What is the purpose of math education?

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, EKS said:

I think mostly at first.  You are unusual.

I think what was unusual was that I was idealistic until well into my bachelor's degree.  😛  Maybe I shouldn't have started college at 16.

I still think that if the profession weren't so scary and thankless, it would be reasonably attractive to academically-minded young people.

[wendyroo]

11 minutes ago, EKS said:

I think mostly at first.  You are unusual.

I agree.

I love teaching and over the years have proven to be very successful at it across a variety of students, settings and subjects. But by the time I graduated high school, I knew 100% that I would not be studying education. I had spent 13 years bored and poorly served by the school system. The whole bureaucracy seemed SO, SO stupidly run (to my naive, idealistic 18 year old self) that there was no way I was signing up to be a cog in it.

OTOH, I personally know three girls/women who graduated with me who went to college to study journalism, physical therapy and political science and changed to elementary ed after the first year because they couldn't handle the requirements. 

[EKS]

2 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

I don’t think I know any adults, much less school teachers, who don’t know what 10% of 30 is.

Apparently my adult son impressed a woman he was on a date with recently by being able to calculate the tip for their meal in his head.  It was 20% (so twice 10%).  She is an applied math major.  I don't know what sort of men she has been seeing until this point, but there you go.

[Heartstrings]

29 minutes ago, SKL said:

I think what was unusual was that I was idealistic until well into my bachelor's degree.  😛  Maybe I shouldn't have started college at 16.

I still think that if the profession weren't so scary and thankless, it would be reasonably attractive to academically-minded young people.

Academically minded young people can get degrees that lead to better paying jobs.  The low pay is such a deterrent.  

[SKL]

16 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

I had spent 13 years bored and poorly served by the school system.

This, along with lots of reading I'd done about what was wrong with our schools, was the reason I wanted to be a teacher.  To fix things.

Ah well, so unrealistic.

Even my teachers tried to talk me out of an education degree!

[EKS]

11 minutes ago, SKL said:

Even my teachers tried to talk me out of an education degree!

I think that all of the non-academic degrees should be eliminated.

So, education, social work, business, counseling, administration, that sort of thing.

[Terabith]

Honestly, while we desperately need elementary ed people who understand math, the reality is that that is not going to happen or be fixed.  

What we COULD do is have decent textbooks and use them.  But we don't.  My kids have never had a textbook in public school, in any class except AP US History.  The teachers all have to make up their own problem sets.  But they suck at math, so they certainly don't do a good job.  The teachers all have to write their own lesson plans or buy them off of Teachers Pay Teachers.  It's incredibly haphazard, but they're "following the district pacing guide," so there's no flexibility if kids aren't getting something, and they're following the district curriculum guide, but as far as day to day lessons and content and problem sets, it's every teacher for themselves.  

Textbooks would help a TON.  

[EKS]

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

What we COULD do is have decent textbooks and use them.

Not just textbooks but actual standardized lesson plans that teachers are trained to execute.  Because obviously the doing your own thing isn't working.

But I think that the most important thing is that kids get supervised practice in the classroom.  Lots of it.  It takes work to master arithmetic.

[Terabith]

Just now, EKS said:

Not just textbooks but actual standardized lesson plans that teachers are trained to execute.  Because obviously the doing your own thing isn't working.

But I think that the most important thing is that kids get supervised practice in the classroom.  Lots of it.  It takes work to master arithmetic.

It really does.  For sure.  A ton.

[SanDiegoMom]

19 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Honestly, while we desperately need elementary ed people who understand math, the reality is that that is not going to happen or be fixed.  

What we COULD do is have decent textbooks and use them.  But we don't.  My kids have never had a textbook in public school, in any class except AP US History.  The teachers all have to make up their own problem sets.  But they suck at math, so they certainly don't do a good job.  The teachers all have to write their own lesson plans or buy them off of Teachers Pay Teachers.  It's incredibly haphazard, but they're "following the district pacing guide," so there's no flexibility if kids aren't getting something, and they're following the district curriculum guide, but as far as day to day lessons and content and problem sets, it's every teacher for themselves.  

Textbooks would help a TON.  

When my twins were in k-2 before I homeschooled, they had textbooks, but they still weren't great. They were ok, but they jumped all over the place, had poorly written problems, and sometimes even asked questions that presupposed a skill that hadn't been taught yet.  They were supposed to guess and check division in second grade, apparently.  So frustrating.

I homeschooled using Singapore Math because I could tell my non-mathy kid REALLY needed a strong basis in number sense. It was quite shaky. She would have been just passed along getting weaker and weaker as she went.  

