Literally every single MCPS kid I know has a tutor. Do YOU?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every single student who is doing well at school, is doing so because there is enrichment at home.

It could be a parent teaching, Kumon, a tutor, other enrichment opportunities - trips to museum, exposed to parents occupation, camps, trips, vacations, etc.

Even if you are subscribing to magazines for kids or taking them to the zoo - it is enrichment.

Those who do not have the time or the expertise - hire tutors.


I do not believe that MCPS is doing a poor job as compared to other school districts, but I do believe that having highly educated parents, high HHI and high SES, a large number if expats in this area, has resulted in more academic enrichment/imtervention in this area.

But what is MCPS doing for the kids whose parents can't help with this? It should be the schools' job to make up in school the enrichment, tutoring or whatever may not be happening at home because parents have to work or don't have the resources to provide them. At least that's what I would expect from the great Montgomery County Public Schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single student who is doing well at school, is doing so because there is enrichment at home.

It could be a parent teaching, Kumon, a tutor, other enrichment opportunities - trips to museum, exposed to parents occupation, camps, trips, vacations, etc.

Even if you are subscribing to magazines for kids or taking them to the zoo - it is enrichment.

Those who do not have the time or the expertise - hire tutors.

I do not believe that MCPS is doing a poor job as compared to other school districts, but I do believe that having highly educated parents, high HHI and high SES, a large number if expats in this area, has resulted in more academic enrichment/imtervention in this area.

But what is MCPS doing for the kids whose parents can't help with this? It should be the schools' job to make up in school the enrichment, tutoring or whatever may not be happening at home because parents have to work or don't have the resources to provide them. At least that's what I would expect from the great Montgomery County Public Schools.

You expect a school system to make up for all of society's inequities? That's a very high expectation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single student who is doing well at school, is doing so because there is enrichment at home.

It could be a parent teaching, Kumon, a tutor, other enrichment opportunities - trips to museum, exposed to parents occupation, camps, trips, vacations, etc.

Even if you are subscribing to magazines for kids or taking them to the zoo - it is enrichment.

Those who do not have the time or the expertise - hire tutors.

I do not believe that MCPS is doing a poor job as compared to other school districts, but I do believe that having highly educated parents, high HHI and high SES, a large number if expats in this area, has resulted in more academic enrichment/imtervention in this area.

But what is MCPS doing for the kids whose parents can't help with this? It should be the schools' job to make up in school the enrichment, tutoring or whatever may not be happening at home because parents have to work or don't have the resources to provide them. At least that's what I would expect from the great Montgomery County Public Schools.

You expect a school system to make up for all of society's inequities? That's a very high expectation.

I didn't say all inequities but it needs to recognize that not every kid has access to the resources that others do. It's almost as if the system expects the parents to make up what they don't cover in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I have to agree with what you are saying here. I feel the same confusion about how materials are organized. I thought my confusion stemmed from the fact that I was not raised in this country and I was used to a curriculum and a text book that completely followed the curriculum in my home country. This meant that a student could miss school for 2 weeks and know exactly what they had missed.

I agree the example about fractions that you gave. I am ok with teaching 5 ways of doing fractions - but I need for fractions to come after division has been taught to kids. And I want the whole unit taught in a cohesive manner - the 5 ways to do fractions + word problems with fractions + project with fraction --- and then I want it to segway into percentages and ratios...

Somehow this intuitive and systematic way of doing Math (as well as History if I may say so) - is missing.

When a text book is used to teach and parents are told that the students need to read pages 1 - 5 and work examples 1-3 and do exercises 1-10 --- it becomes easier for parents, students and teachers.

I think it's a mistake to assume that if something is intuitive for you, it must be intuitive for everybody.

Fine, but what basis is there for thinking that this MCPS way is intuitive for anyone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single student who is doing well at school, is doing so because there is enrichment at home.

It could be a parent teaching, Kumon, a tutor, other enrichment opportunities - trips to museum, exposed to parents occupation, camps, trips, vacations, etc.

Even if you are subscribing to magazines for kids or taking them to the zoo - it is enrichment.

Those who do not have the time or the expertise - hire tutors.

I do not believe that MCPS is doing a poor job as compared to other school districts, but I do believe that having highly educated parents, high HHI and high SES, a large number if expats in this area, has resulted in more academic enrichment/imtervention in this area.

But what is MCPS doing for the kids whose parents can't help with this? It should be the schools' job to make up in school the enrichment, tutoring or whatever may not be happening at home because parents have to work or don't have the resources to provide them. At least that's what I would expect from the great Montgomery County Public Schools.

You expect a school system to make up for all of society's inequities? That's a very high expectation.

I didn't say all inequities but it needs to recognize that not every kid has access to the resources that others do. It's almost as if the system expects the parents to make up what they don't cover in school.

MCPS already sends more resources to the kids with parents with fewer resources. You want MCPS to send even more resources to these kids? A lovely idea, but politically completely impossible, due to the desires of the parents with more resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I have to agree with what you are saying here. I feel the same confusion about how materials are organized. I thought my confusion stemmed from the fact that I was not raised in this country and I was used to a curriculum and a text book that completely followed the curriculum in my home country. This meant that a student could miss school for 2 weeks and know exactly what they had missed.

I agree the example about fractions that you gave. I am ok with teaching 5 ways of doing fractions - but I need for fractions to come after division has been taught to kids. And I want the whole unit taught in a cohesive manner - the 5 ways to do fractions + word problems with fractions + project with fraction --- and then I want it to segway into percentages and ratios...

Somehow this intuitive and systematic way of doing Math (as well as History if I may say so) - is missing.

When a text book is used to teach and parents are told that the students need to read pages 1 - 5 and work examples 1-3 and do exercises 1-10 --- it becomes easier for parents, students and teachers.

I think it's a mistake to assume that if something is intuitive for you, it must be intuitive for everybody.

Fine, but what basis is there for thinking that this MCPS way is intuitive for anyone?

It works for me and my kid.

[Anonymous]

NOPE!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I have to agree with what you are saying here. I feel the same confusion about how materials are organized. I thought my confusion stemmed from the fact that I was not raised in this country and I was used to a curriculum and a text book that completely followed the curriculum in my home country. This meant that a student could miss school for 2 weeks and know exactly what they had missed.

I agree the example about fractions that you gave. I am ok with teaching 5 ways of doing fractions - but I need for fractions to come after division has been taught to kids. And I want the whole unit taught in a cohesive manner - the 5 ways to do fractions + word problems with fractions + project with fraction --- and then I want it to segway into percentages and ratios...

Somehow this intuitive and systematic way of doing Math (as well as History if I may say so) - is missing.

When a text book is used to teach and parents are told that the students need to read pages 1 - 5 and work examples 1-3 and do exercises 1-10 --- it becomes easier for parents, students and teachers.

I think it's a mistake to assume that if something is intuitive for you, it must be intuitive for everybody.

Fine, but what basis is there for thinking that this MCPS way is intuitive for anyone?

It works for me and my kid.

I think it's a mistake to assume that if something is intuitive for you, it must be intuitive for everybody. Surely you can see that if there is a textbook, then people who don't learn in this {to me very illogical) way would have a better chance at figuring it out for themselves because they'd have a resource they could refer to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think it's a mistake to assume that if something is intuitive for you, it must be intuitive for everybody.

Fine, but what basis is there for thinking that this MCPS way is intuitive for anyone?

It works for me and my kid.

I think it's a mistake to assume that if something is intuitive for you, it must be intuitive for everybody. Surely you can see that if there is a textbook, then people who don't learn in this {to me very illogical) way would have a better chance at figuring it out for themselves because they'd have a resource they could refer to?

It is 2014. There is the Internet. There are lots and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of resources you can refer to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think it's a mistake to assume that if something is intuitive for you, it must be intuitive for everybody.

Fine, but what basis is there for thinking that this MCPS way is intuitive for anyone?

It works for me and my kid.

I think it's a mistake to assume that if something is intuitive for you, it must be intuitive for everybody. Surely you can see that if there is a textbook, then people who don't learn in this {to me very illogical) way would have a better chance at figuring it out for themselves because they'd have a resource they could refer to?

It is 2014. There is the Internet. There are lots and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of resources you can refer to.

