My Pie-in-the-Sky Wish for Elementary Education in the Pandemic

donaldbuzz&minnie

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Feb 13, 2004
I know this will never happen, but I've always thought that elementary school kids would be well served if schools concentrated on making absolutely sure that every child could just read well (and hopefully love it); write a decent paper with a beginning, middle and end; and is rock-solid on basic arithmetic (add, subtract, multiply, divide, percentages, fractions.) If a child enters 7th grade with the confidence of that behind him/her, there isn't anything s/he can't be ready to learn in the upper grades.

As extras, maybe teach the things kids learn best when they are very young. A foreign language. A musical instrument. A physical skill they can use the rest of their lives without having to gather entire teams together - during a pandemic tennis comes to mind. Give them plenty of recess time to use their big muscles, and even make time during the day to daydream instead of piling on the homework.

Of course any child who has mastered the basics and is bored can, and should, move on to more complicated material. But so many children come out of elementary school shaky on the basics, and losing confidence in their ability to learn. I couldn't care less if a kid is reading piles of Calvin and Hobbes comic books instead of great literature. Is he reading? Is she happy? Great. I am an extremely fast reader today, and I attribute it all to books like Cherry Ames, Student Nurse. No book reports, no questions at the end of the chapter. Just devouring "junk" books because I wanted to. It set me up for reading and understanding plenty of complex material and actual literature in high school (except, please God, not Silas Marner!) That has to be among the most soul-crushing book a kid was ever made to read.

I got lost in the second grade in math. I went up to the desk and asked my teacher why something worked the way it did, and she said, "just do it." So I figured arithmetic was magic and gave up for a very long time. It took forever for me to realize I actually had a good head for math. I made sure that never happened to my kids. My children were well grounded in the basics in elementary school, and they both did really well in school, all the way through college.

I'm just wondering if, during the pandemic, we could just back off a little. Make sure elementary kids can read, write and do basic arithmetic, and let everything else go. Parents and teachers are stressed enough without adding anything that can easily be learned later by a confident child.
 
I am a 3rd grade teacher and I could not agree with you more! What we expect these kids to do is just not developmentally appropriate. My 3rd graders are expected to "analyze the text." Some of them can barely read on grade level and don't know the difference between a noun and a verb. I spend a lot of time on writing...it's a skill that requires a lot of teacher modeling and practice.

My hope is that with the shortened school year of last year, we concentrate on the basics. Our administrators have basically instructed us to do us (in the event that once again we need to close up schools).
 
Silas Marner! I haven't thought of that book in... decades. I agree! No child should be subjected to that. Maybe one of the worst books ever written.
 


OP, I agree with you. My own kids are long since grown up and I don't really pay much attention to what goes on with the schools, but the one thought I did have during the whole "should schools open or close" was that we needed to try to see if the schools could open for the youngest of learners at this point to basically do what you said: teach them how to read and arithmatic and get those foundations built. Because once the good foundation is there, everything else seems to work well. Focus on that, the basics, for the next year. For older kids, take a step back and shore up foundations where they are lacking. Very "pie-in-the-sky" for sure!
 
I am a 3rd grade teacher and I could not agree with you more! What we expect these kids to do is just not developmentally appropriate. My 3rd graders are expected to "analyze the text." Some of them can barely read on grade level and don't know the difference between a noun and a verb. I spend a lot of time on writing...it's a skill that requires a lot of teacher modeling and practice.

My hope is that with the shortened school year of last year, we concentrate on the basics. Our administrators have basically instructed us to do us (in the event that once again we need to close up schools).
I honestly don't know. At what age is it appropriate to learn about nouns and verbs? Assuming before 3rd grade (so age 8/9?), wouldn't that be a problem with their previous teachers? Either not teaching "well" or not recognizing the student is having problems and passing them through anyway? I thought that was the point with testing... to make sure kids are learning the appropriate material (at least the basics) and not just pass them along to the next grade without learning appropriate skills. But testing = bad.
 
I teach 5th grade special education and I couldn't agree with you more. I typically get 12-15 new students each year and maybe 1 or 2 read at grade level. Across our (poor, urban) district, less than half of our students read at grade level at 5th grade (many are reading at a 1st or 2nd grade level) - and it only gets worse from there. And due to budget cuts from COVID and the state cutting our funding significantly (and no tax base that can make it up), our entire Reading Department has been cut - 28 teachers were laid off in total. Add that in to 6 months out of a school building and many students who did not participate in distance learning, we're looking at a very very scary future for these students. But still, we'll return next month and have to keep pushing forward with our curriculum because of our state mandates while we once again take state tests and are designated as a failing school without the resources to fix anything.

I thought that was the point with testing... to make sure kids are learning the appropriate material (at least the basics) and not just pass them along to the next grade without learning appropriate skills. But testing = bad.

