Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One can thank Lucy Calkins and Fountas & Pinnell for much of that decline.

Other disasters:
1. print first then cursive, followed by replacement of cursive with typing
2. de-emphasizing wrote memorization particularly multiplication table/math facts
3. technology in the classroom
5. mainstreaming special needs kids in the classroom
6. not expelling for academic underperformance and repeat behavior problems
7. not requiring chapter books to be read from cover-to-cover
8. finally and most controversially: whining about test prep. Some would call preparing for an exam studying (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). If it is a well-written exam there is nothing wrong with teaching to it!

rote memoriztion

Thank you. I was "unschooled" homeschooled and did not receive proper phonics education. I am re-mediating myself as I teach my own kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools should be required to be screen free the entire day. EdTech is a disaster for learning. It's not like back in the day when tech was something you had to learn to use. These days, even Gorillas and chipanzees can use Ipads! https://www.wired.com/2012/05/orangutans-use-the-ipad/

If there was one thing I could fire into the sun, it would be EdTech.

+ a million

On top of how it rots our kids' brain, it is an incredible waste of school system money that could be better spent on aides and the actual human beings that teach our children

+1, it's a scam. Also at the same time it's rewiring kids' brains for short attention spans and needing dopamine hits provide by interactive screens to maintain interest in something, it also contributes to weaker teaching skills. Teachers who become reliant on programs like iReady don't get as much experience as older teachers got with working with students, and young teachers need the reps.

Teachers often like iPads in classrooms because it gives them a break that they can use to work with small groups or individuals (other kids will be more engaged with a screen than they would be with solo work). That's understandable, but short sighted. It's the same problem as you see with parents who rely on screens to distract kids -- the kids do not learn how to behave without the pacifier of the screen, and it leads to worse behavior long-term.

+2 What I don't understand is how there seemingly hasn't been much investigation into the corruption that is obviously happening. A lot of people are clearly getting paid to push this poison in schools.

Schools end up using technology to mitigate issues with overcrowding/understaffing.

We should properly fund our schools to reduce class size and bring in more teachers and reading specialists.

Funding has never been higher. There are too many piggies at the education trough and too many of those piggies are not focused on education. Education is cheap. Look at how much Kumon subscription costs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One can thank Lucy Calkins and Fountas & Pinnell for much of that decline.

Other disasters:
1. print first then cursive, followed by replacement of cursive with typing
2. de-emphasizing wrote memorization particularly multiplication table/math facts
3. technology in the classroom
5. mainstreaming special needs kids in the classroom
6. not expelling for academic underperformance and repeat behavior problems
7. not requiring chapter books to be read from cover-to-cover
8. finally and most controversially: whining about test prep. Some would call preparing for an exam studying (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). If it is a well-written exam there is nothing wrong with teaching to it!

rote memoriztion

Ugh. memorization. spelling good typing bad

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One can thank Lucy Calkins and Fountas & Pinnell for much of that decline.

Other disasters:
1. print first then cursive, followed by replacement of cursive with typing
2. de-emphasizing wrote memorization particularly multiplication table/math facts
3. technology in the classroom
5. mainstreaming special needs kids in the classroom
6. not expelling for academic underperformance and repeat behavior problems
7. not requiring chapter books to be read from cover-to-cover
8. finally and most controversially: whining about test prep. Some would call preparing for an exam studying (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). If it is a well-written exam there is nothing wrong with teaching to it!

rote memoriztion

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One can thank Lucy Calkins and Fountas & Pinnell for much of that decline.

Other disasters:
1. print first then cursive, followed by replacement of cursive with typing
2. de-emphasizing wrote memorization particularly multiplication table/math facts
3. technology in the classroom
5. mainstreaming special needs kids in the classroom
6. not expelling for academic underperformance and repeat behavior problems
7. not requiring chapter books to be read from cover-to-cover
8. finally and most controversially: whining about test prep. Some would call preparing for an exam studying (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). If it is a well-written exam there is nothing wrong with teaching to it!