That's fine, because I'm happy to be my kid's teacher and teach her whatever the topic is in whatever way she can learn it. But shouldn't she have some reference that we can refer to that tells her how the school thinks she's supposed to learn it? Some people aren't auditory learners. In fact, MOST people aren't auditory learners. Which means that hearing it in school does very little good. Hearing it in school, then going home and reading it, however, does a LOT of good. But hearing it in school, then taking home a worksheet that provides no recap of how you're supposed to do it is totally useless. Yes, I can just scrap the school method and teach my kid fractions in the way I think makes sense, but is that really the best we can do? It's pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's fine, because I'm happy to be my kid's teacher and teach her whatever the topic is in whatever way she can learn it. But shouldn't she have some reference that we can refer to that tells her how the school thinks she's supposed to learn it? Some people aren't auditory learners. In fact, MOST people aren't auditory learners. Which means that hearing it in school does very little good. Hearing it in school, then going home and reading it, however, does a LOT of good. But hearing it in school, then taking home a worksheet that provides no recap of how you're supposed to do it is totally useless. Yes, I can just scrap the school method and teach my kid fractions in the way I think makes sense, but is that really the best we can do? It's pathetic.

Now I have cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, I have learned from DCUM that math in MCPS is repetitive and dumbed-down, and the kids just keep going over and over and over and over and over the same stuff. So if there's never (or hardly ever) anything actually new to learn, it doesn't matter whether you are an auditory or a visual or a stand-on-your-head learner. But on the other hand, I have now learned from you that a math textbook is necessary because there is not enough repetition in class.

(For what it's worth, the "teacher tells the students how to do it, and the students listen" method is not the only method teachers use in elementary school classrooms in MCPS.)

(Also for what it's worth, I grew up in the US, and my first math textbook was in eighth grade, for Algebra I. And that was decades before the Internet. If my parents ever helped me with math in elementary school, I don't remember it.)

[Anonymous]

Genuine, no-agenda question here. I'm a parent to a Kindergartener, so this is all new to me, but I've looked at the curriculum guide on the MCPS website and have a question. Some of the concepts listed are obvious (counting, I got that), but some are clearly in edu-speak. For instance, this is just a small one:
Number and Operations in Base Ten: Compose and decompose
numbers (11–19): ten ones and some further ones.

I'm not a dumb person (I can tell you my degrees if you need) but I don't honestly know how to help my kid learn that. "Compose numbers"? What does that mean? Write the numbers? Ok, I can do that. "Decompose numbers"? Huh? In normal person speak, "decompose" means to separate into pieces. So, does this mean the concept that you can make 9 out of 3 3's, or a 5 and a 4 -- that sort of thing?
I realize that may seem obvious, but it isn't. And clearly it only gets less obvious as they move up in grades. I was a person who had to read the textbook when I got home to reinforce the lesson.
My question is: is there any resource that will help me translate these "curriculum guides" into something that's actually instructive?
Other than asking the teacher? Because I don't really want to be the pain in the ass parent that's emailing the teacher every week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's fine, because I'm happy to be my kid's teacher and teach her whatever the topic is in whatever way she can learn it. But shouldn't she have some reference that we can refer to that tells her how the school thinks she's supposed to learn it? Some people aren't auditory learners. In fact, MOST people aren't auditory learners. Which means that hearing it in school does very little good. Hearing it in school, then going home and reading it, however, does a LOT of good. But hearing it in school, then taking home a worksheet that provides no recap of how you're supposed to do it is totally useless. Yes, I can just scrap the school method and teach my kid fractions in the way I think makes sense, but is that really the best we can do? It's pathetic.

Now I have cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, I have learned from DCUM that math in MCPS is repetitive and dumbed-down, and the kids just keep going over and over and over and over and over the same stuff. So if there's never (or hardly ever) anything actually new to learn, it doesn't matter whether you are an auditory or a visual or a stand-on-your-head learner. But on the other hand, I have now learned from you that a math textbook is necessary because there is not enough repetition in class.

(For what it's worth, the "teacher tells the students how to do it, and the students listen" method is not the only method teachers use in elementary school classrooms in MCPS.)

(Also for what it's worth, I grew up in the US, and my first math textbook was in eighth grade, for Algebra I. And that was decades before the Internet. If my parents ever helped me with math in elementary school, I don't remember it.)

