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
Roco,
I think all elementary teachers should get the kind of education I got. Elementary teachers teach all subjects. They need to have a broad range of knowledge.
BTW, one of the best courses I took in college was a children’s literature course. I had a fabulous professor. We read all the best children’s literature. We read and we read and we read. I think that course was the most valuable education course I took. Unfortunately, some states today don’t require that elementary teachers take a course in children’s literature any longer. How are teachers supposed to learn about the best books to use in the classroom and to share with children–especially today when so many school library positions are being cut?
Elaine:
I was not denigrating your intelligence or education. I was merely agreeing with kderosa that from my experience many teachers do not have as rigorous a course load as other departments.
I did not mention you at all except to quote kderosa, I gave an example from my own experience.
I guess it could be construed that way. I was focused on the macaroni collages and not you.
My apologies for coming across like that.
What I should have said is:
kderosa:
funny how you mention macaroni collages as a requisite for getting a teaching degree. I know a few women who did just about that very thing to get theirs.
Elaine:
the women I know took general ed courses such as childhood development and how to teach courses.
It sounds like you had a well rounded education, the same cannot be said of all teachers. I believe now, at least in our county, you must major in the subject you teach in addition you must have your teaching credentials. Which is as it should be.
Roco,
When I attended college back in the 1960s, we elementary teachers were required to take many more content courses than education courses. I minored in science.
Here’s a partial list of the courses I took:
– Two semesters of biology
– Chemistry
– Weather & Climate
– Earth Science
– Genetics
– Geology
– Conservation
– Nature Studies
– General Psychology
– American Literature
– British Literature
– Two semesters of the History of Western Civilization
– Two semesters of American History
– Sociology
– Test & Measurement
– Two semesters of College Algebra
– Two semesters of Composition
– Geography of the United States
– World Geography
– Music Appreciation
– Art Appreciation
– Speech/Public Speaking
I was required to take no fewer than five courses a semester–except when I did my student teaching. What kind of a course load did carry when you were in college?
I did not come from a family of means. My father was an immigrant who worked two jobs. My mother, the daughter of two immigrants, also worked most of her life. It was her dream that both of her daughters get a college education. My only option was the state college in a nearby community. I couldn’t afford to go away to college. I worked for a lawyer and for a department store while I was in college to help pay for my tuition and for my textbooks. I commuted to school every day. To this day, I appreciate the fine education that I got at Salem State College–now Salem State University–and contribute to the institution every year.
You appear to take pleasure in denigrating the intelligence and education of a retired teacher like me. I have to wonder why.
kderosa:
Karl f. is a Marxist so don’t be too hard on him. that dialectical materialism stuff must wear heavily on his brain.
He fails to recognize in a free society people move from poverty to wealth and back to poverty depending on their abilities.
A saying that was around at the beginning of the 20th century says it best about laissez-faire:
Rags to riches to rags in 3 generations.
It rather speaks to the dynamics of that wonderful system. Wealth is hard to concentrate under laissez-faire and that is why there are so many progressive rich people, they know socialism will protect their wealth and limit opportunity for others.
My own little mind is at present bouncing like a tennis ball between the essence of the article above, and our looming near future of artificially intelligent ‘droids:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16816185
I suspect the convergence of a dumbed-down American populace, with super-bright machines in our midst, will please our fearless leadership beyond recognition. Ray Kursweil has rarely been wrong about anything.
Sadly, it all seems a foregone conclusion, so I have to wonder how much it really matters, if indeed a majority of our citizenry in, say 50 years, can’t read, nor write, nor draw logical conclusions at all.
Our dependency upon government grows.
kderosa:
“@Elaine, you don’t seem very secure in your knowledge of education. How many macaroni collages did you make to get your credential?”
LOL, what you say is almost the truth. I know a couple of women who got degrees in education (I think it has since changed for the better) who basically did just that.
