Puritanical college prep & sheltering teens

[MEmama]

1 minute ago, Matryoshka said:

I don't get that either.  I don't think we have that in my state.  My kids all did DE; back in the day I did a college class (at a local 4-year) while in high school, but all were on the college campus, with college students, and without the teacher knowing the student's status as a high-schooler (unless they said something themselves).

If it's at a high school, with other high school students, and taught by a high-school teacher, then I also don't see how it's different from a ... high school class (even if honors or advanced).  Especially if there's no test (like with AP) to document that this is in fact covering what would be considered college-level material.

We don’t all have that opportunity, though? 
 

I addressed the second point upthread, at least how it works in our high school here. The teachers are certified to teach the course; the material is the same as taking it on a university campus (which for us is hours away). 

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, Matryoshka said:

I don't get that either.  I don't think we have that in my state.  My kids all did DE; back in the day I did a college class (at a local 4-year) while in high school, but all were on the college campus, with college students, and without the teacher knowing the student's status as a high-schooler (unless they said something themselves).

If it's at a high school, with other high school students, and taught by a high-school teacher, then I also don't see how it's different from a ... high school class (even if honors or advanced).  Especially if there's no test (like with AP) to document that this is in fact covering what would be considered college-level material.

It's not functionally different than a high school class UNLESS there is some effort to ensure concurrence with college classes. It does, however, offer rural and remote populations opportunities that they wouldn't otherwise have. A lot of CC campuses are/were oversubscribed and underfunded too. Partnerships that keep HS students in their schools allow the CC avoid staffing additional course sections.

[Murphy101]

1 minute ago, Sneezyone said:

No, I get it. What I think you're missing is that his classes/class was MEMORABLE in a way that others were not. I had a lot of amazing teachers who were MEMORABLE because they had an impact on us. That is/was no small feat. I would take a million Mr. Federico's over the boring pablum that passes for acceptable content today.

I have lots of memorable things people have done that did not educate me academically.  Which is the primary purpose of schools. Not the only purpose, sure, but it is a primary goal. Or should be imo.

That said, again, it’s possible for a teacher to be both memorable and a good teacher. In theory anyways. 

[Sneezyone]

5 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

I have lots of memorable things people have done that did not educate me academically.  Which is the primary purpose of schools. Not the only purpose, sure, but it is a primary goal. Or should be imo.

That said, again, it’s possible for a teacher to be both memorable and a good teacher. In theory anyways. 

Well, see, we agree. Whether the conversations were teacher led or not, that book had my classmates and I buzzing. We had multiple robust and enthusiastic conversations about everything in that book. It was an ELA class after all. A good teacher does that.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Bootsie]

40 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Sexual content/discussion wasn't ever required. The brouhaha was, quite literally, a reaction to some prompts on those matters EXISTING in a book where other kinds of prompts were assigned.

From what I have read, the parents are not reacting to the prompts existing in a book, they are reacting to the fact that those prompts exist in a book that was assigned to their children.  Those particular assignments may not have been required, but it is my understanding that the book was a "text" for the the class and that students each had their own copy of the book.  I have looked at the book and there appears to be about 16 words per page in the book.  So, we are not talking about students reading some explicit content buried among 100s of thousands of words in a novel.  Those prompts would literally jump off the page for any student skimming through the book.  Even if they were not assigned, it normalizes the idea that this type of content is OK for an academic setting.  What is the teacher to do if a student asks about the content of the textbook in class?  

As a college professor, I am seeing more and more students who cannot write basic sentences, much less construct a decent paragraph.  For a number of these students, I go back and check and instead of having a GOOD high school English course, they have been in dual enrollment English courses, for which they received an "A".  There is nothing that I have seen in this book of prompts that is educational.  It is one thing when there is controversial content coupled with good content from which students can learn in a textbook.  I have a difficult time seeing how the questionable content is balanced with good, meaningful content in this case. How does this text contribute to learning? Are there better materials to reach that goal? 

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

This is not a universal truth. It varies by location.

Thus the reason I used the word “here” and not “everywhere”.  I have never stated anything I’ve said in this thread is a universal truth. 

1 hour ago, MEmama said:

Wow, that’s just…totally opposite of what we have. 😞 

DS reports that even from our small town (considered rural), small state high school he feels well prepared for his top rated university. I feel grateful he got what he needed. 

 You are right to feel grateful. But yet - it’s really sad that it’s something you can feel grateful about specifically because that’s not the norm.  A not small percentage of students and parents should rightly not feel grateful for the lack of education opportunity they have in our supposedly first world country. 

58 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

I don't get that either.  I don't think we have that in my state.  2/3 of my kids did DE; back in the day I did a college class (at a local 4-year) while in high school, but all were on the college campus, with college students, and without the teacher knowing the student's status as a high-schooler (unless they said something themselves).

If it's at a high school, with other high school students, and taught by a high-school teacher, then I also don't see how it's different from a ... high school class (even if honors or advanced).  Especially if there's no test (like with AP) to document that this is in fact covering what would be considered college-level material.

Ding ding ding! Exactly.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Murphy101

[Pam in CT]

re very divergent "DE" experiences

27 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

I don't get that either.  I don't think we have that in my state.  2/3 of my kids did DE; back in the day I did a college class (at a local 4-year) while in high school, but all were on the college campus, with college students, and without the teacher knowing the student's status as a high-schooler (unless they said something themselves).

If it's at a high school, with other high school students, and taught by a high-school teacher, then I also don't see how it's different from a ... high school class (even if honors or advanced).  Especially if there's no test (like with AP) to document that this is in fact covering what would be considered college-level material.

Even more so if -- to come back around to the referenced resource book in the OP example, DE teachers are expected to tailor/ dial back content so as to be developmentally appropriate for younger students. 

(That may not be much of a thing in STEM content areas but it certainly is for literature and history.  Not to open up "CRT brouhaha" one more time, but, a kid developmentally unable to handle Beloved or redlining has no business claiming "college level" achievement.)

 

I completely understand the logic of using DE, or really any mechanism available, to get advanced content into high schools in remote rural areas like @MEmama 's, or financially under-resourced areas like @Murphy101 's.  As public policymakers, as statewide education professionals, as individual high schools... you do what you have to do, within the constraints you have, to serve the students as best you can.

