Will there be any learning next week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Movies, if that. Nope, no actual learning happening

I’m a high school teacher. I stopped showing movies because the kids just look at their phones any way

Why do you allow that?

Allow it? I'm a teacher and I tell my students to put their phones away during class. If they don't, I'm not allowed to take them away. I'm not allowed to touch them and the kids know it. The kids run the show when there are no real consequences.

Seems like a failure of the administration.

Administration is afraid of parents being angry if their child's phone isn't available to the constantly. If you want change the policy it needs to come from parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Movies, if that. Nope, no actual learning happening

I’m a high school teacher. I stopped showing movies because the kids just look at their phones any way

Why do you allow that?

Wow, you’re precious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Movies, if that. Nope, no actual learning happening

I’m a high school teacher. I stopped showing movies because the kids just look at their phones any way

Why do you allow that?

Allow it? I'm a teacher and I tell my students to put their phones away during class. If they don't, I'm not allowed to take them away. I'm not allowed to touch them and the kids know it. The kids run the show when there are no real consequences.

Seems like a failure of the administration.

And?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The final half day is beyond ridiculous.
Wednesday should be the last day of school

This is why it's a bad idea to make up snow days by adding on more days in June.

The same things will happen around the end of the school year, whether it’s mid-June or pre-Memorial Day. Kids will mentally check out, teachers will adjust to accommodate, and parents will complain no matter what they do. Even at my excellent public schools in the 80s and 90s, the last week of school was basically a wash.

Amen.

Every person who think changing the calendar will fix this problem is delusional, the last two weeks are always crazy and the kids are stir crazy and squirrelly. It would happen whether the last week is in late May, early June or mid June

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm an elementary teacher and we've already made it through the ELA and math pacing guide in terms of lessons that must be taught this year. We've had our end of year parties and field days so next week just feels like checking a box to say we had 180 days of school. Really stupid to be going back.

There are these things called science and history and art and geography and music that get really shortchanged in schools. How about planning a fun interdisciplinary project to enrich your kids? WHY would you and your district not plan to fully utilize the days on the calendar?

Thank you, unqualified nobody. Your disingenuous “questions” are given the level of consideration they deserve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:mcps should start school in mid-august and end at the beginning of june. with the current schedule, it's a month of prolonged winding down.

for this most bizarre school year, i think a prolonged wind down is fine, because everyone reallly needs a break. but moving forward, i don't see the point of it. students would learn more by bumping up the schedule by a couple weeks imo.

It's a month of prolonged winding down because the "adults" fail to plan and make good use of the time. Not because of the calendar or because 180 days is too much.

Cry harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't they have finals?

Not since the Obama administration.

What? Doesn't anyone in high school take finals?

The Board of Education eliminated final exams at the end of both semesters back in 2015 or so. So no, no one in high school takes finals. Many do take AP and/or IB Exams, but they obviously don't count toward the course grade and they've already been taken weeks ago.

Why did they do that? Do they take midterms for year-long courses? How can these students be prepared for college if they've never taken cumulative exams?

There are no year-long courses in high school. All courses are semester-length.

What? So algebra 2 lasts from September- January and then that's it? Why? Nearly every course I took in HS went from September through June with a midterm in January and a final in June.

No, there is Algebra 2A in the fall semester, which has a final grade, then Algebra 2B in the spring semester, which also has a final grade. Both courses' grades are reported on the transcript.

NP: I knew that year-long courses were split in two like this, but I didn't know that there was no attempt to keep the same teacher for the two courses. My son really enjoyed his English class this first semester (which was a first), but he then checked out again after being assigned a new teacher for the second semester. I realize that the reverse scenario (bad teacher --> good teacher) is just as likely to happen. But overall it seems better (when possible) to keep the same teacher for both halves of the same course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't they have finals?

Not since the Obama administration.

What? Doesn't anyone in high school take finals?

The Board of Education eliminated final exams at the end of both semesters back in 2015 or so. So no, no one in high school takes finals. Many do take AP and/or IB Exams, but they obviously don't count toward the course grade and they've already been taken weeks ago.

Why did they do that? Do they take midterms for year-long courses? How can these students be prepared for college if they've never taken cumulative exams?

There are no year-long courses in high school. All courses are semester-length.

What? So algebra 2 lasts from September- January and then that's it? Why? Nearly every course I took in HS went from September through June with a midterm in January and a final in June.

No, there is Algebra 2A in the fall semester, which has a final grade, then Algebra 2B in the spring semester, which also has a final grade. Both courses' grades are reported on the transcript.

NP: I knew that year-long courses were split in two like this, but I didn't know that there was no attempt to keep the same teacher for the two courses. My son really enjoyed his English class this first semester (which was a first), but he then checked out again after being assigned a new teacher for the second semester. I realize that the reverse scenario (bad teacher --> good teacher) is just as likely to happen. But overall it seems better (when possible) to keep the same teacher for both halves of the same course.

In our experience the teacher switching happened in 9th grade only, then they stayed the same across both semesters starting in 10th (although class schedules still changed in January, so you'd keep the same teacher but possibly in a different period with some different classmates).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Movies, if that. Nope, no actual learning happening

I’m a high school teacher. I stopped showing movies because the kids just look at their phones any way

Why do you allow that?

Allow it? I'm a teacher and I tell my students to put their phones away during class. If they don't, I'm not allowed to take them away. I'm not allowed to touch them and the kids know it. The kids run the show when there are no real consequences.

Seems like a failure of the administration.

Administration is afraid of parents being angry if their child's phone isn't available to the constantly. If you want change the policy it needs to come from parents

Not really ... if parents don't want their kids to have phones they can choose to not give them one. Parenting sometimes involves tough choices. You really can't expect the state to do everything for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Movies, if that. Nope, no actual learning happening

I’m a high school teacher. I stopped showing movies because the kids just look at their phones any way

Why do you allow that?

Allow it? I'm a teacher and I tell my students to put their phones away during class. If they don't, I'm not allowed to take them away. I'm not allowed to touch them and the kids know it. The kids run the show when there are no real consequences.

Seems like a failure of the administration.

Administration is afraid of parents being angry if their child's phone isn't available to the constantly. If you want change the policy it needs to come from parents

Not really ... if parents don't want their kids to have phones they can choose to not give them one. Parenting sometimes involves tough choices. You really can't expect the state to do everything for you.

Welcome to 2022 where parents expect school to do all of the hard parts of parenting for them. So many kids have never heard the word no until they go to school. They have parents who do everything for them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Movies, if that. Nope, no actual learning happening

I’m a high school teacher. I stopped showing movies because the kids just look at their phones any way

Why do you allow that?

Allow it? I'm a teacher and I tell my students to put their phones away during class. If they don't, I'm not allowed to take them away. I'm not allowed to touch them and the kids know it. The kids run the show when there are no real consequences.

Seems like a failure of the administration.

Administration is afraid of parents being angry if their child's phone isn't available to the constantly. If you want change the policy it needs to come from parents

Not really ... if parents don't want their kids to have phones they can choose to not give them one. Parenting sometimes involves tough choices. You really can't expect the state to do everything for you.

Or parents can use some of the tools mobile phone companies have to manage what kids can do on them. It's relatively easy to set it up so Larla can only call/text Mom and Dad during school hours. With a little more set up, Larla can use it freely during lunch, too. But only if Mom and Dad really cared about it, though.