I remember meeting one I knew her senior year while in the science building for a final. I asked her why she was over in my neck of the woods and she said; “I am taking a final exam and it is an essay test and I am worried”. I asked her why she was worried and she said “because I have never taken one before.” As a senior in college no less.
Thomas Sowell believes departments of education at American Universities are cesspools of ignorance.
I do love Dr. Sowell.
BIL:
”
Albert Einstein Quotes
Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”
@karl Friedrich, no offense, it sounds like there is a simple reeason why you aren’t part of that top 4%.
pete:FYI
n Wisconsin, Prison Labor Replaces Unions
by Jessica P.
July 7, 2011
8:10 pm
159 comments
Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/in-wisconsin-prison-labor-replaces-unions.html#ixzz1RcNDiuBL
Look people, there’s a simple reason for cutting back on education. You cannot maintain such an iniquitous social arrangement, you know, like 80% of the wealth of a nation in the hands of 4% of the population, without dumbing down the population.
Bil,
Come back…Stay….But if you must go…send a wink once in a while…
Best wishes to you BIL.
Man what an evening.
I’ll make this announcement here because this seems to be the Friday conversational thread.
A family thing has come up that is going to require all of my attention for the foreseeable future. Possibly several months. Maybe longer. As such, I do not think I’ll have much time (or inclination) for blogging. I’m going to take some time off. I’m not sure when I’ll be back other than to do a bit of catch up reading. Just in case the world takes a further turn for the unexpected, I just wanted to publicly acknowledge and tell all of the friends I have made here over the last four years that it has been a blast and an honor. I’ve come to consider many of you as more than friends, but as extended family. To all of you who have my e-mail (and I have yours), we’ll stay in touch out of camera. I’m taking time away from blogging but I will still keep on top of my e-mail.
I know that you’ll all keep on fighting the good fight for the Constitution, the Declaration and the potential for what America could be as envisioned by our Founders like Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. I also know that you’ll continue to be voices of reason, education, civil liberties and human rights. And fearless troll killers. I’d also like the thank Professor Turley for providing this forum and being the best Constitutional commentator on television or any place else for that matter. He has made a great salon and attracted free thinkers and people of good heart to create what I now and will always consider the finest blog on the Internet. I would name you all individually, but I don’t want to take the chance of missing anyone from listing while dog tired and frazzled.
Besides, you know who you are, my beloved regulars, semi-regulars and lurkers.
Should I return soon, I bid you aloha and adieu.
Should my path lead me away, I’ll say that everything is transitory.
In the words of Theodor Seuss Geisel, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
I know that I will.
May you all have warm words on a cool evening, a full moon on a dark night, and a smooth road all the way to your door.
Amo ut is eram absentis.
Gene H.,
Trumpet players are very good kissers 🙂
SwM,
Ah … Chicago Symphony Orchestra … a superb organization. I saw Lang Lang there a long time ago.
We’re going to Blossom in Aug for some Mozart
Gyges,
oh my god … how did I miss that whole exchange!? What a positively beautiful example and I didn’t bother to check your work as off the top it looked concise … I would only add that trolls are always committing the cardinal sin of presenting a lyrical hook that doesn’t match up with the melodic hook.
smells of rotting fish stays around for a few days even if they are deposed properly….
You’re right OS I must be tired I have almost sunk to your lameness level. One has to work with the opponents one has.
Blouise,
Impressive. I play a little myself (mostly guitar, a little piano) and while I can play a bit of hamfisted Bach on the guitar, Shostakovich is as they say “way above my pay grade”. What’s funny is that one of the few regrets in life I have regards the cello. When I first joined band in elementary school, they wanted me to play a cello. I said no because I thought I’d look goofy to the girls on the bus lugging around a cello. I took up trumpet instead. Years later, in college, I had lost my lip so the trumpet was a fond memory, but as I took up the guitar I soon realized that as cool as it was for getting the girls, a cello would have been much cooler.