While it's understandable, it does simultaneously seem to yield up an outcome where a "DE" credit in murphy's district is not at all comparable to a "DE" credit in MEmama's... from the vantage point of 4-year university admissions.  Or from the interior perspective of the students taking the classes.

[Faith-manor]

47 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re outsourcing advanced HS classes to community college:

TY. And are such classes physically taught on the community college campuses, or do the cc teachers trek on over to the high school?

In our area, the CC or university does not send professors. Instead an unqualified high school teacher is micro managed to provide the content from the university. So the quality of coursework is variable in quality (those resources, texts, exams, and content are dictated) based on the high school teachers' abilities.  And given the sheer number who do not pass the AP exams for their AP classes, I can say it has become more of the same watering down that we have come to expect of public schools. This same district, when I was in high school, the DE was "drive yourself to the university" so no watering down. When I was 15, I began living with my aunt and uncle in their town outside Flint, so I could take DE from the University of Michigan, Flint. I was rarely M-F back at home on my high school campus, mostly just for required assemblies, and standardized tests. However, if those things conflicted with my college class schedule, I could file a form to opt out. So surrounded by an adult environment, I can say that I was exposed to a lot of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, LOL...the very things my parents' fundie church was having a cow over. I was fine though. And since I was headed eventually to a university with a conservatory like music department, and a very hippy humanities department, it was a good environment for me to get my feet wet.

[Bootsie]

56 minutes ago, MEmama said:

The high school here offers a couple of DE classes; the teachers are specially trained and certified and the coursework is the same as the state university. We are in a small town, there is no large university near us at all. So our rigorous high school brings the class availability to the students who most need and want the challenge. It was an incredible opportunity for DS.

Who is providing this training and certification?  

[Faith-manor]

2 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re very divergent "DE" experiences

Even more so if -- to come back around to the referenced resource book in the OP example, DE teachers are expected to tailor/ dial back content so as to be developmentally appropriate for younger students. 

(That may not be much of a thing in STEM content areas but it certainly is for literature and history.  Not to open up "CRT brouhaha" one more time, but, a kid developmentally unable to handle Beloved or redlining has no business claiming "college level" achievement.)

 

I completely understand the logic of using DE, or really any mechanism available, to get advanced content into high schools in remote rural areas like @MEmama 's, or financially under-resourced areas like @Murphy101 's.  As public policymakers, as statewide education professionals, as individual high schools... you do what you have to do, within the constraints you have, to serve the students as best you can.

While it's understandable, it does simultaneously seem to yield up an outcome where a "DE" credit in murphy's district is not at all comparable to a "DE" credit in MEmama's... from the vantage point of 4-year university admissions.  Or from the interior perspective of the students taking the classes.

Yes, very much this these days. And it shows when these students enter college and the workforce. There is a gap there for those that had the watered down content vs. the regular course. Our local school district got threatened by both the CC and Uni they have DE through with their programs being pulled because of the relentless push of parents and principals on teachers to dumb it down, not fail anyone, etc. They have almost zero APs these days. So if they lose DE, there is nothing available for the top 25%-30% of the student body.

Schoolcraft Community College here in Michigan offers some really decent online DE. It seems like their instructors have really thought it out well, and some are 100% only online instructors with a lot of experience. When some area parents wanted to pull their high schoolers due to lack of covid protocols and the dwindling number of academic offerings for their kids, I pointed them to Schoolcraft online (way too far to commute and especially on our winter side roads) and said they could "homeschool" this way submitting both the ps. transcript for their 1st two years of high school, plus their college transcripts. But, they have to pay out of pocket because this school is nor contracted locally for DE. Thus, it ends up being a haves/have nots once again. The haves could make it happen for their kids. The have nots, once more, stuck with crap. Makes my heart break and my brain twitch.

[Dmmetler]

1 hour ago, Pam in CT said:

re outsourcing advanced HS classes to community college:

TY. And are such classes physically taught on the community college campuses, or do the cc teachers trek on over to the high school?

Here, some schools will send a van to the CC, but in most cases, an adjunct is hired to teach at a couple of high schools, using the college syllabus/textbooks. If you went online to register for the CC here, some classes will literally have 50+ sections-of which maybe 4-5 are on each CC campus, and the rest are at "Satellite campus-NAME high school".  They're offered 5 days a week vs 2, which the CC ones are, so I imagine that there's a lot more hand holding and time spent doing work in class, just by virtue of having to match the high school schedule,

 

I will also say that since the CC here mostly does 90 minute classes 2x/week (120 minutes for certain 4 credit hour classes), it isn't super compatible with high school schedules unless the high school also does longer blocks and alternating days. Most here don't, so that may be one reason why there are so many DE on campus classes offered. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sneezyone]

9 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

From what I have read, the parents are not reacting to the prompts existing in a book, they are reacting to the fact that those prompts exist in a book that was assigned to their children.  Those particular assignments may not have been required, but it is my understanding that the book was a "text" for the the class and that students each had their own copy of the book.  I have looked at the book and there appears to be about 16 words per page in the book.  So, we are not talking about students reading some explicit content buried among 100s of thousands of words in a novel.  Those prompts would literally jump off the page for any student skimming through the book.  Even if they were not assigned, it normalizes the idea that this type of content is OK for an academic setting.  What is the teacher to do if a student asks about the content of the textbook in class?  

As a college professor, I am seeing more and more students who cannot write basic sentences, much less construct a decent paragraph.  For a number of these students, I go back and check and instead of having a GOOD high school English course, they have been in dual enrollment English courses, for which they received an "A".  There is nothing that I have seen in this book of prompts that is educational.  It is one thing when there is controversial content coupled with good content from which students can learn in a textbook.  I have a difficult time seeing how the questionable content is balanced with good, meaningful content in this case. How does this text contribute to learning? Are there better materials to reach that goal? 

There are lots of texts from which teachers pull content. Students are only required to read assigned passages. In a huge book of prompts, some will be used, others will not. I don't think it's fair or appropriate  to hold teachers accountable for content that wasn't assigned or presented in class. Your observation about students in your classes notwithstanding, writing prompts are standard academic fair and uncontroversial.

[Murphy101]

3 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re very divergent "DE" experiences

Even more so if -- to come back around to the referenced resource book in the OP example, DE teachers are expected to tailor/ dial back content so as to be developmentally appropriate for younger students. 

(That may not be much of a thing in STEM content areas but it certainly is for literature and history.  Not to open up "CRT brouhaha" one more time, but, a kid developmentally unable to handle Beloved or redlining has no business claiming "college level" achievement.)

