up categories (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry), and a price, but there is no research or even a basic understanding of business. They really learn nothing, but the word "business proposal" is bandied about to impress the parents.

These are ES kids. It's a start, an introduction to how a business is run. Goodness, it's not really trying to teach a 5th grade what all steps are required to start a business. That would come a bit later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who think a business proposal is important are missing some key points, for one, they don't go into detail about the expenses of running a business or cover even rudimentary math.

It's all about whether you are going to sell puppies, sports equipment or cupcakes. The kids make up categories (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry), and a price, but there is no research or even a basic understanding of business. They really learn nothing, but the word "business proposal" is bandied about to impress the parents.

These are ES kids. It's a start, an introduction to how a business is run. Goodness, it's not really trying to teach a 5th grade what all steps are required to start a business. That would come a bit later.

Clearly you are just a person who is satisfied with mediocrity.

(I am not being sincere.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who think a business proposal is important are missing some key points, for one, they don't go into detail about the expenses of running a business or cover even rudimentary math.

It's all about whether you are going to sell puppies, sports equipment or cupcakes. The kids make up categories (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry), and a price, but there is no research or even a basic understanding of business. They really learn nothing, but the word "business proposal" is bandied about to impress the parents.

Agreed.

+1000. How is that age appropriate to teach business proposal for elementary school students? For them to grow up be the corner shop owners? The kids are much better off to learn real knowledge. World geography is part of the knowledge pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who think a business proposal is important are missing some key points, for one, they don't go into detail about the expenses of running a business or cover even rudimentary math.

It's all about whether you are going to sell puppies, sports equipment or cupcakes. The kids make up categories (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry), and a price, but there is no research or even a basic understanding of business. They really learn nothing, but the word "business proposal" is bandied about to impress the parents.

Agreed.

+1000. How is that age appropriate to teach business proposal for elementary school students? For them to grow up be the corner shop owners? The kids are much better off to learn real knowledge. World geography is part of the knowledge pool.

The only people who do business proposals are corner shop owners? It's a bad thing to be a corner shop owner? Business proposals don't count as real knowledge? I don't understand.

[Anonymous]

You forgot the age appropriate part. Business proposal at 5th grade is not going to be more sophisticated than a lemon stand. I call that waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You forgot the age appropriate part. Business proposal at 5th grade is not going to be more sophisticated than a lemon stand. I call that waste of time.

Neither is a fifth-grade research paper. Or a fifth-grade creative writing piece, or opinion piece. Fifth grade math is very unsophisticated as well. And history and science at the fifth-grade level, good grief. All, all a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

I have an 8th grader and they absolutely did not learn any grammar or vocabulary in elementary school. None. We moved her to private in 6th and she was so far behind on paragraph formation, grammar dissecting, writing skills, study skills, basic word understanding etc... It was really embarrassing. All she had from 1-5th grade was a spelling test (didn't have to know what the word meant) and comprehension of some reading group books. Far and few between was a written page about a book. When I was in 4th grade, I was diagramming sentences and writing simple stories (creative and non-fiction) and in 5th doing our own research papers. I was amazed at how little emphasis was place on writing in elementary at MCPS. I hope 2.0 is changing that.

Like private schools, publics need to have more emphasis on writing, presenting, speech, critical thinking, working with groups and leading them occasionally. MCPS can just not think outside of the box. Working a large group into standardized testing = boring academics. Nothing you can really do about it. My daughter is in 1st and we are just counting the days to move to private in 3rd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You forgot the age appropriate part. Business proposal at 5th grade is not going to be more sophisticated than a lemon stand. I call that waste of time.

Neither is a fifth-grade research paper. Or a fifth-grade creative writing piece, or opinion piece. Fifth grade math is very unsophisticated as well. And history and science at the fifth-grade level, good grief. All, all a waste of time.

This is absurd. I happen to think all the things you listed here are valuable exercises for a 5th grader. All would be excellent foundations for a business proposal later should the kids decide to go into business when they grow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You forgot the age appropriate part. Business proposal at 5th grade is not going to be more sophisticated than a lemon stand. I call that waste of time.

