Friday, November 03, 2006
His Indolence's Sister teaches
My little sister is a public school teacher in Raleigh. She sent me a comment today about my "anti-butterfly-chasing" rant of a few months ago; since no one reads this anyway, I thought I'd put it in its own post rather than as a comment on a months-old post. I think she's taking issue with Mamacita's request for more advanced classes for advanced students and slow classes for "slow" students. And, like everyone else, pointing out that no school can make up for poor parenting. Anyway, I'm mostly just surprised: when did sis learn to write complete sentences? Mom and I still laugh every time she mentions that she's teaching math and science. Here's sis:
While teaching math, science, social studies, reading, and writing - MY children are not "sitting motionless all day long, listening to the helpless teacher prat and re-prat the same stuff over and over till the dumbest kid finally gets it." My students are engaged and working with each other. They peer edit writing and peer tutor each other while I work with different children. They know how to work cooperatively in groups and the classwork is presented in a variety of styles (whole group, small group, individual, with texts, with magazines, with newspapers, using art, hands on math and science manipulatives......). I couldn't call myself a "teacher" if I didn't challenge the brightest, the average, and the lowest students in my room to do their individual best. My mom taught me how to push myself and I push my students.
Testing standards need to be raised (as the math scores were this year), if we want these kids to succeed in life. Test them - compare them .... I don't care, because if I have done my job then they will do fine on any test (mine in class are usually harded than the state's anyway). Most teachers I know are doing a great job, now if the parents would step up and enforce homework and studying - the scores would not be in question. Telling teachers that homework is boring is a cop out - - cleaning clothes is boring, but it still has to be done. When only 33% of student's pass the EOG, then blame needs to fall on the students, the parents, and the teachers. Teachers don't have a majic pill that can make kids care when no one at home has taught them to be responsible. Parents who don't care produce kids who don't care. School can't change that. Birth to 5 years is a huge learning time - blow that and your child has already been left behind!!
Comments:
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At the risk of straining credulity that not one, but two of your ECU-educated siblings are capable of composing complete sentences, I thought I’d chime in on this. Some of us do read your weblog, even to the extent of having it included in our list of RSS feeds in order to get the latest indolent pearls of pixilated wisdom before our less-adept contemporaries.
I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of sis’s rant with the original post. It seems to me, however, that the two of you, while on the same page with respect to the need for well-educated children, are missing a critical element in all this. The North Carolina State Constitution Article 1 (section 15), only enshrines the right to an education and the States’ duty to protect that right. There is nothing (constitutionally at least) which grants the state the exclusive authority to control, produce, or appraise said education. Statutes like NCLB are not federal mandates. They are treated as such by the State of NC because of their connection to fiscal appropriations. If the legislature decides they don’t care about the money, they could thumb their collective nose at the feds and come up with their own appraisal metrics – including, perhaps, butterfly-catching skills.
"OK", you say, "so what’s your point, then?" I'm at the point now. Since our constitutional republic is generally founded on the tenets of Judeo-Christian principles, I’m going to reach for my reference book:
Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4)
It seems to me that the responsibility for the training and education of children rests NOT with a state or any other public entity. It does, rather, rest on the parents, and most specifically, their FATHERS.
For the men of our, or any other society, to abdicate their responsibility for training the next generation to a female-dominated, secularized, socialized institution is to guarantee a future full of emasculated, godless, socialists. They may excel at all their end-of-year tests, get into the best colleges, earn multiple advanced degrees, and STILL be worthless (or worse) in terms of the impact they have on society.
I feel much better now; let’s see if anybody actually reads the comments.
-Scott YoBro-
I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of sis’s rant with the original post. It seems to me, however, that the two of you, while on the same page with respect to the need for well-educated children, are missing a critical element in all this. The North Carolina State Constitution Article 1 (section 15), only enshrines the right to an education and the States’ duty to protect that right. There is nothing (constitutionally at least) which grants the state the exclusive authority to control, produce, or appraise said education. Statutes like NCLB are not federal mandates. They are treated as such by the State of NC because of their connection to fiscal appropriations. If the legislature decides they don’t care about the money, they could thumb their collective nose at the feds and come up with their own appraisal metrics – including, perhaps, butterfly-catching skills.
"OK", you say, "so what’s your point, then?" I'm at the point now. Since our constitutional republic is generally founded on the tenets of Judeo-Christian principles, I’m going to reach for my reference book:
Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4)
It seems to me that the responsibility for the training and education of children rests NOT with a state or any other public entity. It does, rather, rest on the parents, and most specifically, their FATHERS.
For the men of our, or any other society, to abdicate their responsibility for training the next generation to a female-dominated, secularized, socialized institution is to guarantee a future full of emasculated, godless, socialists. They may excel at all their end-of-year tests, get into the best colleges, earn multiple advanced degrees, and STILL be worthless (or worse) in terms of the impact they have on society.
I feel much better now; let’s see if anybody actually reads the comments.
-Scott YoBro-
# posted by 
: 11:54 AM
: 11:54 AM
Three points:
Ouch. And to think I considered myself the conservative in the family.
You can do RSS on my blog? I thought that took lots of effort on my part to install it (I'm also under the impression that "RSS" stands for "Really Sophisticated Stuff", and I'm too old to learn different, best you don't try).
I'm not sure your Bible quotes enjoin fathers to anything more than their childrens' RELIGIOUS (and moral) education. So long as NCLB and NC's own end of grade tests steer well clear of that, I hope we'll not have a quarrel over the state claiming the status of educator of last resort, and testing to ensure at least minimum standards are upheld for all children.
Ouch. And to think I considered myself the conservative in the family.
You can do RSS on my blog? I thought that took lots of effort on my part to install it (I'm also under the impression that "RSS" stands for "Really Sophisticated Stuff", and I'm too old to learn different, best you don't try).
I'm not sure your Bible quotes enjoin fathers to anything more than their childrens' RELIGIOUS (and moral) education. So long as NCLB and NC's own end of grade tests steer well clear of that, I hope we'll not have a quarrel over the state claiming the status of educator of last resort, and testing to ensure at least minimum standards are upheld for all children.
Amen to all my youngins!! I enjoyed reading your blogs!! Love you all, Your Tar/Packer Mom
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# posted by : 1:27 AM
: 1:27 AM << Home