 

I completely understand the logic of using DE, or really any mechanism available, to get advanced content into high schools in remote rural areas like @MEmama 's, or financially under-resourced areas like @Murphy101 's.  As public policymakers, as statewide education professionals, as individual high schools... you do what you have to do, within the constraints you have, to serve the students as best you can.

While it's understandable, it does simultaneously seem to yield up an outcome where a "DE" credit in murphy's district is not at all comparable to a "DE" credit in MEmama's... from the vantage point of 4-year university admissions.  Or from the interior perspective of the students taking the classes.

To be clear:

DE inside the college by a college/Cc teacher just like any other college course with a mix of people from any background and ages here is usually well done. (There’s always that one bad apple.)

I am specifically calling out the high schools in my state that claim DE or AP inside their buildings and yet the kids are still graduating needing significant remedial courses in cc after graduating those high schools. >60% of fresh graduates need remedial courses in maths and English in my state. Many parents hear their kid is taking courses titled as DE or AP class at the high school and they and their child are so proud and think they are doing so well bc they don’t even know that it means absolutely nothing if the kid never takes an AP exam. And most never have an AP exam even offered to them. Frankly I think it’s blatant education fraud and heartily wish someone would sue for educational neglect and fraud. 

[Sneezyone]

15 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

re very divergent "DE" experiences

Even more so if -- to come back around to the referenced resource book in the OP example, DE teachers are expected to tailor/ dial back content so as to be developmentally appropriate for younger students. 

(That may not be much of a thing in STEM content areas but it certainly is for literature and history.  Not to open up "CRT brouhaha" one more time, but, a kid developmentally unable to handle Beloved or redlining has no business claiming "college level" achievement.)

 

I completely understand the logic of using DE, or really any mechanism available, to get advanced content into high schools in remote rural areas like @MEmama 's, or financially under-resourced areas like @Murphy101 's.  As public policymakers, as statewide education professionals, as individual high schools... you do what you have to do, within the constraints you have, to serve the students as best you can.

While it's understandable, it does simultaneously seem to yield up an outcome where a "DE" credit in murphy's district is not at all comparable to a "DE" credit in MEmama's... from the vantage point of 4-year university admissions.  Or from the interior perspective of the students taking the classes.

That goes back, again to the coddling tho. Students in a DE class, whether on the HS campus or a CC/Univ one, should be able to manage this level of work where they were NOT required to tackle the more challenging or controversial prompts.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[sassenach]

1 hour ago, MEmama said:

Honestly, I think that’s the desired outcome. This thread has nearly 3 pages containing various degrees of outrage over something that *never happened*. You’re not the only one (and I’m sure we are all guilty of skipping the articles in favor of the comment section from time to time!)

Yes, but I will add that I think there does exist an argument/belief out there (and that I've seen argued on this board) that college readiness means that a student must be willing to engage in deeply sexual content and I disagree with that. 

I think a lot of people, myself included, are jumping straight to the bigger, pre-existing debate, probably to the detriment of the original article/more specific conversation.

Edited February 15, 2022 by sassenach

[Frances]

19 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

While it's understandable, it does simultaneously seem to yield up an outcome where a "DE" credit in murphy's district is not at all comparable to a "DE" credit in MEmama's... from the vantage point of 4-year university admissions.  Or from the interior perspective of the students taking the classes.

But aside from DE classes, college credits from any given university are often not at all comparable to college credits from another. The level of depth and rigor and the amount of material covered and work required can vary dramatically across different colleges, even for classes with the same basic title and # of credit hours. Even within a college or university, there can at times be very different rigor and requirements for the same class taught by different instructors.

[Sneezyone]

36 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

From what I have read, the parents are not reacting to the prompts existing in a book, they are reacting to the fact that those prompts exist in a book that was assigned to their children.  Those particular assignments may not have been required, but it is my understanding that the book was a "text" for the the class and that students each had their own copy of the book.  I have looked at the book and there appears to be about 16 words per page in the book.  So, we are not talking about students reading some explicit content buried among 100s of thousands of words in a novel.  Those prompts would literally jump off the page for any student skimming through the book.  Even if they were not assigned, it normalizes the idea that this type of content is OK for an academic setting.  What is the teacher to do if a student asks about the content of the textbook in class?  

As a college professor, I am seeing more and more students who cannot write basic sentences, much less construct a decent paragraph.  For a number of these students, I go back and check and instead of having a GOOD high school English course, they have been in dual enrollment English courses, for which they received an "A".  There is nothing that I have seen in this book of prompts that is educational.  It is one thing when there is controversial content coupled with good content from which students can learn in a textbook.  I have a difficult time seeing how the questionable content is balanced with good, meaningful content in this case. How does this text contribute to learning? Are there better materials to reach that goal? 

Teachers are no more responsible for the UNUSED prompts in the book than the UNUSED content in the school library. The presence of that content in a book that DE high school students have access to normalizes the idea that college students will see and hear things that make them uncomfy but that they needn't engage with. When a student asks, the teacher can VERY easily say, "That is not the subject of this class and if you choose to write about that in a journal on your own time, you may do so." That is the mature/adult thing to do, not flip out and start a witch hunt. Your experiences with your own students notwithstanding, writing prompts are a staple of ELA. Writing prompts are a significant part of the AP English exams. They're not going away.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Pam in CT]

K, so I just prowled the CT Department of Education offerings, and there seem to be two different state-funded programs that get college-level content to high school students, neither of which are called "dual enrollment."

• "Early College Experience" - In this program, flagship UConn comes into selected high school campuses -- the university sends *its* instructors to a total of 160 identified partner high schools who teach a total of 201 identified courses.  University-hired teachers, physical high school building, all HS students.  The high schools seem to have to go through some series of qualification hoops to become eligible as a "partner."
• "College Career Pathways" -- in this one, individual high school kids go onto 4 year state college / community college / state vocational & tech campuses and are able to take qualified courses (more than 100, but not open-ended selection).

Tuition is free but transportation is not, so a school like @MEmama  's would have to arrange for a school minibus or something if it were using the CCP program as their main Advanced Calculus offering.  (Education funding in CT is different in a zillion ways from most other states.)

 

Those two programs are open to any student/ high school that wants to qualify to use them.  There are some other programs targeted particularly to vocational training, performing arts, and GATE.