Neither is a fifth-grade research paper. Or a fifth-grade creative writing piece, or opinion piece. Fifth grade math is very unsophisticated as well. And history and science at the fifth-grade level, good grief. All, all a waste of time.

This is absurd. I happen to think all the things you listed here are valuable exercises for a 5th grader. All would be excellent foundations for a business proposal later should the kids decide to go into business when they grow up.

I guess I'm not understanding why a fifth-grade writing project for a business proposal is a waste of time, but a fifth-grade writing project for an opinion piece is a valuable exercise.

[Anonymous]

Because one is age appropriate and one is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because one is age appropriate and one is not.

Why is one age-appropriate and the other not?

[Anonymous]

How about this? Let the kids do ANYTHING more than they are now. So little science, so little lab skills, so little history, so little writing. Something new? Anything new? I have kids 7 years apart and the teachers in 5th grade are doing the same exact projects. They are as lame today as they were 7yrs ago. So F*cking boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about this? Let the kids do ANYTHING more than they are now. So little science, so little lab skills, so little history, so little writing. Something new? Anything new? I have kids 7 years apart and the teachers in 5th grade are doing the same exact projects. They are as lame today as they were 7yrs ago. So F*cking boring.

Everybody's doing the same thing they did 7 years ago? So the curriculum is still the same, and didn't change due to Curriculum 2.0? Or the curriculum did change to Curriculum 2.0, which is bad, but also they're still doing the same projects, which means that the curriculum didn't change, which is also bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous[b wrote:]I have an 8th grader and they absolutely did not learn any grammar or vocabulary in elementary school[/b]. None. We moved her to private in 6th and she was so far behind on paragraph formation, grammar dissecting, writing skills, study skills, basic word understanding etc... It was really embarrassing. All she had from 1-5th grade was a spelling test (didn't have to know what the word meant) and comprehension of some reading group books. Far and few between was a written page about a book. When I was in 4th grade, I was diagramming sentences and writing simple stories (creative and non-fiction) and in 5th doing our own research papers. I was amazed at how little emphasis was place on writing in elementary at MCPS. I hope 2.0 is changing that.

Like private schools, publics need to have more emphasis on writing, presenting, speech, critical thinking, working with groups and leading them occasionally. MCPS can just not think outside of the box. Working a large group into standardized testing = boring academics. Nothing you can really do about it. My daughter is in 1st and we are just counting the days to move to private in 3rd.

So, this is not a 2.0 issue. To you, this is a public vs. private issue.

My kids do a lot of writing. 1st grader reads a book and has to write about what they liked best about the book, provide details and examples from the book. It's an exercise in opinion writing.

4th grader is writing very long opinion pieces as well, and just did a research paper on Native Americans (culture, technology, diet, etc.. ), and it was a collaborative effort.

2.0 actually has kids reading a lot more nonfiction than pre 2.0.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who think a business proposal is important are missing some key points, for one, they don't go into detail about the expenses of running a business or cover even rudimentary math.

It's all about whether you are going to sell puppies, sports equipment or cupcakes. The kids make up categories (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry), and a price, but there is no research or even a basic understanding of business. They really learn nothing, but the word "business proposal" is bandied about to impress the parents.

Agreed.

+1000. How is that age appropriate to teach business proposal for elementary school students? For them to grow up be the corner shop owners? The kids are much better off to learn real knowledge. World geography is part of the knowledge pool.

The large portion of time was spent creating the artwork, which consisted of inserting images into a powerpoint. They could have easily integrated math via word problems, rent is this much per month, plus additional expenses, income, etc. Kids loved the project they took a week to do it and collaborated by talking about their favorite items, fierce classroom debates were had about the cuteness of puppies versus cats, lacrosse versus football. It was a big playdate.

Besides the graphics there was no real writing or description. I brought this up during our teacher conference, the teacher beamed, talked about how much fun the kids had. I asked about the concrete learning objectives and she changed the subject.

So in the end teachers can tell parents that their kids used "computers" and the "internet (clip art, images)" to research and create a "business proposal".

Even on this thread people see the word business proposal and get all excited, even when told there was no real knowledge imparted. I'm not against kids having a break and doing something fun, but there is no challenging work being brought forth in MCPS, that the kids really need a break from!