She was already set up to hate math from the beginning, though, when in kindergarten she had to 1. Fill out a number scroll from 1 to 1000 (over time, but she got so behind because her hand strength wasn't great yet, and she was forced to finish before the year ended) and 2. She got behind in in-class math worksheets and was forced to do around 36 math worksheets over the course of two days to catch up.  Not that the teacher was ever going to check them anyway.  Ugh.  

 

ETA: this is in the VERY good school district that everyone wants to be in.  I was underwhelmed.  Bad math combined with no phonics.  What is the use other than babysitting at that point? Kids are either being taught at home, by tutors, in Saturday school, or just fall farther and farther behind. 

Edited February 9 by SanDiegoMom

[EKS]

3 minutes ago, SanDiegoMom said:

She was already set up to hate math from the beginning, though, when in kindergarten she had to 1. Fill out a number scroll from 1 to 1000 (over time, but she got so behind because her hand strength wasn't great yet, and she was forced to finish before the year ended) and 2. She got behind in in-class math worksheets and was forced to do around 36 math worksheets over the course of two days to catch up.  Not that the teacher was ever going to check them anyway.  Ugh.

I don't understand why these educationists think that tacking stuff like this on the ends of K-12 is going to help.  They are doing everything they can to avoid the actual problem.

[SKL]

2 hours ago, Terabith said:

Honestly, while we desperately need elementary ed people who understand math, the reality is that that is not going to happen or be fixed.  

What we COULD do is have decent textbooks and use them.  But we don't.  My kids have never had a textbook in public school, in any class except AP US History.  The teachers all have to make up their own problem sets.  But they suck at math, so they certainly don't do a good job.  The teachers all have to write their own lesson plans or buy them off of Teachers Pay Teachers.  It's incredibly haphazard, but they're "following the district pacing guide," so there's no flexibility if kids aren't getting something, and they're following the district curriculum guide, but as far as day to day lessons and content and problem sets, it's every teacher for themselves.  

Textbooks would help a TON.  

Yes!

The other thing they are doing now is expecting kids to group up in class and teach themselves - without a textbook.  It sounds too crazy to be real, but yep.

[Rosie_0801]

12 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yes!

The other thing they are doing now is expecting kids to group up in class and teach themselves - without a textbook.  It sounds too crazy to be real, but yep.

How? Youtube?

[Terabith]

25 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

How? Youtube?

Here they tell kids to use Khan Academy.

[Heartstrings]

I believe it.  The kids who are getting help somewhere else or who are just naturally mathy pretty much teach everyone.   I support teachers in general, but really at the point where the kids are literally teaching each other, we have to look at the teacher vs. babysitter question.  

[Janeway]

One could argue that any subject is unneeded, especially if they do not like it. So many kids are forced through foreign language or they cannot graduate. I tried my hardest and could never learn a foreign language. I was so invested that I spent extra money on books and labeled stuff throughout my house trying to help. I was able to read the language, but never understand it when spoken. Yet, every child is forced to learn that and even stuff like British Literature and Edgar Allen Poe. None of that is necessary for life. 

[Janeway]

10 hours ago, SanDiegoMom said:

When my twins were in k-2 before I homeschooled, they had textbooks, but they still weren't great. They were ok, but they jumped all over the place, had poorly written problems, and sometimes even asked questions that presupposed a skill that hadn't been taught yet.  They were supposed to guess and check division in second grade, apparently.  So frustrating.

I homeschooled using Singapore Math because I could tell my non-mathy kid REALLY needed a strong basis in number sense. It was quite shaky. She would have been just passed along getting weaker and weaker as she went.  

She was already set up to hate math from the beginning, though, when in kindergarten she had to 1. Fill out a number scroll from 1 to 1000 (over time, but she got so behind because her hand strength wasn't great yet, and she was forced to finish before the year ended) and 2. She got behind in in-class math worksheets and was forced to do around 36 math worksheets over the course of two days to catch up.  Not that the teacher was ever going to check them anyway.  Ugh.  

 

ETA: this is in the VERY good school district that everyone wants to be in.  I was underwhelmed.  Bad math combined with no phonics.  What is the use other than babysitting at that point? Kids are either being taught at home, by tutors, in Saturday school, or just fall farther and farther behind. 

Parents fall all over themselves to be in our local schools because of high test scores. But then, the parents pay for tutors and after school school and Saturday school and summer school to give the kids the basics. I think it is awful for kids to have to sit at school all day long, five days a week, and then still face going to an actual education all evening and weekends and summers.