[Dmmetler]

1 minute ago, sassenach said:

Yes, but I will add that I think there does exist an argument/belief out there (and that I've seen argued on this board) that college readiness means that a student must be willing to engage in deeply sexual content and I disagree with that. 

Not deeply sexual content, but a recognition that sex is part of life, and sexual behaviors (in particular sexual assault and abuse) is going to be germane to many humanities classes. If your child is not ready to read some pretty awful stuff about what people do to other people they don't consider as worthy of humanity as themselves, they shouldn't take Black history or African-American literature. Or, for that matter, any college class involving WWII. 

And you also have to recognize that even if your child isn't going to choose to make their personal reflection essay or speech on "How I got pregnant on prom night and had an abortion, and how it has affected me", it doesn't mean that a classmate won't and that your child won't be part of the peer review of that particular essay or in the classroom when that speech is delivered.

[BusyMom5]

I live in a tiny rural town, our graduating class is about 40 students.  There aren't enough students to justify higher level classes taught by qualified teachers assuming we could find qualified teachers to hire.  If you take Algebra 1 in 8th grade, you will have to DE to get your 3 HS math credits bc there are only Al1, Geometry and Al2 offered.  We have no FL teachers, its all Rosetta Stone.  The problem is not the teachers,  its the lack of students capable of doing more.  I would say there are maybe 5 students per grade capable of higher level courses.   Most just want to graduate and get a job in a physical skill (road construction, welding, farming, etc).  But they took out a lot of the skill type classes, too!  Students are bussed an hour to a bigger high school that offers vocational training for things like auto mechanics.  The students who are thinking college have no options but DE to get their credits!  DE works in a few different ways.  The CC has about 8 classes they offer as HS DE, meaning only HS kids in an online DE class taught by a college professor and monitored by a school teacher.  Math and science try to place them with a HS math or science teacher, but psychology would just be in the library or a study hall time.  Its like this at many rural schools, and the kids in the online classes are from several small towns.  In the town the CC is located in, that school does allow a handful of students to take classes on the college campus.  If a student wants to take a class that isn't designated HS DE, they can take any CC class they qualify for via ACT or Accuplacer score online at school- so maybe they want to take the beginning computer class- the school does let them sign up and take it during study hall online.  The cost is a bit more, maybe $100 more per class?  

As a homeschooler, my kids have taken the HS DE online, regular admission online, and on campus.  Some are really good, some are truly awful.   My preference is on campus, but Covid really made that a mess.  

The English 1 class focused on grammar snd writing basics, nothing controversial (on campus).  English 2 was all trending topics with a trend toward the left-leaning social agenda (yes, in our tiny town) but nothing of personal sexuality questions.  I just think that's pervy.  

[Faith-manor]

8 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

There are lots of texts from which teachers pull content. Students are only required to read assigned passages. In a huge book of prompts, some will be used, others will not. I don't think it's fair or appropriate  to hold teachers accountable for content that wasn't assigned or presented in class. Your observation about students in your classes notwithstanding, writing prompts are standard academic fair and uncontroversial.

This. In years past, when I subbed at the local high school, I subbed in DE and AP classes. The books for DE were dictated by the college. However, it was very easy to assign the content according to dealing with 15, 16, 17 year olds. The syllabus might say, "write X number of short answer/long answer/essays off X number of prompts" followed.by a grading rubric, but it didn't say exactly which prompts out of a sea of prompts provided for each unit of subject matter. I never once had a lesson plan in which I thought a teacher assigned an inappropriate prompt. Now would the tee-totaling, local fundies have thought some of it was inappropriate? For darn sure. They might have a cow these days about a writing prompt about the drinking and driving, and not leaving your drink (alcoholic or not) unattended, and what not because how dare we insinuate that a teen might go to a party or a restaurant with a bar. But we are headed for a one way ticket to zero education if we allow public education to be dictated by one set of extremist, religious beliefs. I am sure the KKK family was not happy about the coverage of WWII in Western Civ. But too bad! The people, through the federal and state government, have a right to say "Anti Semitism and Fascism is bad. Bad. Always bad." The function of p.s. is to educate the citizenry for proper involvement in citizenship across the board, not to perpetuate specific religious beliefs. I think this is lost on many parents who honestly expect the school to function as an extension of their own home and church. That is a hard no.

We simply cannot judge a teacher for being provided x resources and books by the college for a college class, and for students being required to use those books. It is appropriate for the school district to have the curriculum committee look at the DE options and evaluate those course syllabi and books, then choose what their school will offer. It is then the responsibility of parents to not sign their kids up for classes they think are over the line. If something inappropriate is assigned, there are ways to deal with it, however, I think the assignment needs to be egregiously inappropriate in order to require action because these are college classes meant to cover adult content. So if the teacher did not assign one of the really concerning sex writing prompts, I think that the parents in that community need to calm down. Instead, use the fact that these prompts exist and are in the text, to discuss family morality at home, to discuss how to advocate for oneself, to develop and defend personal boundaries while remaining calm and professional.

[Terabith]

When I was in high school and took dual education, I drove over to the local liberal arts college and took class over there.  

I was very surprised to discover that with our local public schools, kids cannot get dual enrollment credit for courses taken at colleges, community or liberal arts.  The only dual enrollment classes that the high school awards credits for are classes taught by high school teachers at the high school.  Those teachers have to have certain qualifications, but most of them are either AP or dual enrollment (same class) and kids can elect which one to do.  

It's odd.

[ktgrok]

21 hours ago, vonfirmath said:

Parents ought to be involved in what their kids are being taught.

 

I'll be honest, I don't see most parents reading every prompt in a book of 600 prompts, including ones not being taught in the class, just to "stay involved". 

[maize]

1 hour ago, Pam in CT said:

re outsourcing advanced HS classes to community college:

TY. And are such classes physically taught on the community college campuses, or do the cc teachers trek on over to the high school?

Here, it is usually high school teachers who have been certified somehow to teach the college credit classes who teach them at the high school.

And the point of kids taking these classes is to get college credit while in high school. The classes are guaranteed to transfer into the state college system, so they can save time and money in college.

[Faith-manor]

28 minutes ago, sassenach said:

Yes, but I will add that I think there does exist an argument/belief out there (and that I've seen argued on this board) that college readiness means that a student must be willing to engage in deeply sexual content and I disagree with that. 