I agree with some of your points -- mostly the lack of memorization, technology, and chapter books.

Test prep, I agree -- if a teacher writes a test, it's fine to drill and prepare the kids to pass it. It's the relentless of standardized testing, and the pressure on teachers to make every kid pass, that made this go too far.

The exams should not be standardized, they should be pass/fail based on a certain percent of correct questions. If a student cannot get 95% on a multiplication fact test they should not be allowed to advance to 4th grade. A student who cannot read 3rd grade level chapter books should not be allowed to pass to 4th grade. Around the transition between 3rd and 4th students go from learning to read to reading to learn. Kids who cannot read properly must not be advanced.

The tests should be given twice, in the middle of the year and again at the end of the year so everybody knows who needs extra help before they are at risk of failing a grade. The parents of struggling children need to be told their kids are struggling so both the parents and the school can pull together and remediate the child. Passing children to subsequent grades who are simply not at level is an unmitigated educational disaster. There is absolutely nothing wrong with testing. Evading testing is evading accountability, both from teachers to teach and parents to assist at home. There is absolutely no way to know where each of 30 kids in a classroom is academically without testing.

A kid who got 5 minutes of flashcard drills daily at home starting the beginning of third grade absolutely will pass the multiplication fact test. Apparently we are learning the hard way such drilling is required. There's nothing wrong with common core drawing out the dots so the student understands what multiplication is doing, but at the end of the day they have to have the facts down cold to be able to comfortably move on to higher level math. The congestive load of doing algebra when multiplication facts are shaky is too heavy and it is unfair to the student. It causes the student to think they are stupid and bad at math.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with teaching to a third grade phonics or multiplication fact test. When teachers whine about this I really have to wonder what they would prefer to teach third graders over multiplication facts and why they feel entitled to screw over a kids education in their apparent aim of prioritizing gluing cotton balls to paper plates (or worse).

Teacher here.

I 💯 blame the amount of technology in the classrooms and the amount of screens kids get at home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Computers, social media and lack of printed newspapers and easy entertainment are to blame. Even I can't read the longer more intense novels I used to as a teen in the 90s.

It's not just kids. Adults are scoring lower in reading comprehension as well. It started, for kids and adults, in 2012/2013, although the pandemic exacerbated it. (In 2012, 4G LTE was rolling out nationwide and we went from slow 3G smartphones to fast 4G smartphones. And that was it.)

But, but, Lucy Calkins!

Kids get the double whammy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools should be required to be screen free the entire day. EdTech is a disaster for learning. It's not like back in the day when tech was something you had to learn to use. These days, even Gorillas and chipanzees can use Ipads! https://www.wired.com/2012/05/orangutans-use-the-ipad/

If there was one thing I could fire into the sun, it would be EdTech.

+ a million

On top of how it rots our kids' brain, it is an incredible waste of school system money that could be better spent on aides and the actual human beings that teach our children

+1, it's a scam. Also at the same time it's rewiring kids' brains for short attention spans and needing dopamine hits provide by interactive screens to maintain interest in something, it also contributes to weaker teaching skills. Teachers who become reliant on programs like iReady don't get as much experience as older teachers got with working with students, and young teachers need the reps.

Teachers often like iPads in classrooms because it gives them a break that they can use to work with small groups or individuals (other kids will be more engaged with a screen than they would be with solo work). That's understandable, but short sighted. It's the same problem as you see with parents who rely on screens to distract kids -- the kids do not learn how to behave without the pacifier of the screen, and it leads to worse behavior long-term.

+2 What I don't understand is how there seemingly hasn't been much investigation into the corruption that is obviously happening. A lot of people are clearly getting paid to push this poison in schools.

Schools end up using technology to mitigate issues with overcrowding/understaffing.

We should properly fund our schools to reduce class size and bring in more teachers and reading specialists.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Computers, social media and lack of printed newspapers and easy entertainment are to blame. Even I can't read the longer more intense novels I used to as a teen in the 90s.

