I taught school when we did not track. Every year I taught kids who I easily moved up in the class. Had I needed to meet with other teachers and coordinate the effort to move them, it would have been very difficult. NO TRACKING in elementary school.

Anonymous wrote:Mine kid doesn't like to write longer sentences because of the printing. It's painful to watch when kids print.It takes forever.
In college, local kids had the professor repeat each sentence over and over again so they can copy it.I'd like to say it was funny, but it was rather annoying.

I printed my way through high school, college, and three advanced degrees. I'd love to say that I'm an exceptional super-amazing person, but I'm not.

Anonymous wrote:NP here and I think 21:36 is who is dead wrong on many counts. PP faults tracking because of "dead end classification" of students. That is just plain wrong on every level. Tracking isn't supposed to be fire-and-forget missile firing, it's supposed to be about REMEDIATION and ASSESSMENT. If the student is behind grade level in one are or another, tracking is supposed to provide the remediation to get them BACK ON GRADE LEVEL, which is determined through ASSESSMENT. If it's dead-end classification, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. Talk about unthoughtful and know-nothing. PP obviously hasn't thought any of this stuff through.

Maybe it's supposed to be. But in the real world, it isn't.

And when people talk about tracking, they're not usually referring to remediation and assessment for low achievers -- they're referring to keeping low achievers out of (their) high-achieving students' classes.

It is not rocket science to teach kids cursive and takes about 20 minutes a day give or take depending upon child's age. I taught my kid cursive by reading the instructor's manual. However, many teachers are not well versed in teaching phonics ans syllabication to students. Many students have suffered from educational neglect with the whole reading debacle and the lack of solid instruction in how to read.

I do wish they taught cursive. However, look at the curriculum. What would you have them give up for twenty minutes a day?

Anonymous wrote:Mine kid doesn't like to write longer sentences because of the printing. It's painful to watch when kids print.It takes forever.
In college, local kids had the professor repeat each sentence over and over again so they can copy it.I'd like to say it was funny, but it was rather annoying.

Which college???

Mine kid doesn't like to write longer sentences because of the printing. It's painful to watch when kids print.It takes forever.
In college, local kids had the professor repeat each sentence over and over again so they can copy it.I'd like to say it was funny, but it was rather annoying.

Anonymous wrote:

Honestly, I think this is because many, not all, of our teachers are not the best and the brightest. Education majors often attract the lowest performing college students and the course work often spends too much time on fuzzy educational theory instead of affording education majors expertise in content areas such as reading and math and science.

So, you think they should be taking classes in handwriting? Hate to tell you, but reading is something that I hope they can do before they go to college.

It is not rocket science to teach kids cursive and takes about 20 minutes a day give or take depending upon child's age. I taught my kid cursive by reading the instructor's manual. However, many teachers are not well versed in teaching phonics ans syllabication to students. Many students have suffered from educational neglect with the whole reading debacle and the lack of solid instruction in how to read.

NP here and I think 21:36 is who is dead wrong on many counts. PP faults tracking because of "dead end classification" of students. That is just plain wrong on every level. Tracking isn't supposed to be fire-and-forget missile firing, it's supposed to be about REMEDIATION and ASSESSMENT. If the student is behind grade level in one are or another, tracking is supposed to provide the remediation to get them BACK ON GRADE LEVEL, which is determined through ASSESSMENT. If it's dead-end classification, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. Talk about unthoughtful and know-nothing. PP obviously hasn't thought any of this stuff through.

Wait...what? Children don't learn to write cursive in the US?! I'm from Germany and this shocks me. I had no idea! Ugh, guess this is just another thing I will have to teach my children on my own then -.-


Honestly, I think this is because many, not all, of our teachers are not the best and the brightest. Education majors often attract the lowest performing college students and the course work often spends too much time on fuzzy educational theory instead of affording education majors expertise in content areas such as reading and math and science.

Signed a liberal Democrat who strongly favors charter schools, vouchers, gifted education, tracking, and alternative ways for teacher credentialing such as Teach for America.

