Mar. 3rd, 2008 02:10 pm
Perhaps to no-one's great surprise...
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textualdevianceAmerican teens are culturally illiterate
The argument that kids need basic reading and math to understand other subjects is, of course, valid. But given that basic competency in these things is also slipping (read any MySpace pages lately?) that's not exactly a good excuse.
If kids aren't learning language, math, or sociocultural topics, exactly WHAT is going on in classrooms? Anyone have a kid in public school or just got out of one who can tell me? Because I'm seriously bewildered. Is it just that no time is being spent on anything except test-taking skills, or are the students not being held accountable for actually learning?
Going by what I saw from many of my classmates while I was doing my recent degree thing, I suspect the answer is the latter. I saw some of the work that these kids were producing and it was absolute garbage. Yet they got passing grades anyway. I don't know if there was just a lot of passing pressure on the faculty, or if they had endured such low performance for so long that their own grading standards were low, but whatever the reason, these kids were getting good grades for crappy work. No wonder so many of the faculty adored me. It had probably been years since they saw many students who actually liked the subject and wanted to learn about it instead of just getting the piece of paper to get a job.
Unfortunately, the low standards are so deeply entrenched now that there isn't an easy way to get things back. Since most of these kids have been suffering with subpar education their whole lives, we can't just suddenly reset the bar at a reasonable level and expect them to reach it. Perhaps the only solution is a gradual raise, like the gradual slippage that has brought us here. The students who would normally get D's should be failed, those who normally get C's now get D's, etc. Yeah, some students and parents will pitch a fit (you mean my kid actually has to learn something?) but the kids who really do work hard and want to learn will no longer be dragged down to the level of their classmates.
In the GOP ideal world, only the kids of the rich get good educations--the rest of them are being groomed for their jobs in the growing service industry, so they supposedly don't need cultural education. But is that the kind of country we really want? Should we really have a caste system here, where your parentage determines your destiny? Ugh.
The argument that kids need basic reading and math to understand other subjects is, of course, valid. But given that basic competency in these things is also slipping (read any MySpace pages lately?) that's not exactly a good excuse.
If kids aren't learning language, math, or sociocultural topics, exactly WHAT is going on in classrooms? Anyone have a kid in public school or just got out of one who can tell me? Because I'm seriously bewildered. Is it just that no time is being spent on anything except test-taking skills, or are the students not being held accountable for actually learning?
Going by what I saw from many of my classmates while I was doing my recent degree thing, I suspect the answer is the latter. I saw some of the work that these kids were producing and it was absolute garbage. Yet they got passing grades anyway. I don't know if there was just a lot of passing pressure on the faculty, or if they had endured such low performance for so long that their own grading standards were low, but whatever the reason, these kids were getting good grades for crappy work. No wonder so many of the faculty adored me. It had probably been years since they saw many students who actually liked the subject and wanted to learn about it instead of just getting the piece of paper to get a job.
Unfortunately, the low standards are so deeply entrenched now that there isn't an easy way to get things back. Since most of these kids have been suffering with subpar education their whole lives, we can't just suddenly reset the bar at a reasonable level and expect them to reach it. Perhaps the only solution is a gradual raise, like the gradual slippage that has brought us here. The students who would normally get D's should be failed, those who normally get C's now get D's, etc. Yeah, some students and parents will pitch a fit (you mean my kid actually has to learn something?) but the kids who really do work hard and want to learn will no longer be dragged down to the level of their classmates.
In the GOP ideal world, only the kids of the rich get good educations--the rest of them are being groomed for their jobs in the growing service industry, so they supposedly don't need cultural education. But is that the kind of country we really want? Should we really have a caste system here, where your parentage determines your destiny? Ugh.
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no subject
The other problem is the over crowding in the classrooms. Kids can't learn in current learning environments that they are forced to learn in.
From what I see we need several fixes:
1) Smaller class sizes (ie 20 kids per class) of kids with similar ability levels.
2) Failing kids that aren't able to do the work. Granted if there is a learning disability the child should be in a LD program where their needs can better be met.
3) Bring in more educational assistants into the schools. Not that this will ever happen, but it would be nice to see an EA in every classroom to encourage the kids to try harder, and put more effort in the work they are doing.
4) Accountability for homework. I see kids never doing their homework and getting away with it everyday.
5) Parents should be brought into the learning situation more regularly. Twice a year just doesn't cut it. There needs to be more accountability from the parents to help their kids as well. Learning contracts with home and school may improve the accountability for homework.
This is just my 2 cents, and of course that won't fix everything. But that is what I see as being the 5 biggest problems in the schools today.