I think that depends on what the student is going to major in. Seriously. Nursing, Pre-Med, Psychology, History, Art History, Anthropology? Ya, don't send them to college for that if they cannot handle discussing the nitty gritty of sex and issues related to it. It is not appropriate to expect content to be dumbed down because adults want to be clinical psychologists but can't handle discussing sex abuse in their undergraduate studies. Many of these majors require coverage of this content from year one going forward. 

[Brittany1116]

RE: the DE experiences. I lived in one rural county when I started DE almost 20 years ago. We went to a satellite location two evenings a week and watched a video of the CC lecturing. A proctor was physically present and mentally absent. IIRC, it was always a week in the rears. We moved before my senior year and I took a DE English class on the HS campus which was taught by the HS English teacher during regular school hours. I don't recall titles, but I do recall there were books that touched on beastiality and sodomy. She tried to gloss over those quite a bit.

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, ktgrok said:

I'll be honest, I don't see most parents reading every prompt in a book of 600 prompts, including ones not being taught in the class, just to "stay involved". 

LOL, I was just thinking that I have one adult child who as a teen, would have looked at all 600 prompts if they had been in p.s., and would have pulled out the just right one to " push my buttons", even if it was never assigned or discussed, and would have hinted that they had to write about it even if that was not true. I learned quickly to deal rather like "Mr. Spock" with that kid. I am so glad that one matured out of that characteristic. 

[Bootsie]

50 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

There are lots of texts from which teachers pull content. Students are only required to read assigned passages. In a huge book of prompts, some will be used, others will not. I don't think it's fair or appropriate  to hold teachers accountable for content that wasn't assigned or presented in class. Your observation about students in your classes notwithstanding, writing prompts are standard academic fair and uncontroversial.

The existence of writing prompts is standard academic fair and uncontroversial.  That does not mean that any and all writing prompts are uncontroversial.  I disagree that a teacher is accountable only for the pages in a book that they specifically assign, especially for high school students.  If the book is assigned and in the possession of students, the content of the book has been given to students and the idea that the content is appropriate for the audience is being communicated.  

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

The existence of writing prompts is standard academic fair and uncontroversial.  That does not mean that any and all writing prompts are uncontroversial.  I disagree that a teacher is accountable only for the pages in a book that they specifically assign, especially for high school students.  If the book is assigned and in the possession of students, the content of the book has been given to students and the idea that the content is appropriate for the audience is being communicated.  

It's a DE class. Students are enrolled in a COLLEGE class with collegiate standards. If they're unprepared or unwilling to be in the mere presence of content that upsets them or their parents, they're in the wrong place. That may result in a whole lot of fundy kids just not taking college-level classes or having to sign waivers. I'm ok with both.

[skimomma]

I'm not seeing an issue here.  No inappropriate prompts were assigned and it is a college level course.  But I also suspect that a big part of the problem is the DE-taught-in-high-school trend itself.  You really can't have it both ways.  If it is a college class, it is a college class and should be treated as such, no matter who is teaching it or where.

I have been watching this in my local community for some time.  None of our schools are large enough to offer many/any AP courses.  Only one district does and I believe it is only a handful of classes.  However, the districts all handle DE differently.  We have two in which students travel to the local university for in-person classes, a few where students take DE classes from the regional CC online, and one, the largest district, does DE-in-school, taught by the teachers in that school, supervised by the same regional CC.  That specific program is set up so that students graduate with both HS and associates degrees at the same time.  I don't have any personal connections to students at that school so I have no way of knowing if it is effective, but I have to wonder if there truly is any benefit to the students.  I just cannot see how students are really getting a two-year college education, in addition to a full high school eduction, at the same time.  Can you really "repackage" Algebra II and call is 3 college credits?  It might be an "associates degree" but I suspect most/all of it would never transfer into a 4-year degree program.

My dd took plenty of DE credits at a 4-year university.  Some in person and some online (thanks, covid).  She look composition and literature classes.  I have zero idea if anything involving sex or other "adult" themes were assigned or chosen as a topic by dd or other students.  And the reason I have zero idea is because I allowed her to take DE classes knowing full well that she would be treated as any other college student and was assumed to be an adult.  An adult that could choose her own topics or chose to discuss any issue she had with content with the instructor directly.  If a parent is not okay with that, they should not consent to DE classes.

[sassenach]

44 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Not deeply sexual content, but a recognition that sex is part of life, and sexual behaviors (in particular sexual assault and abuse) is going to be germane to many humanities classes. If your child is not ready to read some pretty awful stuff about what people do to other people they don't consider as worthy of humanity as themselves, they shouldn't take Black history or African-American literature. Or, for that matter, any college class involving WWII. 

And you also have to recognize that even if your child isn't going to choose to make their personal reflection essay or speech on "How I got pregnant on prom night and had an abortion, and how it has affected me", it doesn't mean that a classmate won't and that your child won't be part of the peer review of that particular essay or in the classroom when that speech is delivered.

 

22 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

I think that depends on what the student is going to major in. Seriously. Nursing, Pre-Med, Psychology, History, Art History, Anthropology? Ya, don't send them to college for that if they cannot handle discussing the nitty gritty of sex and issues related to it. It is not appropriate to expect content to be dumbed down because adults want to be clinical psychologists but can't handle discussing sex abuse in their undergraduate studies. Many of these majors require coverage of this content from year one going forward. 

I totally agree with both of you. There's a spectrum of sexual content and there's a line somewhere in there. I said "deeply" because it's hard to articulate where that line is. I guess that's why you'll always find someone who is upset. My line would be in having to view or write about explicitly sexual content. I didn't encounter anything in my nursing education that my kids haven't encountered or discussed in their public high school educations. Again, it's California, so things may be discussed at a high school level here that wouldn't be in other places. Abortion, pregnancy, rape, gender, and sexual orientation are all on the table at the high school level here. 

[Bootsie]

15 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It's a DE class. Students are enrolled in a COLLEGE class with collegiate standards. If they're unprepared or unwilling to be in the mere presence of content that upsets them or their parents, they're in the wrong place. That may result in a whole lot of fundy kids just not taking college-level classes or having to sign waivers. I'm ok with both.

I do not think those prompts are in anyway associated with collegiate standards.  Personally, I do not think they are appropriate even for a first-year student collegiate writing course.  At that point I think the students, not the parents, should complain.  

I think in this case it is totally appropriate for parents to complain and let other parents and the school board know what is in the content.  I do not think that most parents would dream that collegiate content would include that--so I don't think they would dream that is what they are signing their students up for.

