Are they stupid or do they think we are stupid.....

Parents Forum
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<p>Firefly: Sound like the problem is what you identified -- teachers adjusting to the full year schedule -- as apposed to the block schedule of 4 classes for one semester. </p>

<p>I have often wondered about the block schedule....what do they do with kids that transfer in midsemester (or midyear) and are put into this schedule (and vice versa)? In other words, how does a kid go from having 8 classes in the beginning of one semester/year and go down to 4 in the same semester/year (or vice versa)?? And do they tend to teach the AP classes in the second semester so the kids don't forget all before national May exams?</p>

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<p>dmd: That may be true for public schools but my story was about a private school. Lawyers aren't usually an issue at private schools since courts have ruled that such schools can make their own rules and can get rid of kids, etc, quite easily.</p>

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<p>The standards are very loosely worded and each school district interperts them as they see fit. Just as each state interperted NCLB and what that meant to them. I've heard of a nearby school district not having social studies at all until fourth or fifth grade so they can spend concentrated time on math and english to do well on the state tests for that. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.pde.state.pa.us/stateboard_ed/cwp/view.asp?a=3&Q=76716&stateboard_edNav=%7C5467%7C%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.pde.state.pa.us/stateboard_ed/cwp/view.asp?a=3&Q=76716&stateboard_edNav=%7C5467%7C&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The PE battle is not one I'm prepared to fight. I have another one that I'm saving myself for. My son is just about done, so my rant is going to stay just that!</p>

<p>HSmomstef - that's an amazing story! Backward teaching!</p>

<p>Here's a funny thing about our Middle School. The kids learn about healthy eating and then find out that just about every reward at the school is candy.</p>

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<p>hsmom: What an UNBELIEVABLE story!!!!!! A teacher actually wanting your child to "watch more TV" and read less at home just to stunt his reading abilities!!!!! And she (dumbly) put it in writing (do you still have the note!!??!!)</p>

<p>I taught my boys to read when they turned 4. I started each one on their 4th birthdays and it only took one month for one and 2 weeks for the other so both were able to read books to their pre-school classmates -- their pre-school teachers loved it!!! If more parents realized that it is easy to teach pre-schoolers to read, parents wouldn't wait for the schools.</p>

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<p>Kathie: candy rewards!!!! Reminds me of one of my kid's former schools. School served hotdogs, "chicken" nuggets, pizza, fries, potato chips, cookies, cake, pudding, and canned raviolis for lunch (and sold frozen treats) but got "upset" if a kid occasionally brought a soda in his lunch pail........ because it wasn't nutritious!!!!!!!</p>

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<p>hsmomstef...THAT is terrible!!! I do recall in K being told that kindergarteners don't read as it is not developmentally appropriate....and while I agree that for many this is true and I wouldn't set out to have all Kindergarteners learn to read....what do you do if your kid is already a fluent reader before kindergarten? I mean she/he is who she/he is.....I don't wanna apologize.....I think you go with whatever level they are....it doesn't mean you have to teach that to everyone as it is too young for a majority but you can't deny the kid who is already doing it! I understand the "norms"...I mean my field is child development....but still you gotta let a kid keep learning even if they don't follow the "norm". A kid who reads and writes doesn't exactly wanna do "Mr. A week, Mr. B week". But your kid's teacher takes the cake.....don't let him read so he can be on the right level with everyone else??? Jeesh.
Susan</p>

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<p>jlauer95, Not all children can be taught to read at age 4. My 12-year-old son, who is "highly gifted" according to the school, and who recently scored 640 math, 610 verbal on the SATs and 690 on the STB, did not really start reading until he was 7, despite having attended a wonderful Montessori pre-school where he acquired pre-reading skills. It was clear to me that he was incapable of reading. He was, at age 4, doing arithmetic with 4-digit numbers in his head and one day announced all the even/odd relationships (adding two odd numbers always gives an even number; adding an odd and an even always gives an odd number; etc.), having figured them out for himself. He invented multiplication for himself at age 5. He did not read in kindergarden (5/6). He might have started reading earlier in 1st grade if his teacher had not been the wicked witch of the west. (I'll have to contribute some anecdotes to this thread when I have more time.) The situation was so destructive that I finally requested a change of class (with the full support of the principal). The new class had a wonderful teacher, and within two weeks my son jumped 3 "instructional levels" in reading and started spending most of his time with his face in a book. By the next year he was one of the best readers in the grade.</p>

<p>I certainly agree with the point of the story, that a child should never be held back from learning. My son suffered from being forced to sit in a classroom where the numbers from 1-10 were being taught two years after he'd been working with numbers in the thousands. But he was not able to learn to read before age 6 even when he was in an ideal situation. In fact, we were very late in recognizing his abilities because I always thought that "gifted" children were early readers.</p>

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<p>School I: a "Scandinavian school", Brussels, Belgium
I still remember being in first grade and having to color outlined letters of the alphabet with crayons--starting with O, "because it's easiest". I'd been reading since before I turned three, and found it all incredibly humiliating.</p>

<p>School III: a public school, Stockholm, Sweden
My parents told me about a parent-teacher meeting where 90% of the discussion dealt with the problem of "getting the boys to remove their baseball caps while in the classroom". Teachers weren't thought of as authority figures there.</p>

<p>School IV: an 'independent' school, Stockholm, Sweden
My entire grade--over 60 kids--was banned from the "cafe" (they sold snacks in the cafeteria in the afternoon) for a month because three boys had been playing with a ball and "causing disruption".</p>

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<p>The temptation for me is to just identify post numbers and write, "Us, too!" The phrase, "They must learn responsibility," started early in kindergarten, and lasted all the way through school. Funny thing is, it was usually one teacher saying that, and all the other teachers saying, "Your child is the most responsible student I have ever taught!" My D got her first B ever in 5th grade because the teacher kept losing her papers. D developed a tic over the stress, that disappeared entirely the following year.</p>

<p>I have to say that, in all fairness, my kids have had more good teachers than bad ones. It's just that the bad ones are the ones we remember. Something to do with blood pressure rising, I think.</p>

<p>Here's my own contribution:</p>

<p>S2 played at Carnegie Hall in 10th grade, with the school orchestra. They left Thursday afternoon (from GA), and arrived home Monday (a teacher workday). On Tuesday, his language arts teacher gave him an F for not turning in a paper that had been assigned Thursday morning before he left, and was due on Tuesday. The rest of the class had 4 days, including a 3 day weekend. "He could have done it on the plane." </p>

<p>After a month of arguing with various levels of assistant principals about whether this was an "extra-curricular activity" or what, I was told by APs that it was "district policy." I notified the head principal that I was unhappy and was going to be fighting at the district level to change it. She answered me immediately, and said district policy is to allow makeup time following school-sponsored absenses! After 6 weeks of this, his F was dropped, but the teacher took it out on him the rest of the semester.</p>

<p>On a different note, this school has a really stupid late-to-class policy. If you are even a moment late to class (this is a huge school -- over 2000 students, crowded halls, etc), you must go report your infraction and obtain a pass. There is always a long line at this table, and a student is pretty much guaranteed to be gone 20-30 minutes obtaining the pass. Teachers are known to send students here who walk into the classroom <em>behind</em> the teacher!</p>

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<p>ASAP,
About the hoods on sweatershirts: I'm not sure if this is the same as your daughter's school, but at my high school I know that we aren't allowed to wear hoods because you can stick you ipod in the front pocket and run the wire up through your sweatershirt, and the hood covers the headphones so the teachers can't tell you're listening to music in their class. I think that another minor reason they explained to us was that it is a gang symbol?</p>

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<p>OK, I have 2 stories - I'll separate the posts. One is my daughter, another early reader who didn't quite fit her kindergarten class. Not quite as bad as hsmomstef's son... but close. All kids had to come to circle when the teacher gave pre-reading instruction. Because my daughter would always volunteer the answer in class whenever the teacher asked if anyone knew a word, the teacher asked her not to participate so as to give other children "a chance." So my daughter was required to be present, but prohibited from participating. My daughter asked if it would be o.k. for her to be excused from the circle time reading instruction, since she already knew how to read. My daughter would have been perfectly happy to observe and play with the class guinea pigs instead, as she was quite fascinated by them. This she was not allowed to do... because of course that would not be "fair" to the other children. She was also not allowed to read aloud to other children, for reasons that I can't remember. </p>

<p>(Daughter came home one day announcing to me quite proudly that she had figured out what the mama guinea pig and daddy guinea pig did in order to get baby guinea pigs... so apparently she found time to observe said critters anyway.)</p>

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<p>Now for the one that really takes the cake - but its a little bit different because my son ended up foiling the teacher's plans. </p>

<p>My son had a high school teacher who was quite ridiculous, and because it was a small high school my son managed to have this teacher for literature and/or history every single year for 4 consecutive years. </p>

<p>Well, apparently this teacher - who also taught psychology- had read or heard of the "The Third Wave" (see <a href="http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/Auxiliary/Psychology/Frank/Thirdwave.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/Auxiliary/Psychology/Frank/Thirdwave.html&lt;/a> ) and thought that would be a nifty thing to do in his 10th grade class. So on a Monday one day he told all the kids that henceforth they would be doing calisthenics and a military-style drill in class, and also he encouraged the students to make harassing prank phone calls to the school's art teacher. Well, my son would have no part of it and refused to participate. The teacher told the class that anyone who refused to participate would be given detention - that brought the other kids in line, but of course not my son. So the teacher sent him to the vice principal for disrupting class.</p>

<p>My son explained the situation to the vice principal who essentially threw up his hands and did nothing. My son came home telling me that the teacher was nuts. I asked my son whether the class had been studying the rise of fascism-- and told him my theory of what the teacher was trying to do. By that time, it was mid week and more kids were joining my son's rebellion, having observed that he had survived the trip to the vice principal's office. The teacher became frustrated and decided to give a positive incentive for participating in the neo-fascistic type exercises -- so he offered candy to those kids who participated. About this time the teacher also pulled my son aside, told him that he realized that my son understood what he was trying to do, but that the other kids didn't - and asked my son to "go along" with the game.</p>

<p>My son came home with the moral dilemma of whether he should support the teacher having been made a confidante. He decided very quickly that if it were a real case of fascism, then to be co-opted would be as bad as being coerced -- and in any case, by that time my son was running his own experiment in counter-insurgency. So my son then went to the store and bought a sack of the exact same type of candy that the teacher was offering. The next day he came to class and offered any kid who would resist the teacher 2 candies for every one candy that the teacher offered. Needless to say the teacher's exercise came to a grinding halt, with the teacher never bothering to explain to any of the kids what had been going on.</p>

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<p>Ooh, speaking of English teachers, here's another one.</p>

<p>V. an international private school, Washington, DC
My 10th English teacher only made us write one essay over the course of the entire year. He couldn't spell "ad hominem" (he wrote "ad hominum"), and when he couldn't think of anything better to do in class he'd look up a random vocabulary word and ask us to guess the definition. We'd then go through an elaborate game, "voting" for the most plausible guess, and so on. Otherwise we'd just act out scenes: act out a scene from Oedipus Rex, act out a scene from Hamlet but change the setting, etc. Sometimes we did posterboards and other "visual" projects. The few time we did talk about the book he did nothing encourage class discussion, and thought my friend and I were a nuisance for trying (no one else seemed to care). He seemed to personally dislike me for trying to find some challenge </p>

<p>I compared something I'd written from the end of the year to something from the end of 9th grade, and being in this guy's class had actually reduced my ability to write.</p>

<p>Otherwise I've been very happy at this school, but this was an incredibly frustrating experience.</p>

<p>edit: I forgot to mention the worst part. A few weeks into the year he let us know that he "never would've gotten into college if it weren't for his dad's 'connections'". Uh, thanks for the information?</p>

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<p>All children may not be ready to read at 4, but many are. My children aren't the only ones that I taught reading to at age 4 & 5. I used the Phonics game in 4 Kindergarten classes and it worked beautifully. When the phonics was brought back to the schools (after a failed generation of "whole word" reading nonsense) it was finally accepted by many that because of brain development, that the best time to teach reading is between 4 and 6. If a child's brain development is outside of normal (either way) reading can learner earlier or later.</p>

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<p>In 7th grade, my son received a "B" in English - didn't make sense because he had "A's" on all of the tests, did homework, etc - only possible issue was class participation, but there was no way mathematically his grade would have dropped that low. He spoke to her and did not get a satisfactory response, so I went in to meet with her. Her complaint was that, when she was going around the class correcting homework, he would read a book (high school/college level book). I asked what he was supposed to do during that time and her response was that the other kids were chit-chatting. She was upset that he was reading! Great English teacher - unfortunately, it was a very small school so we were stuck with her for the rest of middle school.</p>

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<p>My kids were in a different school when the Iraq war started. There were a couple of teachers that could not refrain from using their classrooms as political soapboxes to rant against the war -- calling Americans "terrorists", saying we were there to "steal oil" etc. (These teachers are HUGE Michael Moore fans.) This is an army town and many kids had parents in the Army either serving in Iraq or on their way. parents repeatedly complained and one teacher "took it out" on the kids of the parents who complained. We finally went to the principal but told him not to reveal our names to the teacher because our son was fearful of retribution. The principal insisted that he had to tell our names to the teacher so that he (the teacher) could "confront" his accusers. We told the principal that then the focus would be on "who told" rather than "is it true". Besides, the principal AND his secretary both had sons in the same class. All he had to do is ask his own son if this was happening in the classroom. Finally, we convinced principal not to mention our names. Afterall, this wasn't just an issue between my son and the teacher; it was an issue with this teacher and all the middle school classes that he taught!!!</p>

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<p>I have three sisters-in-laws who are teachers. They, too, agree that schools do "dumb stuff" and often have "dumb rules" that haven't been "thought out". Such rules are usually made by one or two administrators and are made for emotional reasons, not logical reasons. When teachers have their own kids in school, that's when they really see (and feel) how illogical some of the rules are. I have noticed that schools are willing to "listen" and make some of the best changes when a teacher, who has a child in the school, proposes the change.</p>

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<p>Palermo: how sad.... I child's grade demoted because he was reading instead of chit-chatting with his classmates. How do teachers get away with this crap??? </p>

<p>Pet Peeve: TEachers who won't admit that they sometimes lose papers or forget to record a grade.<br>
Years ago, my son's computer teacher claimed that my son didn't turn in an assignment. My son ALWAYS does all this work and homework (straight A+ student). She would NOT believe my son (now I understand a teacher not believing a student who is not conscientious about such matters, but a teacher should believe the ones who are or at least, give the benefit of the doubt. But no, this teacher refused to even think that she may have misplaced his work.) </p>

<p>This teacher had a HUGE rep for losing kids' papers because at the time, she had 3 small kids/babies and was overwhelmed (various daycares kept calling and telling her that her oldest (3 years old) kept hitting kids and would have to be moved, again) This was the semester that she wasn't able to report ANY grades in the semester report card because she was soooooo far behind in grading, etc. Anyway, weeeeeeeeeks later, she "found" the paper. She had put it in another computer classes' papers. Of course, she did NOT apologize.</p>

<p>Another time, another school, my son teacher did a "notebook" check (worth a test grade) and my son received an "A" (thankfully, she wrote it on a paper in his notebook and added a nice comment.) The day final grades had to be turned into the office, my son happened to run into the teacher in the hall. She told him, "your grade went down because you got an "F" on your notebook check because you never turned it in for a grade." My son told her that she did grade his notebook. She INSISTED (very rudely) that she had NEVER seen his notebook. My son ran to his locker and showed her the grade she had written on it and her nice comment. She briskly said that she must have forgotten to record it and left. NO apology. Thankfully, this problem was identified the day final grades were due. Since this was the end of the year, this could have been a huge problem trying to get the grade fixed later.</p>

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<p>We once had a principal who insisted that all singing in the school musical had to be lip-synched to a recording rather than performed live so that auditions would not have to discriminate against the less-talented.</p>

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<p>Over the years my kids have had probably over 50 different teachers (different schools). Many have been excellent. As my kids would say, "Mrs. Rainville, Mrs. Vins, Mrs. Campbell, Mr. Man, Mrs. Kloss, Mrs. Fuchs, etc.... You guys rock!!" As someone said in an earlier post, most teachers are wonderful, its the teachers or school rules that are silly or "dumb thinking" that drive us crazy. The problem is that the schools refuse to differentiate between the great teachers and the nutty ones. And school hesitate from readdressing "dumb rules" unless a highly regarded faculty member brings it forward. As for "nutty" teachers, they need to be told, "change your ways or find a differnt career; you're not cut out to be a teacher". No teacher should tell a child to stop reading because his skills are above the others. If the child was musically gifted, would she tell the child to stop practicing? (Think of the great composers who composed as small children -- long before any of their peers could.)</p>