[Heartstrings]

48 minutes ago, Janeway said:

Parents fall all over themselves to be in our local schools because of high test scores. But then, the parents pay for tutors and after school school and Saturday school and summer school to give the kids the basics. I think it is awful for kids to have to sit at school all day long, five days a week, and then still face going to an actual education all evening and weekends and summers.

It’s the prestige of the district and the demographics that they want not the education offered.  

[Janeway]

16 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

It’s the prestige of the district and the demographics that they want not the education offered.  

I personally bought this house thinking the schools were going to be great. Then I got in to them and was disgusted by what I saw and did not see. I see people around me claiming the schools are wonderful. They really are not. My nextdoor neighbor keeps saying how great they are, but then she has a tutor coming in multiple times a week to teach her kids and sends them out to classes on the weekends.

[EKS]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

Parents fall all over themselves to be in our local schools because of high test scores. But then, the parents pay for tutors and after school school and Saturday school and summer school to give the kids the basics. 

Test scores tell you far more about what the students bring to the classroom than they do about the educational quality of the school.

And test scores in high school tell you about what happened in K-8, not about about the quality of the high school education. 

[EKS]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

One could argue that any subject is unneeded, especially if they do not like it.

If you've never learned something, usually you don't even know what you're missing.

[SKL]

12 hours ago, EKS said:

I think that all of the non-academic degrees should be eliminated.

So, education, social work, business, counseling, administration, that sort of thing.

What do you mean by that?  We should hire these folks without degrees?  I'm not necessarily opposed with respect to some of these careers, but for others, I think certain college courses are needed.

[wendyroo]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

One could argue that any subject is unneeded, especially if they do not like it. So many kids are forced through foreign language or they cannot graduate. I tried my hardest and could never learn a foreign language. I was so invested that I spent extra money on books and labeled stuff throughout my house trying to help. I was able to read the language, but never understand it when spoken. Yet, every child is forced to learn that and even stuff like British Literature and Edgar Allen Poe. None of that is necessary for life. 

My very mathy 9th grader argues that Shakespeare and poetry and literary devices are completely pointless and unnecessary for his goal of being a mathematician...and he's not exactly wrong.

When he was at home I did focus his ELA primarily on writing emails, academic essays and mathematical proofs and reading Sherlock Holmes, The Andromeda Strain, and anything else I thought he might actually enjoy.

But now he is at the public school, and to graduate he will have to endure all the parts of ELA, even the ones he personally won't "need".

[EKS]

26 minutes ago, SKL said:

What do you mean by that?  We should hire these folks without degrees?  I'm not necessarily opposed with respect to some of these careers, but for others, I think certain college courses are needed.

I mean that there shouldn't be entire majors devoted to these things.  There can be classes, even minors (or certificates), and there can be other vocational programs, through the CCs for example, but not entire majors. 

So, yes they should have degrees (possibly).  Degrees in actual academic disciplines. 

Edited February 9 by EKS

[Heartstrings]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

I personally bought this house thinking the schools were going to be great. Then I got in to them and was disgusted by what I saw and did not see. I see people around me claiming the schools are wonderful. They really are not. My nextdoor neighbor keeps saying how great they are, but then she has a tutor coming in multiple times a week to teach her kids and sends them out to classes on the weekends.

Just to be blunt, “great schools” is code for “middle class, majority white population” most of the time.  It has nothing to do with education. Not to you, of course!  But you heard “great schools” and thought “great at education” but everyone meant “full of the right kind of people”.   

Edited February 9 by Heartstrings

[Faith-manor]

10 hours ago, SKL said:

Yes!

The other thing they are doing now is expecting kids to group up in class and teach themselves - without a textbook.  It sounds too crazy to be real, but yep.

That is just insane! And I think it points to the fact that administrators and state legislators/state boards of education, have given up on actual education and see school more as a daycare with activities.

[SKL]

4 minutes ago, EKS said:

I mean that there shouldn't be entire majors devoted to these things.  There can be classes, even minors (or certificates), and there can be other vocational programs, through the CCs for example, but not entire majors. 

So, yes they should have degrees (possibly).  Degrees in actual academic disciplines. 

I could see, for example, social work to be treated more like  nursing - you can get a concentrated license without paying for 4-6 years of university.  If you want to do more, you get more education.  I especially wish this were possible given how little some of these jobs pay.  Why must college always mean 4 years?

[Faith-manor]

29 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

My very mathy 9th grader argues that Shakespeare and poetry and literary devices are completely pointless and unnecessary for his goal of being a mathematician...and he's not exactly wrong.