I agree that the trend for high school students taking college courses is problematic; I think it is a problem for a number of reasons.  

[Kassia]

38 minutes ago, Terabith said:

When I was in high school and took dual education, I drove over to the local liberal arts college and took class over there.  

I was very surprised to discover that with our local public schools, kids cannot get dual enrollment credit for courses taken at colleges, community or liberal arts.  The only dual enrollment classes that the high school awards credits for are classes taught by high school teachers at the high school.  Those teachers have to have certain qualifications, but most of them are either AP or dual enrollment (same class) and kids can elect which one to do.  

It's odd.

I wonder if it's a funding issue?  In our state, high schools are required to allow and inform students of DE options but the state funding follows the student so high schools do not want the students taking advantage of DE.   Of course now the number of students taking DE classes raises the school's report card grade so maybe they don't care as much...it's all so complicated and all comes down to $$$.  

[Sneezyone]

3 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I do not think those prompts are in anyway associated with collegiate standards.  Personally, I do not think they are appropriate even for a first-year student collegiate writing course.  At that point I think the students, not the parents, should complain.  

I think in this case it is totally appropriate for parents to complain and let other parents and the school board know what is in the content.  I do not think that most parents would dream that collegiate content would include that--so I don't think they would dream that is what they are signing their students up for.

I agree that the trend for high school students taking college courses is problematic; I think it is a problem for a number of reasons.  

And that is your PERSONAL opinion, which you are entitled to. FTR, COLLEGIATE encompasses more than first year students, many of whom are well over 18. While the coursework did not actually include any controversial assignments, contributing to hysteria is also a valid choice. I do think we will need to see (and I will encourage it locally) more robust disclosures for AP and DE courses to ensure the content isn't further watered down.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, Kassia said:

I wonder if it's a funding issue?  In our state, high schools are required to allow and inform students of DE options but the state funding follows the student so high schools do not want the students taking advantage of DE.   Of course now the number of students taking DE classes raises the school's report card grade so maybe they don't care as much...it's all so complicated and all comes down to $$$.  

I don't know.  It's bizarre.  Last school year, we did virtual school for my then high school freshman because of covid.  However, the virtual school didn't offer the foreign language that she wanted to take, so I had called our high school and asked if she could take it at the community college and then continue on in the sequence when she transferred back to brick and mortar school after getting vaccinated.  The same teacher teaches the community college class and the high school classes.  But the high school would not only not award credit for completing the class at community college, they would not accept it for placement.  

The whole thing is bizarre.  I suspect you're right and it is funding.  

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, sassenach said:

Yes, but I will add that I think there does exist an argument/belief out there (and that I've seen argued on this board) that college readiness means that a student must be willing to engage in deeply sexual content and I disagree with that. 

I think a lot of people, myself included, are jumping straight to the bigger, pre-existing debate, probably to the detriment of the original article/more specific conversation.

There are certainly private colleges that cater to that view. This is about public education tho and sanitizing it to the point where it only serves the needs of conservative WASPs is unacceptable. More than half of K-12 students nationwide are "URMs". The reality is that a lot of the challenged content reflects the history and experiences of those groups. DD's ELA class is currently reading Their Eyes Were Watching God. It's a wonderful book and DD gushed that she was only on "Episode 4". Having that experience be denied her to suit puritanical parents is not OK.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[vonfirmath]

41 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

This. In years past, when I subbed at the local high school, I subbed in DE and AP classes. The books for DE were dictated by the college. However, it was very easy to assign the content according to dealing with 15, 16, 17 year olds. The syllabus might say, "write X number of short answer/long answer/essays off X number of prompts" followed.by a grading rubric, but it didn't say exactly which prompts out of a sea of prompts provided for each unit of subject matter. I never once had a lesson plan in which I thought a teacher assigned an inappropriate prompt. Now would the tee-totaling, local fundies have thought some of it was inappropriate? For darn sure. They might have a cow these days about a writing prompt about the drinking and driving, and not leaving your drink (alcoholic or not) unattended, and what not because how dare we insinuate that a teen might go to a party or a restaurant with a bar.

I consider myself a tee-totaling fundie, though not local to you. And I would not have had any problems with drinking prompts about drinking and driving or not leaving your drink.

 

In fact I was just pre-discussing with my kids the importance, if they are at a get together, of keeping track of their own drink and that bad actors can spike the drink for evil purposes.  Even if it is a school run event, etc.

[Faith-manor]

Just now, vonfirmath said:

I consider myself a tee-totaling fundie, though not local to you. And I would not have had any problems with drinking prompts about drinking and driving or not leaving your drink.

 

In fact I was just pre-discussing with my kids the importance, if they are at a get together, of keeping track of their own drink and that bad actors can spike the drink for evil purposes.  Even if it is a school run event, etc.

Our fundamentalists locally are very extreme. One of the pastors actually told the school.board that for high school literature, why don't they just read and discuss Little House on the Prairie! And when the police wanted to have school assembly about the dangers of drinking and driving, the Temperance League local chapter protested and got it canceled because they were angry that the police would not condemn all alcohol consumption across the board. Basically, if the police would not say it is a sin to drink, it wad not acceptable. So when I say fundie, I mean extreme. We have a LOT of extremism here.

I should have explained that better.

[Faith-manor]

12 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I don't know.  It's bizarre.  Last school year, we did virtual school for my then high school freshman because of covid.  However, the virtual school didn't offer the foreign language that she wanted to take, so I had called our high school and asked if she could take it at the community college and then continue on in the sequence when she transferred back to brick and mortar school after getting vaccinated.  The same teacher teaches the community college class and the high school classes.  But the high school would not only not award credit for completing the class at community college, they would not accept it for placement.  

The whole thing is bizarre.  I suspect you're right and it is funding.  

I always think issues like these are "follow the dollars" situations. They frustrate the stuffing out of me.

[Murphy101]

No college class should be asking students (writing prompt or otherwise) to share personal experiences, especially of a sexual nature with their teacher or classmates. Period. I know people who have gone through med school, psychology degrees, theatre production and the fine arts degrees without ever having that happen. They would be offended at the boundary crossing and the unprofessionalism - as they should be!

