Helping Goose with her math homework...

[unixronin]

... I find myself seriously beginning to question whether it is the goal of the US primary education system to achieve a specified uniform standard of education, or a specified uniform standard of ignorance.  Goose's fourth-grade math class doesn't seem to be about teaching kids to do math, as to teach them the metaphorical equivalent of counting on their fingers.  For instance, in questions on making change, they're not allowed to say "Three quarters, a dime and three pennies," they're required to draw little pictures of rows of coins.  HELLO???  That's going to stand them in great stead when they're figuring out if they can make their rent and their car payment out of their Wal-Mart paycheck, isn't it?

(Hmm, on second thoughts, for a Wal-Mart paycheck, maybe just lining up rows of coins would be practical....)

Comments

[otherbill.livejournal.com]

Over the past school year, my son seems to have forgotten how to compose a paragraph. His math continues to progress acceptably, but only because I'm constantly cracking a whip two paces behind him...

[juuro.livejournal.com]

In fourth grade?
In first and second, I might understand that.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You, sir, have incisively and unerringly ascertained the core of my own objection. Or, less formally, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT OVER.

It seems like each new year's books are dumbed-down more than the year before.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Obviously they've dumbed down math since I was in grade school. I remember this exercise from first grade. You echo my sentiments.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Y'know, if neither of you are working, homeschooling might be the way to go.

At least you can make sure the kids actually learn something.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

We're trying to fill in the gaps and holes, but sometimes it seems the school is actively working against us. At her age I could multiply three-digit numbers in my head; Goose has to run for paper and pencil to add and subtract them, and the school isn't helping. They're teaching all the kids to rely on crutches, whether they need them or not.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Right, that was my point. Schools these days actively suck at teaching kids. It is a disservice to the future of any child to force them through the current public education system.

-Ogre

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

The problem with homeschooling Goose is that she demands an audience to perform to. And we just aren't enough for that. Pirate has learned her alphabet, her numbers up to 20, how to spell her name, how to type, and is well on her way to learning to read and to spell. Wen is learning the alphabet and how to count.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

I find myself seriously beginning to question whether it is the goal of the US primary education system to achieve a specified uniform standard of education, or a specified uniform standard of ignorance.

Methinks there lies great insight within that sentence. If the school's goal is uniformity of results, then by logical extension they must target the lowest common denominator and declare it good.

Indeed.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

And the principle of mediocrity comes home to roost once again.

This is the great failure of the commons: To mandate that everyone should have equal access to everything, is to mandate that everything be lowered to a level attainable by the least.

Re: Indeed.

[freetrav.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's the principle of mediocrity; I think it's far worse. Consider: In many states, mine among them, the education pie has a limited size. In my state, the group that has unlimited first call on funds are those students who have 'special needs' - physical or mental handicaps, requiring special accommodations - and there is NO LIMIT on what the state must spend on these children - there is one school that specializes in handling a certain kind of handicapped child; one family at the other end of the state from the school has their child flown home every weekend - and not commercially - and flown back to live at the school every week - because the parent insisted that the child go to that school, rather than accept the arrangement that the district proposed - but because the child is handicapped, the child's home district foots the bill. No discretion. And these are the children that represent the LOWEST return on investment. Meanwhile, the children that would represent the HIGHEST return on investment - the ones that it is politically incorrect to call 'gifted and talented' - are having programs aimed at their needs cut, and cut, and cut some more, because after the wastes suck up as much as they can, the 'average' kids - whose average is getting lower and lower, definitely - get next call, and there isn't really enough money for them after the wastes are done.

Worst off are the 'special needs' kids that were like me - tremendously intelligent, but with psychological issues ranging from emotionally-developmentally disabled to mild austistic-spectrum disorders (e.g., Asperger's) - they get squat, tossed into the 'mainstream' (average/normal) classes, where they're disruptive and don't get stretched to their full potential.

Urf. Am I on a goddam soapbox again?

[tquid.livejournal.com]

I have ranted about this before, but please check out, well, really nearly any modern book about education. But especially the work of John Gatto, starting with Dumbing Us Down. He makes it crystal clear that yes, in fact, it makes a hell of a lot more sense if you look at "what does schooling succeed in doing?"

Modern schools were consciously designed to provide a pliant, uniform work force.

I am dead serious about reading about this. Please don't use these words as more fuel for angry resentment--it is much more important, I think, to target your energy for change more precisely so that you may at least persuade others to see more useful perspectives instead of the usual blame game going among teachers, administrators, government, and parents, and of course demonization of "kids these days."

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

A pliant, uniform work force, and a generation of voters who'll obediently vote the way they're told to.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

And who "understand" the background to the government the way the government wants it to be understood.

-Ogre

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Blame isn't functionally useful perhaps, but it's the government who sets the tone for the schools, and the teacher's unions and administrators certainly don't seem to object as long as they get to expand their fiefdoms. And most parents are too busy dealing with the fact that both of them need to work to pay the tax bill to care too much that the state provided day-care isn't doing such a great job at actually educating.

(I have read Gatto, also. Terrifying stuff.)

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I have not read Gatto, and have no book budget. But I have a question: Does he address just the US educational system, or does he make international comparisons?

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

What I read was about the US education system. He was a NYC public school teacher, so I think he was mostly writing what he knew about.

http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/

http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Gatto.html

Yay the intarweb!

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Danke.