+1

My kids were taught phonics and are good readers (excellent, compared to their peers) but their reading stamina is much lower than mine was at their age. And my reading stamina now is much less than it was 10 years ago. We can blame Lucy Calkins and 3-cueing, which harmed a large number of children. But even the best students, and adults, today are harmed by phones, computers, social media, shorts/reels/vines, etc.

+1

Most people are affected by today's technology.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools should be required to be screen free the entire day. EdTech is a disaster for learning. It's not like back in the day when tech was something you had to learn to use. These days, even Gorillas and chipanzees can use Ipads! https://www.wired.com/2012/05/orangutans-use-the-ipad/

If there was one thing I could fire into the sun, it would be EdTech.

+ a million

On top of how it rots our kids' brain, it is an incredible waste of school system money that could be better spent on aides and the actual human beings that teach our children

+1, it's a scam. Also at the same time it's rewiring kids' brains for short attention spans and needing dopamine hits provide by interactive screens to maintain interest in something, it also contributes to weaker teaching skills. Teachers who become reliant on programs like iReady don't get as much experience as older teachers got with working with students, and young teachers need the reps.

Teachers often like iPads in classrooms because it gives them a break that they can use to work with small groups or individuals (other kids will be more engaged with a screen than they would be with solo work). That's understandable, but short sighted. It's the same problem as you see with parents who rely on screens to distract kids -- the kids do not learn how to behave without the pacifier of the screen, and it leads to worse behavior long-term.

+2 What I don't understand is how there seemingly hasn't been much investigation into the corruption that is obviously happening. A lot of people are clearly getting paid to push this poison in schools.

I actually credit my kids’ current school and teachers with creating an environment that fosters reading. I know 4th grade DD has at least 30 minutes of solo reading time a day at school, and she has found several new series she enjoys through classmates’ suggestions. They currently have a 1000 minutes reading challenge and she blew through it halfway through the month. Last year at a different school, it was a challenge getting her to read a half hour a day, and now some days she reads for hours.

30years ago, they could also space and punctuate better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools should be required to be screen free the entire day. EdTech is a disaster for learning. It's not like back in the day when tech was something you had to learn to use. These days, even Gorillas and chipanzees can use Ipads! https://www.wired.com/2012/05/orangutans-use-the-ipad/

If there was one thing I could fire into the sun, it would be EdTech.

+ a million

On top of how it rots our kids' brain, it is an incredible waste of school system money that could be better spent on aides and the actual human beings that teach our children

+1, it's a scam. Also at the same time it's rewiring kids' brains for short attention spans and needing dopamine hits provide by interactive screens to maintain interest in something, it also contributes to weaker teaching skills. Teachers who become reliant on programs like iReady don't get as much experience as older teachers got with working with students, and young teachers need the reps.

Teachers often like iPads in classrooms because it gives them a break that they can use to work with small groups or individuals (other kids will be more engaged with a screen than they would be with solo work). That's understandable, but short sighted. It's the same problem as you see with parents who rely on screens to distract kids -- the kids do not learn how to behave without the pacifier of the screen, and it leads to worse behavior long-term.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools should be required to be screen free the entire day. EdTech is a disaster for learning. It's not like back in the day when tech was something you had to learn to use. These days, even Gorillas and chipanzees can use Ipads! https://www.wired.com/2012/05/orangutans-use-the-ipad/

If there was one thing I could fire into the sun, it would be EdTech.

+ a million

On top of how it rots our kids' brain, it is an incredible waste of school system money that could be better spent on aides and the actual human beings that teach our children

Yes to this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools should be required to be screen free the entire day. EdTech is a disaster for learning. It's not like back in the day when tech was something you had to learn to use. These days, even Gorillas and chipanzees can use Ipads! https://www.wired.com/2012/05/orangutans-use-the-ipad/

If there was one thing I could fire into the sun, it would be EdTech.

+ a million

On top of how it rots our kids' brain, it is an incredible waste of school system money that could be better spent on aides and the actual human beings that teach our children