Reply to What DCPS ESs have foreign language as part of their core curriculum?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "What DCPS ESs have foreign language as part of their core curriculum?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I actually hate that all schools have to have library. We had to cut science to keep a full time librarian when the Council passed that (unfunded) requirement and our school favored Science.[/quote]

+1, and it doesn't help that the Library/Media curriculum is poorly conceived to non-existent. It's not the fault of the teachers -- kids are generally in library for only about 40 minutes once a week. And they are doing so much other stuff during the week. It's not enough time to learn actual skills like doing library research. Usually it winds up just being a read aloud for younger kids and "go check out a book and read" for older kids.

Also most schools have poor library resources (both books and a space to put them in) and DCPS doesn't allocate enough money to it. This is one of the consequences of having smaller neighborhood schools, you can't really fund a strong in-house library at all these little schools all over the city.

Schools would do much better arranging for a once a month or once every two month field trip to the nearest DCPL, or where that is not possible, having someone from DCPL come periodically with a book cart and a lesson about library science, research, etc. DCPL is actually a phenomenal resource and it would be better for DCPS kids to learn how to use it well than to piddle around in these little underfunded school libraries once a week.[/quote]

I disagree. As a kid, listening to the librarian read a story was one of the best parts of the week. So was getting a chance to check out a book I wanted to read and actually have a nice place to sit and read it. It was a break from the normal classroom work that I loved. Turning it into a library science research block would have taken all the fun out of learning to read.[/quote]

This. Library is my kids' favorite special.[/quote]

Library is a waste of time for kids who regularly go to the real library. It's like going to a library, but where check-out takes forever because there are 25 people in line at once and where the selection is far more limited. The school library could be open before school, during lunch and after school for monitored self-checkout; kids could use the special block to learn science or drama or whatever other special the school was forced to cut to pay for library.[/quote]

Agreed. Also to the PP who loved library as a kid -- I did too, but my elementary school's library was 5x the size of my kid's DCPS library. Also our librarian 100% taught library research to older kids. Did you not learn about card catalogs and the dewey decimal system, and later how to use the computer database, to look up books on specific subjects? I did. That wouldn't even be possible in my kid's school library because there are simply not enough books for it to be meaningful. There are almost no non-fiction subject matter books because schools now deem them a waste of money (they become out of date too quickly and most of the info is better found from online resources).

Of the fiction books at my kid's school, it's really hard for her to find books that appeal to her because so many of the upper grade books are graphic novels. She doesn't hate graphic novels but would much rather read a prose book. Most of those that they have are series she's already read. So she just feels frustrated during library because her options are a book she's already read, sometimes multiple times, or a graphic novel that she's not particularly excited about. Or a book well below her reading level.

Whereas at the actual library this is never a problem. I'd be THRILLED if library class for them was less frequent but involved a trip to a real library. There is one literally 3 blocks from school.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics