DASHY

I don't quite get your drift. Are you among the group of millions of people who are being called "dumbed down"? Or are you with a different group? Who are these "dumbed down" people you keep talking about?

debeda

Good post!! I agree with you about what is asked of students. I remember asking my daughters (my daughter will be 50 next month) 4th grade teacher why she got an A on a science paper, when the spelling and punctuation was simply atrocious. The teacher condescendingly told me it was a science paper, not an English paper. She also informed me that if she corrected the spelling and punctuation on every paper, she'd have no time for her family. 😖When I was in 4th grade we got points off for spelling and punctuation on ALL papers. I didn't get it then, and I still don't. My two youngest got calculators for math by 4th grade. WTH!

Cuda2020

Yes, exactly, I think that as the beginning of the change and that was some time ago. I also recall when I was a kid if a parent wanted to talk to a teacher, or a student for that matter, they'd find their teacher in the classroom at least after 3. Now you show up, after the prison buzz in, the school is about empty like an evacuation by 3:05. There's the sign.

With that said, change in schools can definitely be changed by the people, but they have to get involved in their own school district.

debeda

AGREED. I have been encouraging everyone I know to get involved with politics at the local sector - school boards, city council meetings and the like. That is where the rot begins. I was always active in PTA and scouting with my kids, but the PTA was a joke even then, and scouting has been decimated by SJWs

Kickaha Loc: Nebraska

Its not all teachers, but too many now seem to think the parent can't understand what is happening because the parents don't have a degree in some specific field. My daughter had a teacher that insisted that g****l w*****g was man-made and supported the Kyoto accords and the fact that I worked in a factory, so I obviously couldn't know anything. I spoke to the teacher dismantling her arguments and demonstrated that I knew more about the accords than she did. At least she was intelligent enough to double check the information and see where she was wrong. I hope she didn't revert back and always kept an open mind.

debeda

Good grief!! Yes, I found in the work I did in education in the early 2000s that many teachers hold parents in contempt. It's almost part of the culture. But there are also many dedicated common sense teachers willing to partner with families for the good of the children

jwrevagent

Well, thank you. I know there are still teachers out there who really would like to be free to teach. Taxpayers are tired of throwing money at the problem and it never gets even a smidgen better-but that is because the money approved goes to the administration, not to the classrooms and the teachers and real resources. When my sons were in school, I would review their homework and tell them to do it over if it did not meet my standard. All fact questions had to be answered in full and complete, correctly spelled sentences, using correct grammar, or it was torn up and they had to do it over. I told them I wanted their answers to be such that I did not have to look at the question to know what the question is. My son came with a math paper one evening for me to check-it was full of erasures, caricatures, cross outs, and what not, so I threw it away and told him he needed to do it over. He was at an age where he liked to challenge my reasons, and asked why I was so fussy when his teacher was not. I told him he needed to have respect for the subject, even though it was not one he enjoyed, and he should actually be thankful he was required to do homework in subjects he did not like, because it trained him to deal with frustration, and requirements he would encounter all through life that he did not necessarily enjoy. He needed to show respect for his teacher as well.

I chose the high school classes the boys needed, and again made sure they completed assignments. I put their teachers on notice that I expected them to hold the boys to a high standard as well.

Later, when this same son was in the Navy, and in tech school in Tennessee, he wrote me a letter in which he thanked me for demanding he take Latin, 2 years, and do well in it, and the math and science he did not want, because he knew how to study, and he knew how to think in the school of Avionics he was assigned. Many struggled for various reasons, but my son did not. It is the only time he has ever said thank you for that, and I was surprised to hear it then. But there you are-parents need to take responsibility. When my son was starting high school, he was 14 years old-not nearly old enough or experienced enough to decide what kinds of classes would serve him well in life, no matter what he would do. Our home was not a democracy, it was a dictatorship, with me as a single mom, dictator. Not that the kids had nothing to say, but the final word was mine, and they always knew why.

You are correct-no one works well feeling undervalued, but no one works well when they are over valued either. If you have low expectations, children figure that means you do not think much of their abilities or ambition. If the kids had been unable to meet the high standards I set, I would not have set them. Each child had a different talent and interest and that was and still is true today.

Quakerwidow Loc: Chestertown, MD

Preach it!

Milosia

Dumbed Down is what refers to Gates program of teaching to the tests as opposed to actual learning.

Cuda2020

Abel

Right ON!