As the country struggles to pay billions for three wars, states continue to shutdown basic services and programs. Chicago this week joined other jurisdictions in dropping writing as part of the standardized exam for students to save $2.4 million a year. It is not clear if children will be given lessons on the oral tradition of story telling and refreshers in cave drawing.
Schools Superintendent Christopher Koch explained, orally, that “writing is one of the most expensive things to assess.” Oregon and Missouri also recently cut writing from exams. This is part of a broader rollback on school programs and resources that could prove disastrous for this country.
With writing ability already falling in our country, such decisions accelerate our decline as a competitive educational system.
While other countries are investing heavily in producing highly educated and productive students, we are cutting whole grades to allow us to keep spending on more important things. The inevitable result is that our population will become less and less viable in the modern economy — a nation of consumers without a productivity to match our appetite.
Source: WLS
Elaine,
That sounds like a wonderful plan for broadening your students horizons. Just so long as you didn’t dispense Burgess, Milk and Ultraviolence with the Beethoven. We have enough droogs in our society already. 🙂
Blouise,
I used to do composer of the week in my elementary classroom. My students listened to works by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Chopin, Copland, and others.
kderosa,
Did you mean to include me? I know something about education. I was an elementary school teacher for more than thirty years, a school librarian for three years, and taught at the School of Education at Boston University for several years. I was a member of an educational delegation that visited schools and universities in China in 1994. I presented a paper about an educational research project I had conducted in my classroom at a symposium at Beijing Normal University. I helped write educational outreach materials for local museums–including The House of the Seven Gables. I served for three years as president of the Massachusetts PAS North Shore Council of the International Reading Association and for three years as member of the advisory board of the Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival. I currently serve as a member of the Excellence in Poetry Committee for the National Council of Teachers of English. I’ve conducted literature and writing workshops for educators at Lesley University, the University of Southern Maine, the University of Maine at Machias, the New Hampshire State Reading Council, the Massachusetts Department of Education, and for many elementary schools in my area. I’ve also been listed in Who’s Who among America’s Teachers.
What’s your background in education?
kderosa:
feel free to use that next time, no attribution required.
Thanks, Elaine. I guess I wasn’t thinking critically enough when I made my comment.
kderosa:
you could just as easily have said Otteray Scribe lives in Tennessee, he must like Dolly Parton and the “girls”.
One needs to have a good deal of knowledge to infer the meaning.
Copy and paste without attribution gets a grade of F. Note that when Elaine and others post an excerpt from somebody work, they always cite the source or give the link. So do I.
Intellectual laziness is not a very good excuse.
OS, I didn’t realize that was the rule for attribution in comment threads. Willingham has lots of examples out there, why reinvent the wheel? The conclusion is all mine, so are you going to raise a substantive argument or are you reduced to picking at nits now?
Elaine,
A Book and a Chair … beautiful. You are in for one of the best experiences of your life! (Perfect decorations)
Sunday, Tex and I were given the enviable task of driving all 6 grandkids to a birthday brunch at a restaurant about 45 minutes from our home. The kids range in age from 21/2 to 23 years and we were transporting them in our oldest daughter’s van.
On the way out the door I grabbed a copy of the classical CD that I have played over and over for each of them since babyhood.
They climbed into the van, laughing, pushing, bickering, each vying for the 2 1/2 year old’s attention. I backed out of the driveway then slipped in the CD. Within 3 minutes the car was completely silent and remained so until we pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. Everybody, except Tex and I, was sound asleep!
It still works!
K, you really ought to be more original than copying and pasting stuff from Daniel Willingham. Landlords and puppies indeed. Do you not have original thoughts? You know, that is stuff you come up with yourself without plagiarizing.
@Elaine, I meant to include anyone who thinks they know anything about education.
Blouise,
I always give books as gifts at baby showers and to parents of newborns.
Here’s a link to a blog post that I wrote about my daughter’s baby shower in May:
A Baby Shower & Everywhere Books!
http://wildrosereader.blogspot.com/2011/05/baby-shower-everywhere-books.html
Elaine,
Yes! My gift for any baby shower is always a book … and a CD of classical music. 🙂
kderosa,
Who are you including–everyone? Or do you choose not to be more specific?
East reading rule: Never answer a child’s question as to the meaning of a word before asking him to read it to you within the sentence. After he has done so, ask him what he thinks it means within its context. Then, based on his answer, correct, expand, or praise … or all three.
Elaine, I was trying to be inclusive, haven’t you learned it?
Blouise,
I believe reading aloud to children should be an integral part of their education. There are many intelligent children who may struggle to read because they have learning disabilities. Those same children may have an excellent ability to comprehend text that is read to them.
kderosa,
“And, as we’ve learned teaching background knowledge is not something that is easily accelerated for students who learn more slowly than their peers and/or come from a deficient home environment.”
Who is the “we” you speak of in that statement?
Elaine,
Thanks for the opinion. I am one who doesn’t favor the present testing system.
I did not mention the emphasis placed on reading in our household in my original post but it was/is a huge factor from birth. Today, I even use this blog as a teaching tool with the grandkids. Every two months each must pick a thread and present me with a written opinion on the merits of the subject matter. The papers they prepare are passed around at Sunday dinner and the whole family joins the debate. They bring their red pencils and have great fun editing each other.
“And, as we’ve learned teaching background knowledge is not something that is easily accelerated for students who learn more slowly than their peers and/or come from a deficient home environment.”
Thank you for providing the perfect example for teaching about and illustrating that phenomena, Mr. Palin Was Right and Makes Up Definitions.