This is simply not true. I'm so tired of this misinformation that appears to be related to a single study that doesn't conclude what you hope it concludes and few people actually read.

Also, you can call yourself a liberal Democrat, but you really aren't with the positions you hold on education. Liberal Democrats are progressive and you are the definition of close-minded and ill informed. You seriously think TFA is a good idea? A program that doesn't train professional teachers and gives them a whopping five weeks of classroom management instruction before sending them to classrooms and reminding them that they only have to be there two years? And tracking? That has been consistently discredited by educational professionals due to its dead end classification of children and inability for students to move from track to track. Gifted education? There are so few students who are truly gifted that I suspect you really mean you want special classes for some academically advanced students, like perhaps your own, who are in no way gifted. You'd like that to be funded because you think your perceived academically advanced student is being underserved. Or maybe it's the FARMS students you are trying to stay away from. Hard to say. Point is, you have already shown yourself to be an unthoughtful and uneducated person about education and the antithesis of progressive.

Which is fine. Rock on with your limited notions. Just don't try to pass them off as progressive.

I'm so tired of nonsense from know nothings.

Honestly, I think this is because many, not all, of our teachers are not the best and the brightest. Education majors often attract the lowest performing college students and the course work often spends too much time on fuzzy educational theory instead of affording education majors expertise in content areas such as reading and math and science.

So, you think they should be taking classes in handwriting? Hate to tell you, but reading is something that I hope they can do before they go to college.

Anonymous wrote:Wait...what? Children don't learn to write cursive in the US?! I'm from Germany and this shocks me. I had no idea! Ugh, guess this is just another thing I will have to teach my children on my own then -.-

Honestly, I think this is because many, not all, of our teachers are not the best and the brightest. Education majors often attract the lowest performing college students and the course work often spends too much time on fuzzy educational theory instead of affording education majors expertise in content areas such as reading and math and science.

Signed a liberal Democrat who strongly favors charter schools, vouchers, gifted education, tracking, and alternative ways for teacher credentialing such as Teach for America.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to think that it was important for my kids to learn cursive, but my kids learned this in 3rd grade (FCPS) and then were never asked to use it again (now in 7th and 5th). Why bother? Sure, it can be pretty, and maybe some would argue that you could write more quickly - but the shift is to typing. I'm just not convinced anymore. I feel like it's a better use of time to teach my kids something (anything) else.

Handwriting matters, and fluent/fast handwriting matters a LOT. Keyboarding is useful, but it does not confer the same benefits as handwriting does. There are important neurological connections made by writing things out by hand.

Handwriting will never be obsolete.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/to-remember-a-lecture-better-take-notes-by-hand/361478/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciam%2Feveryday-science+(Topic%3A+Everyday+Science)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?_r=0

Handwriting =/= cursive.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is learning to write in cursive in a French school (PreK4). I was shocked as I thought it was obsolete!

My son did the same, learning cursive in a French program. But they never taught him to print. When he tries to print a b or p, it's all round the wrong way. I would have preferred he'd been taught both.

Wait...what? Children don't learn to write cursive in the US?! I'm from Germany and this shocks me. I had no idea! Ugh, guess this is just another thing I will have to teach my children on my own then -.-

Anonymous wrote:I used to think that it was important for my kids to learn cursive, but my kids learned this in 3rd grade (FCPS) and then were never asked to use it again (now in 7th and 5th). Why bother? Sure, it can be pretty, and maybe some would argue that you could write more quickly - but the shift is to typing. I'm just not convinced anymore. I feel like it's a better use of time to teach my kids something (anything) else.

Handwriting matters, and fluent/fast handwriting matters a LOT. Keyboarding is useful, but it does not confer the same benefits as handwriting does. There are important neurological connections made by writing things out by hand.

Handwriting will never be obsolete.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/to-remember-a-lecture-better-take-notes-by-hand/361478/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciam%2Feveryday-science+(Topic%3A+Everyday+Science)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?_r=0