| Subject: Re: Someone should be ashamed |
Author:
Dave trapp
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Date Posted: 23:51:06 07/15/14 Tue
In reply to:
Wes
's message, "Someone should be ashamed" on 10:32:17 07/05/14 Sat
I had another long discussion today about a current flaw in US schools from my perspective of 40 years teaching high school physics, chemistry and a smattering of math and such. As our society changes, the key criteria for what is taught should be the best estimate of what skills and knowledge our children will need in the future. Only with that established reasonable well should the curricula be detailed and testing devised. It seems our national school testing only gives vague lip service to such origin.
The national tragedy was to rather tie school funding to scores on dubious standardized tests on "common core" topics, generously "written" by companies who coincidently sell the pre-existing companion instructional materials (texts, worksheets), much of which are mediocre, having been cheaply bought or assembled. As example of only the last point, I was shocked a few years ago while reviewing some of the "latest" science lessons on "batteries" by one of the three large education conglomerates to find a footnote noting that the poorly written and outdated lessons had been composed for WWII GIs.
>Another column lifted from the paper.
>
>------------
>
>I have a collection of people who I frequently
>exchange e-mail with, and sometimes the discussions
>get interesting. In recent days there have been
>several mentions of an article in the New York Times,
>entitled
>href=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lo
>st-as-handwriting-fades.html> “What’s Lost as
>Handwriting Fades.” The author contends that
>schools put very little attention to handwriting once
>a kid gets out of the youngest grades. Educators have
>contended that there isn’t much of a link between
>handwriting and educational performance, but these
>days other are suggesting that the connection is
>stronger than previously thought.
>
>But in actual fact, most of us don’t communicate by
>handwriting as much as we used to. “Use it or lose it”
>comes into play. We don’t see handwritten copy coming
>into the office anything like we did thirty or forty
>years ago, and even in the olden days some of the
>things we had come into the office were pretty close
>to illegible. For a while we had a doctor’s wife on
>call to help decipher some of the mysteries.
>
>I will be the first to admit that this is definitely a
>case of the pot calling the kettle black. I will be
>the first to admit that my handwriting is lousy. I
>have had people comment that I don’t take a lot of
>notes, and there’s a reason for it: I often can’t
>decipher what I write, anyway. Thank goodness for
>keyboards. I suppose it would be possible to blame the
>schools of fifty years ago for this, but it would be
>pointless.
>
>But there are things that schools, in general, should
>be blamed for. A few weeks ago my wife and I went to a
>short track race, and I hit the concession stand,
>which was manned with a couple of cashiers, one of
>whom I would guess was around thirty, and the other a
>little past high school age. I went to the younger of
>the two, ordered a burger, and gave her a five. I will
>admit to some surprise when she called to the very
>harried other cashier and said, “Hey, this guy just
>gave me a five for a burger. How much change do I give
>him?”
>
>I was amazed. How could a person of that age be
>working in a job like that and not know how to make
>change? How could the track management have put her
>into a position like that? And, some high school
>should be ashamed of themselves for turning her out of
>the building without such a basic knowledge? Everybody
>should know how to make change — even if you’re the
>one doing the buying, knowing how to make change tells
>you whether you’re getting the right change back or
>not. Every now and then I catch someone making a
>mistake, and I’ll point it out no matter whose favor
>the mistake is in.
>
>Yeah, I know these days schools teach kids to use
>calculators for such a simple thing, and I think
>they’re failing kids by allowing it. Calculators are
>fine for the actual computation, but knowing the
>mechanics behind the calculation is important. The
>girl I mentioned above was lost without a calculator,
>and I suspect she would have been equally lost if
>she’d had to do the calculation with pencil and paper,
>which she didn’t have. Had she never heard of “Three
>seventy-five, a quarter make four bucks and a dollar
>makes five?” I would guess not.
>
>Examples such as that sure make me think that schools
>are spending too much time on state mandated
>curriculum and teaching to the myriad tests that the
>kids are supposed to take so their performance can be
>measured that they had to take time from some of the
>basic things that kids ought to know.
>
>Going back to that kid trying to make change for a
>five: she’s out of school, but does she have the basic
>skill to, oh, write a check? Fill out an income tax
>form? Balance a checkbook? I sincerely doubt it. Not
>pointing any specific fingers, but as I said, some
>school ought to be ashamed.
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