In a public high school, materials provided should be entirely suitable to the primary needs of the students’ education.  So yes, of course the teacher is accountable for the de facto recommending of a source that they pull class materials from.  This is ridiculous to say otherwise.  Is it okay for a high school teacher to pull an article on politics from playboy for class use as long as they don’t actually assign the magazine? Of course not.

It is not coddling to demand a basic level of social decorum and professional standards, especially wrt to basic public education.  And wanting such basic standards shouldn’t bar people from getting an education.

[Sneezyone]

11 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

No college class should be asking students (writing prompt or otherwise) to share personal experiences, especially of a sexual nature with their teacher or classmates. Period. I know people who have gone through med school, psychology degrees, theatre production and the fine arts degrees without ever having that happen. They would be offended at the boundary crossing and the unprofessionalism - as they should be!

In a public high school, materials provided should be entirely suitable to the primary needs of the students’ education.  So yes, of course the teacher is accountable for the de facto recommending of a source that they pull class materials from.  This is ridiculous to say otherwise.  Is it okay for a high school teacher to pull an article on politics from playboy for class use as long as they don’t actually assign the magazine? Of course not.

It is not coddling to demand a basic level of social decorum and professional standards, especially wrt to basic public education.  And wanting such basic standards shouldn’t bar people from getting an education.

You're asking the wrong person. If a teacher pulled a playboy article that had some significant merit (which I doubt) absent the magazine, I'd have no issues with that either. Since the college class didn't actually do this tho, I think you're in the clear. Other than a human sexuality class (and even then I'd find it odd), being REQUIRED to share personal experiences would be very odd indeed. That's not the case here either. Whether it's appropriate to demand YOUR idea of "decorum" is exactly the kind of idea that colleges are intended to question. In a college class, I'd expect that questioning to occur, at a minimum.

ETA: AP/DE classes are not "basic" education. It's advanced content for students who are prepared to handle collegiate material. It's not for everyone.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Murphy101]

11 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

I consider myself a tee-totaling fundie, though not local to you. And I would not have had any problems with drinking prompts about drinking and driving or not leaving your drink.

 

In fact I was just pre-discussing with my kids the importance, if they are at a get together, of keeping track of their own drink and that bad actors can spike the drink for evil purposes.  Even if it is a school run event, etc.

Indeed. I have those discussions with my kids too.  It’s only on topics like this that I ever think of myself as a conservative Christian. Most conservative Christians wouldn’t want anything to do with me and consider me a liberal. 

And my children read plenty of “colorful” stuff in high school. Like most much of the ancient history/literature from Kolbe.  I do remember at one point my 2nd born commenting about all the sexual/relationship dysfunction when reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

You're asking the wrong person. If a teacher pulled a playboy article that had some significant merit (which I doubt) absent the magazine, I'd have no issues with that either. Since the college class didn't actually do this tho, I think you're in the clear. Other than a human sexuality class (and even then I'd find it odd), being REQUIRED to share personal experiences would be very odd indeed. That's not the case here. Whether it's appropriate to demand YOUR idea of "decorum" is exactly the kind of idea that colleges are intended to question. In a college class, I'd expect that, at a minimum.

I mean, Playboy in particular is where a lot of great writers got some of their starts.  I'm pretty prudish, but especially old school Playboy articles?  I wouldn't blink at.  There's some genuinely great literature found there.  

ETA:  I'm envisioning a photocopy of the article, not the magazine with all the um, other stuff that comes with it.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Terabith

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

I mean, Playboy in particular is where a lot of great writers got some of their starts.  I'm pretty prudish, but especially old school Playboy articles?  I wouldn't blink at.  There's some genuinely great literature found there.  

ETA:  I'm envisioning a photocopy of the article, not the magazine with all the um, other stuff that comes with it.

Old-school, yes, I know they had some good stuff. Today, no clue. Maybe Rolling Stone is a better example.

[Faith-manor]

37 minutes ago, sassenach said:

 

I totally agree with both of you. There's a spectrum of sexual content and there's a line somewhere in there. I said "deeply" because it's hard to articulate where that line is. I guess that's why you'll always find someone who is upset. My line would be in having to view or write about explicitly sexual content. I didn't encounter anything in my nursing education that my kids haven't encountered or discussed in their public high school educations. Again, it's California, so things may be discussed at a high school level here that wouldn't be in other places. Abortion, pregnancy, rape, gender, and sexual orientation are all on the table at the high school level here. 

Those things are off limits here per the influence of the local IFB and similar churches on the school board. Content is constantly being censured, eliminated, changed to fit very puritanical views. Unfortunately, this is a small.community, low population so once it becomes okay for parents to dictate content and you have even a small group of vocal extremists, they have a tendency to win due to the complacency of others. My husband and I have attended school board meetings before and were totally disrespected because people know we homeschooled. Apparently, that means we aren't allowed to care at all about the students of our community. 😡

[Pam in CT]

re outsourcing higher level high school content to "DE"

1 hour ago, BusyMom5 said:

I live in a tiny rural town, our graduating class is about 40 students.  There aren't enough students to justify higher level classes taught by qualified teachers assuming we could find qualified teachers to hire.  If you take Algebra 1 in 8th grade, you will have to DE to get your 3 HS math credits bc there are only Al1, Geometry and Al2 offered.  We have no FL teachers, its all Rosetta Stone.  The problem is not the teachers,  its the lack of students capable of doing more.  I would say there are maybe 5 students per grade capable of higher level courses.....

The public high school I went to was bigger than that, but that was the basic issue: there simply weren't enough students to fill, or justify the expense of, AP-level courses. That's how I ended up taking a lot of classes at a nearby (private, FWIW) university under a sort of patched-together seat-of-the-pants GATE program.

 

re high schools not "offering" DE:

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

When I was in high school and took dual education, I drove over to the local liberal arts college and took class over there.  

I was very surprised to discover that with our local public schools, kids cannot get dual enrollment credit for courses taken at colleges, community or liberal arts.  The only dual enrollment classes that the high school awards credits for are classes taught by high school teachers at the high school.  Those teachers have to have certain qualifications, but most of them are either AP or dual enrollment (same class) and kids can elect which one to do.  

It's odd.