In theory, this is how testing would work, but it doesn't actually matter for the kids what their scores are on the standardized tests at the end of the year - it's only used to rate the effectiveness of a school and its teachers and for the state to assign a score. Not to mention, no one gets these scores until the next school year begins. At least that's how it works in New York.
 


The real problem is that we have way too much packed into our curriculums. As a result, you “cover” things, with very little time for mastery. Administrators come down hard on teachers who are not keeping pace with their grade level colleagues In terms of teaching the content. There’s little regard paid to the actual ability of the students to grasp the material. The goal is to get through the curriculum prior to state testing.
 
Teachers hope for kids to master the core subjects. They also hope for support from parents. Having only half of my class even participate and having to send over 400 emails to parents it is even more evident that without parental support remote learning only addresses the parents who want their kids to be successful.

What OP is basically saying in the post is go back to the good old days reading writing and math. I agree. We are asking kids to fly when they have not even learned to crawl. The flavor of the day now is working independently
in centers which is pretty useless unless you have kids who are intrinsically motivated. Often we have to look like we drink the Kool Aide but once the door is closed we do the right thing. While school systems live and die by high stakes testing, I would always get the question how is it that your kids always do so well year after year. My secret? I ignored what they told us to do and taught exactly what the OP wanted.
 
THIS. Yes. I dress up the company (the administrators who visit my classroom) and once they are gone, I do what's right for my students.
Does it bother you just a little that you cannot tell them why the kids are successful? When they are on their way out of my room patting themselves on their backs I often think of The Emperor's New Clothes. But then I think just let them wallow in blissful ignorance.
 
It bothers me tremendously, but now I just try to stay clear of stirring the pot; I close my door and do what I know is best for my students.
 
I honestly don't know. At what age is it appropriate to learn about nouns and verbs? Assuming before 3rd grade (so age 8/9?), wouldn't that be a problem with their previous teachers? Either not teaching "well" or not recognizing the student is having problems and passing them through anyway? I thought that was the point with testing... to make sure kids are learning the appropriate material (at least the basics) and not just pass them along to the next grade without learning appropriate skills. But testing = bad.
I had the exact same thought! Teachers shouldn't be passing them to the next grade level if they have not masted the skills for the current grade level.
 
We teachers would love not to pass kids along to the next grade level; unfortunately it is not that simple. School administrators are extremely reluctant and will claim to parents that the child will be given “additional support”. It costs tax dollars to have a child retained and more often than not, parents simply don’t want it to happen. I have begged parents to hold their child back, and for a lot of reasons, they are not interested.
 
I had the exact same thought! Teachers shouldn't be passing them to the next grade level if they have not masted the skills for the current grade level.

IT is practically an Act of Congress to retain a child. Also, in our district if the parent wants them moved on, they get promoted no matter what the teacher says.
 
IT is practically an Act of Congress to retain a child. Also, in our district if the parent wants them moved on, they get promoted no matter what the teacher says.

This is such a shame. We made the huge mistake of allowing our just-on-the-cusp child to enter kindergarten the first year she was eligible. Her pre-school teachers thought she was ready because she was emotionally mature and we didn't know any better. I would beg parents now not to do the same. By the time she was in the 2nd grade she was lost. Her teacher and we made the difficult decision to have her repeat the 2nd grade. It was hard on her emotionally, but it was absolutely the right decision. Just like not being able to tie her own shoes until she was ready, her brain just couldn't do what it couldn't do in school until she was old enough to do it. The reset worked.
 
We teachers would love not to pass kids along to the next grade level; unfortunately it is not that simple. School administrators are extremely reluctant and will claim to parents that the child will be given “additional support”. It costs tax dollars to have a child retained and more often than not, parents simply don’t want it to happen. I have begged parents to hold their child back, and for a lot of reasons, they are not interested.
I had a student this year whose parents BEGGED to have their child repeat seventh grade. Administration said it wasn’t possible.
 
This is such a shame. We made the huge mistake of allowing our just-on-the-cusp child to enter kindergarten the first year she was eligible. Her pre-school teachers thought she was ready because she was emotionally mature and we didn't know any better. I would beg parents now not to do the same. By the time she was in the 2nd grade she was lost. Her teacher and we made the difficult decision to have her repeat the 2nd grade. It was hard on her emotionally, but it was absolutely the right decision. Just like not being able to tie her own shoes until she was ready, her brain just couldn't do what it couldn't do in school until she was old enough to do it. The reset worked.


My congratulations to you. I know what a difficult decision it is to make. Your analogy about her not being able to tie her shoe is spot on; just because someone things a kid should ride a bicycle by a certain age doesn't mean they all actually do. Why can't we have that same attitude when it comes to academics? I held a boy back in the 3d grade many years ago; it took some convincing and parents cried when I explained to them my reasons. He has since graduated from high school and will start his freshman year of college. I still keep in touch with the family. They said it's the best thing they could have ever done.

Many times parents see it as a poor reflection of them; that's not the case at all.
 

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