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Education | Gettin Stuff Done | My Book
Jan. 23rd, 2013 09:55 amEven though I think the good has outweighed the bad in his particular case, sometimes I really, really cannot deal with the (terrible) quality of teaching at Isaac's school. Keeping in mind that this is far and away better than the regular public schools in our area and that it's a waitlisted place with mandatory volunteer hours from parents, small class sizes, and so on - it's still bullshit. It's totally test-based, institutionalized, cringe worthy school :/ You may remember things like that list of vocabulary definitions he brought home that totally disregarded past vs present tense, singular vs plural, and more, or the hilariously stupid requests they make. I want to assure you these are consistent themes and not stand alone examples :/ I didn't talk, for instance, about how they all wore sombreros to represent their class's country - Guatemala - for "multicultural day"...even though that's THE WRONG COUNTRY for sombreros and people in Guatemala actually wear totally different hats. This, keeping in mind that because of where we live, Isaac's class actually has Mexican and Guatemalan children in it whose parents understand that this is being done all wrong.
Yesterday he brought home a few paragraphs about Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, to read and then answer questions about. The passage said that he was born on this date, he was most known for his work in the Civil Rights Movement, he was a Baptist minister and a good speaker, he was loved by many people but shot by one on this other date, which is when he died. It mentioned he had won the Nobel Peace Prize and that he was only the second person after George Washington to have a national holiday named for him.
Isaac read this, and pulled out the relevant fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice plugs for the holes in the questions (When was MLK shot? 1964. Why did he get the Nobel Peace Prize? For his work in the Civil Rights Movement). He was happy that he'd completed the assignment and he'd done it to an "A" standard, and eager to move on to jumping on the trampoline. His teachers would be happy that he's one step closer to being able to ace the FCAT, which is loaded with these kinds of "reading comprehension" questions Isaac has learned the magical formula for answering.
READING COMPREHENSION, now, chew on that -
He had NO FUCKING IDEA what the Civil Rights Movement was, or the Nobel Peace Prize, or even what it means to be a Baptist! When questioned it turned out he didn't realize anything in the story had anything to do with racism or that MLK got shot for reasons relevant to how he lived his life, by someone angry at his public actions. HE DIDN'T REALIZE MLK WAS BLACK.
Which makes sense, since none of that was mentioned in the passage, and his teachers didn't talk about it in class, either. This kinda stuff drives me crazy. It really does.
Of course I explained all those "extra" things to him, in simplistic terms that only took a couple of minutes at most, and I guess that's how I keep from stabbing my own eyeball out with a fork - by supplementing everything they do with him as much as time and resources comfortably allow for. He had some context to latch the knowledge on to, since Grant had explained slavery to him some months back and he has knowledge of other Christian denominations and so on. I just think about kids who don't really get talked to at home, going in there and getting the unsupplemented version, and my head almost explodes.
I honestly worry that they're teaching him to read in the most shallow and surface level way possible, and to not even notice he has no idea what any of it actually is.
They do also read fiction and explore that a little more, and are on their third book of the year as a class - and he does get lost in that a little more and come home talking about the stories (Frindle, 3000 Cows for America or something like that, and Because of Winn Dixie, so far).
Wow I just looked it up and it's 14 Cows for America...that's kind of hilarious. Lol.
Enough ranting and raving, I guess, I have Things To Do today. Like apply to UM and FIU, and the University of Maryland, and update my FAFSA info for the new year, and update my Goodreads author page with all the books I've read so it actually starts to get traffic.
And, oh yeah, speaking of that sort of thing - I do actually have a book out ;) It's a collection of fictional short stories, if you're new, that I wrote in many separate purging furies like a woman possessed, while dealing with my then-new PTSD. There are (intentional and unintentional) funny moments, explicit scenes, thought provoking ideas and a little bit of gore in it.
Click For More
I would most definitely appreciate reviews, honest ones, brief or long ones - Amazon ranks books in search results and category lists according to numbers of reviews regardless of their content.
Yesterday he brought home a few paragraphs about Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, to read and then answer questions about. The passage said that he was born on this date, he was most known for his work in the Civil Rights Movement, he was a Baptist minister and a good speaker, he was loved by many people but shot by one on this other date, which is when he died. It mentioned he had won the Nobel Peace Prize and that he was only the second person after George Washington to have a national holiday named for him.
Isaac read this, and pulled out the relevant fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice plugs for the holes in the questions (When was MLK shot? 1964. Why did he get the Nobel Peace Prize? For his work in the Civil Rights Movement). He was happy that he'd completed the assignment and he'd done it to an "A" standard, and eager to move on to jumping on the trampoline. His teachers would be happy that he's one step closer to being able to ace the FCAT, which is loaded with these kinds of "reading comprehension" questions Isaac has learned the magical formula for answering.
READING COMPREHENSION, now, chew on that -
He had NO FUCKING IDEA what the Civil Rights Movement was, or the Nobel Peace Prize, or even what it means to be a Baptist! When questioned it turned out he didn't realize anything in the story had anything to do with racism or that MLK got shot for reasons relevant to how he lived his life, by someone angry at his public actions. HE DIDN'T REALIZE MLK WAS BLACK.
Which makes sense, since none of that was mentioned in the passage, and his teachers didn't talk about it in class, either. This kinda stuff drives me crazy. It really does.
Of course I explained all those "extra" things to him, in simplistic terms that only took a couple of minutes at most, and I guess that's how I keep from stabbing my own eyeball out with a fork - by supplementing everything they do with him as much as time and resources comfortably allow for. He had some context to latch the knowledge on to, since Grant had explained slavery to him some months back and he has knowledge of other Christian denominations and so on. I just think about kids who don't really get talked to at home, going in there and getting the unsupplemented version, and my head almost explodes.
I honestly worry that they're teaching him to read in the most shallow and surface level way possible, and to not even notice he has no idea what any of it actually is.
They do also read fiction and explore that a little more, and are on their third book of the year as a class - and he does get lost in that a little more and come home talking about the stories (Frindle, 3000 Cows for America or something like that, and Because of Winn Dixie, so far).
Wow I just looked it up and it's 14 Cows for America...that's kind of hilarious. Lol.
Enough ranting and raving, I guess, I have Things To Do today. Like apply to UM and FIU, and the University of Maryland, and update my FAFSA info for the new year, and update my Goodreads author page with all the books I've read so it actually starts to get traffic.
And, oh yeah, speaking of that sort of thing - I do actually have a book out ;) It's a collection of fictional short stories, if you're new, that I wrote in many separate purging furies like a woman possessed, while dealing with my then-new PTSD. There are (intentional and unintentional) funny moments, explicit scenes, thought provoking ideas and a little bit of gore in it.
Click For More
I would most definitely appreciate reviews, honest ones, brief or long ones - Amazon ranks books in search results and category lists according to numbers of reviews regardless of their content.