The town I now live in has an *excellent* public high school... and this is true here as well.  Students are able *as individuals* to partake of the state-funded College Career Pathways I referenced above, which would require them to attend classes there (presumably at night, which is how I did it back in a prior millennium) and which to @maize 's point below would enable them to earn credits toward a UConn degree.  But given the quality of the offerings at their home HS and the transportation/ logistics of taking courses on campus at the nearest cc (~25 minutes away) that wouldn't make sense unless either a) they *knew for sure* they wanted a UConn degree; or b) if it were for a more specialized course/ toward a particular certification like nursing.  It wouldn't make sense to take Calc B/C or AP Chinese; they can get that at home.  I only know one kid personally who's availed of our cc, and that was for Arabic (not offered at the HS).  It's not *necessary* that an essentially extracurricular course like that be included in the HS transcript or GPA; it's easy enough to send along the cc transcript as part of college admission.

Which makes me think our two state-funded college-content-to-HS-kids programs -- one bringing specific college classes taught by specific trained instructors into specific HS campuses, the other enabling specific kids to go onto college campuses and choose from a (long, but not open-ended) list of "qualified" courses -- is reasonable public policy.

 

re credit toward the state university system

1 hour ago, maize said:

Here, it is usually high school teachers who have been certified somehow to teach the college credit classes who teach them at the high school.

And the point of kids taking these classes is to get college credit while in high school. The classes are guaranteed to transfer into the state college system, so they can save time and money in college.

That financial consequence makes all the sense *in the world* for parents, students, the state cc / university system, and public policy generally.   And is definitely persuasive toward the question of "should state funds be used to enable motivated HS students who are sufficiently mature and capable to handle college-level content" to get a jump start.  That financial argument justifies such a use of state funds.

However, I'm not persuaded by that financial argument, to the different  content question of "should college content be amended / dialed back / adjusted, so HS students can handle the work."  ETA: To my mind, if the content needs to be dialed back or otherwise amended, that suggests by definition that the students are not, in fact, mature and capable enough to handle college-level work.  Unable to choose well, unable to navigate the inevitable bumps of adult-level contexts, unable to advocate with authority figures on their own, whatever.

So I think I end up more on Team You Can't Have it Both Ways:

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

It's a DE class. Students are enrolled in a COLLEGE class with collegiate standards. If they're unprepared or unwilling to be in the mere presence of content that upsets them or their parents, they're in the wrong place. That may result in a whole lot of fundy kids just not taking college-level classes or having to sign waivers. I'm ok with both.

 

49 minutes ago, skimomma said:

I'm not seeing an issue here.  No inappropriate prompts were assigned and it is a college level course.  But I also suspect that a big part of the problem is the DE-taught-in-high-school trend itself.  You really can't have it both ways.  If it is a college class, it is a college class and should be treated as such, no matter who is teaching it or where.

...I just cannot see how students are really getting a two-year college education, in addition to a full high school eduction, at the same time.  Can you really "repackage" Algebra II and call it 3 college credits?  It might be an "associates degree" but I suspect most/all of it would never transfer into a 4-year degree program.

 My dd took plenty of DE credits at a 4-year university. .. I have zero idea if anything involving sex or other "adult" themes were assigned or chosen as a topic by dd or other students.  And the reason I have zero idea is because I allowed her to take DE classes knowing full well that she would be treated as any other college student and was assumed to be an adult.  An adult that could choose her own topics or chose to discuss any issue she had with content with the instructor directly.  If a parent is not okay with that, they should not consent to DE classes.

I mean, the idea that Algebra II can repackaged as a "college class..." that gets "credit" toward any 4 year degree... if that's really happening anywhere... Truly. That can only go in one direction, and that is to make Some College Degrees Meaningless.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Pam in CT

[Sneezyone]

4 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I mean, Playboy in particular is where a lot of great writers got some of their starts.  I'm pretty prudish, but especially old school Playboy articles?  I wouldn't blink at.  There's some genuinely great literature found there.  

ETA:  I'm envisioning a photocopy of the article, not the magazine with all the um, other stuff that comes with it.

It does make me wonder if the College Board is going to get involved, at some point, in clarifying the point of AP itself (less an issue with DE). It seems people are conflating AP with every other high school class. That was never the intention. It was to provide access to college-level content in high schools in a standardized way.

[Murphy101]

2 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

You're asking the wrong person. If a teacher pulled a playboy article that had some significant merit (which I doubt) absent the magazine, I'd have no issues with that either. Since the college class didn't actually do this tho, I think you're in the clear. Other than a human sexuality class (and even then I'd find it odd), being REQUIRED to share personal experiences would be very odd indeed. That's not the case here. Whether it's appropriate to demand YOUR idea of "decorum" is exactly the kind of idea that colleges are intended to question. In a college class, I'd expect that questioning to occur, at a minimum.

Colleges are not intended to question basic social decorum and professionalism. That’s hogwash crappy teachers use to excuse their lack of either.  Colleges are intended to be storehouses of knowledge to pass on to others.  Not one big social experiment run amuck. 

That a sociology thesis could cover the topic of questioning generally accepted social decorum does not mean it is the purpose of colleges to claim there’s some kind of merit to tossing all social decorum and professionalism. 

[ktgrok]

53 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

It's a DE class. Students are enrolled in a COLLEGE class with collegiate standards. If they're unprepared or unwilling to be in the mere presence of content that upsets them or their parents, they're in the wrong place. That may result in a whole lot of fundy kids just not taking college-level classes or having to sign waivers. I'm ok with both.

Right. I agree that asking a student to write about a sexual experience is not okay. 

Exposing a highschool student to a book that has the words "orgasm" and "sex" in it somewhere, in an unassigned portion, should be fine. I mean, do people think their child has never heard the word orgasm before?!? And if not, they better quickly teach them what it means!

34 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

 

I think in this case it is totally appropriate for parents to complain and let other parents and the school board know what is in the content.  

So you think that a student having a book that includes wording about sex and orgasms, in highschool, is something that is worth complaining about? Should teens not know what an orgasm is, or that people have sex, or? I'm just not getting what is so upsetting about a book that mentions these things, given the student is not being asked to actually write about them. At worst they may flip through the pages and see the prompt. What part of that is so bad for an older teen?

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, Murphy101 said:

Colleges are not intended to question basic social decorum and professionalism. That’s hogwash crappy teachers use to excuse their lack of either.  Colleges are intended to be storehouses of knowledge to pass on to others.  Not one big social experiment run amuck. 

That a sociology thesis could cover the topic of questioning generally accepted social decorum does not mean it is the purpose of colleges to claim there’s some kind of merit to tossing all social decorum and professionalism. 

Colleges exist to question everything. Everything.