When he was at home I did focus his ELA primarily on writing emails, academic essays and mathematical proofs and reading Sherlock Holmes, The Andromeda Strain, and anything else I thought he might actually enjoy.

But now he is at the public school, and to graduate he will have to endure all the parts of ELA, even the ones he personally won't "need".

I can understand the frustration. But honestly, a lot of this stuff grows the ability to problem solve and see patterns, think out of the box. It is like Jedi Temple. The Younglings don't always see the point of what they are learning, but the Jedi know they need it. My husband is a mathematician, though his job is IT. One thing he sees is that if there is hyper focus on only one discipline, problem solving doesn't necessarily cross over into other disciplines if the person hasn't  been trained to think critically outside their own focus. So he might not use it, per se, in work in the future, and yet his brain will use the skills without him realizing " oh gee, I can read between the lines of this communication from the boss who doesn't communicate in a straight forward manner because I was taught to think about all the subtleties of the written word". It is subconsciously used without the brain directly linking it to appreciating the fact that he parsed Shakespeare or figured out what in the heck that poem was really trying to say.

[Faith-manor]

7 minutes ago, SKL said:

I could see, for example, social work to be treated more like  nursing - you can get a concentrated license without paying for 4-6 years of university.  If you want to do more, you get more education.  I especially wish this were possible given how little some of these jobs pay.  Why must college always mean 4 years?

Agree fully. I think there are many professions where the entry and mid level positions could be streamlined into two year licensing programs, and we need more of that, not less.

[frogger]

59 minutes ago, EKS said:

If you've never learned something, usually you don't even know what you're missing.

That is true but there is so much to learn, you can never learn it all so we will all miss out on something. The question really isn't "Is this valuable" but "is this worth the opportunity cost".  I think this varies from student to student.

Of course, some of it is efficiency and not just wasting a student's time.  I agreed with you and others throughout this thread about revamping k-8 and how we teach math so there is that stewardship of time too. The reason I homeschooled all my kids all the way through school is I thought a lot of my schooling was just a waste of time. Life is short and precious, why waste it?

 

 

 

 

[Heartstrings]

12 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

I can understand the frustration. But honestly, a lot of this stuff grows the ability to problem solve and see patterns, think out of the box. It is like Jedi Temple. The Younglings don't always see the point of what they are learning, but the Jedi know they need it. My husband is a mathematician, though his job is IT. One thing he sees is that if there is hyper focus on only one discipline, problem solving doesn't necessarily cross over into other disciplines if the person hasn't  been trained to think critically outside their own focus. So he might not use it, per se, in work in the future, and yet his brain will use the skills without him realizing " oh gee, I can read between the lines of this communication from the boss who doesn't communicate in a straight forward manner because I was taught to think about all the subtleties of the written word". It is subconsciously used without the brain directly linking it to appreciating the fact that he parsed Shakespeare or figured out what in the heck that poem was really trying to say.

I think the problem comes with expecting kids to do high level everything all at once.  Calculus 2 by 12th grade AND high level literary analysis AND in depth history AND be fluent in another language AND do high level science all at once.    It has to be ok to pick one thing to specialize in and do other things at a more middling level.  You can cover Shakespeare etc. at a lighter level and still learn plenty about the written word, critical thinking, syntax, vocabulary, communication, etc.  while you shoot for the stars in Calculus.  Or you can learn math at a slower pace, not do calculus in high school, while marinating yourself in Shakespeare and literature and sentence diagraming.  

[Faith-manor]

2 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I think the problem comes with expecting kids to do high level everything all at once.  Calculus 2 by 12th grade AND high level literary analysis AND in depth history AND be fluent in another language AND do high level science all at once.    It has to be ok to pick one thing to specialize in and do other things at a more middling level.  You can cover Shakespeare etc. at a lighter level and still learn plenty about the written word, critical thinking, syntax, vocabulary, communication, etc.  while you shoot for the stars in Calculus.  Or you can learn math at a slower pace, not do calculus in high school, while marinating yourself in Shakespeare and literature and sentence diagraming.  

Agreed. There is a lot of stress out there. Too much. Kids get overwhelmed. I blame a lot of that on college admissions. No teen should feel the need to take 5 AP classes simultaneously and then set the ridiculous exam in the hopes of getting a paltry $2000 scholarship on a $25,000 annual tuition/room/board bill.  That is a mess that needs to change.