You can stroke your sarcastic cognitive dissonance all you want, but I never said there's nothing to learn in MCPS. I did have textbooks growing up (in the U.S.), even before 8th grade. And my parents certainly did help me with math. I never liked or "got" division at first. My parents had to help with that. Math didn't click for me until Algebra. And I'm definitely not a "special needs" case. Ended up doing extremely well. But I needed to have the opportunity to look at things on my own at home and understand them on my own terms.
Why so invested in the idea that people shouldn't have textbooks? Do you honestly not believe that some significant portion of the population would benefit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's fine, because I'm happy to be my kid's teacher and teach her whatever the topic is in whatever way she can learn it. But shouldn't she have some reference that we can refer to that tells her how the school thinks she's supposed to learn it? Some people aren't auditory learners. In fact, MOST people aren't auditory learners. Which means that hearing it in school does very little good. Hearing it in school, then going home and reading it, however, does a LOT of good. But hearing it in school, then taking home a worksheet that provides no recap of how you're supposed to do it is totally useless. Yes, I can just scrap the school method and teach my kid fractions in the way I think makes sense, but is that really the best we can do? It's pathetic.

Now I have cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, I have learned from DCUM that math in MCPS is repetitive and dumbed-down, and the kids just keep going over and over and over and over and over the same stuff. So if there's never (or hardly ever) anything actually new to learn, it doesn't matter whether you are an auditory or a visual or a stand-on-your-head learner. But on the other hand, I have now learned from you that a math textbook is necessary because there is not enough repetition in class.

(For what it's worth, the "teacher tells the students how to do it, and the students listen" method is not the only method teachers use in elementary school classrooms in MCPS.)

(Also for what it's worth, I grew up in the US, and my first math textbook was in eighth grade, for Algebra I. And that was decades before the Internet. If my parents ever helped me with math in elementary school, I don't remember it.)

You can stroke your sarcastic cognitive dissonance all you want, but I never said there's nothing to learn in MCPS. I did have textbooks growing up (in the U.S.), even before 8th grade. And my parents certainly did help me with math. I never liked or "got" division at first. My parents had to help with that. Math didn't click for me until Algebra. And I'm definitely not a "special needs" case. Ended up doing extremely well. But I needed to have the opportunity to look at things on my own at home and understand them on my own terms.
Why so invested in the idea that people shouldn't have textbooks? Do you honestly not believe that some significant portion of the population would benefit?

Also you (purposefully) misstated what I said. I never said there isn't enough repetition in class. There's plenty of repetition in class. What I said was there isn't a textbook and the opportunity to review outside of class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Genuine, no-agenda question here. I'm a parent to a Kindergartener, so this is all new to me, but I've looked at the curriculum guide on the MCPS website and have a question. Some of the concepts listed are obvious (counting, I got that), but some are clearly in edu-speak. For instance, this is just a small one:
Number and Operations in Base Ten: Compose and decompose
numbers (11–19): ten ones and some further ones.

I'm not a dumb person (I can tell you my degrees if you need) but I don't honestly know how to help my kid learn that. "Compose numbers"? What does that mean? Write the numbers? Ok, I can do that. "Decompose numbers"? Huh? In normal person speak, "decompose" means to separate into pieces. So, does this mean the concept that you can make 9 out of 3 3's, or a 5 and a 4 -- that sort of thing?
I realize that may seem obvious, but it isn't. And clearly it only gets less obvious as they move up in grades. I was a person who had to read the textbook when I got home to reinforce the lesson.
My question is: is there any resource that will help me translate these "curriculum guides" into something that's actually instructive?
Other than asking the teacher? Because I don't really want to be the pain in the ass parent that's emailing the teacher every week.

Composing is making one ten out of ten ones, and decomposing is making ten ones out of one ten. I'm pretty sure. Or maybe it's the other way around? In any case, it doesn't really matter -- the point is that one ten = ten ones. So, for example, you can make 15 with one ten and five ones, or with 15 ones.

Asking the teacher is a good start. Does your school have a curriculum night? If so, that would also be a good place to ask questions; if not, maybe ask the principal to have a curriculum night. In the meantime, Google! For your question, for example, I might Google composing numbers kindergarten. Or you might even ask DCUM, if you don't mind wading through lots of MCPSawfuldumbedown2.0lousyillegals posts....