If a kid is taking Calc 1 and AP Bio, let up, and take some regular stuff or enjoy some electives. This also happens because middle school has simply become a spin the wheels kind of mess. It seems like skills stagnate. That isn't helping anything. Let them run in place for 6-8, and then start heaping on the coals. No wonder there is overwhelm. I swear our educational system seems to take glory in extremes.

[SKL]

4 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I think the problem comes with expecting kids to do high level everything all at once.  Calculus 2 by 12th grade AND high level literary analysis AND in depth history AND be fluent in another language AND do high level science all at once.    It has to be ok to pick one thing to specialize in and do other things at a more middling level.  You can cover Shakespeare etc. at a lighter level and still learn plenty about the written word, critical thinking, syntax, vocabulary, communication, etc.  while you shoot for the stars in Calculus.  Or you can learn math at a slower pace, not do calculus in high school, while marinating yourself in Shakespeare and literature and sentence diagraming.  

I agree - even high IQ people with no learning disabilities don't need to be encyclopedias.

The reason I'm picking on math (other than the OP was about math) is that at least in my state, they upped the math requirements to what used to be "college prep," but they didn't up the English requirements.  In other words, you can still graduate with "general English" if that's what you want to do (though you do have to achieve a minimum English score on state tests).  You still have to have 3 years of science, but there are general options.  You don't have to do foreign language for a high school diploma.

Most kids would still benefit from doing as much math, writing, literature, science, and foreign language as they can fit into a reasonable school schedule.  But I would stop short of making this a requirement for graduation.  If that means a basic diploma is "meaningless" to some of you, so be it.  It's better than no diploma at all due to arbitrariness.

[wendyroo]

3 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Agreed. There is a lot of stress out there. Too much. Kids get overwhelmed. I blame a lot of that on college admissions. No teen should feel the need to take 5 AP classes simultaneously and then set the ridiculous exam in the hopes of getting a paltry $2000 scholarship on a $25,000 annual tuition/room/board bill.  That is a mess that needs to change.

If a kid is taking Calc 1 and AP Bio, let up, and take some regular stuff or enjoy some electives. This also happens because middle school has simply become a spin the wheels kind of mess. It seems like skills stagnate. That isn't helping anything. Let them run in place for 6-8, and then start heaping on the coals. No wonder there is overwhelm. I swear our educational system seems to take glory in extremes.

The extremes we are struggling with are between gen ed classes and APs. Those are the only ELA choices offered by our public high school, and they are at wildly opposite ends of the spectrum. The principal strongly steered my mathy, English-averse son away from the gen ed ELA classes because "they don't read any books at all and just work on learning to write a paragraph". That is not going to prepare him with the skills he needs. But he wants to take high level math, science, computers, and Spanish...he does not want to be forced to take on the load of AP English classes.

I wish there an ELA sequence for STEM students - light introductions to poetry and Shakespeare and literary analysis, but a strong focus on academic writing, logical argumentation, nonfiction reading, and finding fiction genres that the kids actually enjoy in order to cultivate lifelong readers. And if they passed a writing test after three years, I would not insist on a fourth year of English if an additional STEM course would better support their career goals.

[Heartstrings]

12 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

The extremes we are struggling with are between gen ed classes and APs. Those are the only ELA choices offered by our public high school, and they are at wildly opposite ends of the spectrum. The principal strongly steered my mathy, English-averse son away from the gen ed ELA classes because "they don't read any books at all and just work on learning to write a paragraph". That is not going to prepare him with the skills he needs. But he wants to take high level math, science, computers, and Spanish...he does not want to be forced to take on the load of AP English classes.

I wish there an ELA sequence for STEM students - light introductions to poetry and Shakespeare and literary analysis, but a strong focus on academic writing, logical argumentation, nonfiction reading, and finding fiction genres that the kids actually enjoy in order to cultivate lifelong readers. And if they passed a writing test after three years, I would not insist on a fourth year of English if an additional STEM course would better support their career goals.

My school had an honors track that was between Gen Ed and APs.  They ended it when I was in 10th grade and I was so sad.  I didn’t want to deal with AP everything but spent Gen Ed classes reading novels in the back of the class.   

Edited February 9 by Heartstrings

[SKL]

8 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

The extremes we are struggling with are between gen ed classes and APs. Those are the only ELA choices offered by our public high school, and they are at wildly opposite ends of the spectrum. The principal strongly steered my mathy, English-averse son away from the gen ed ELA classes because "they don't read any books at all and just work on learning to write a paragraph". That is not going to prepare him with the skills he needs. But he wants to take high level math, science, computers, and Spanish...he does not want to be forced to take on the load of AP English classes.

I wish there an ELA sequence for STEM students - light introductions to poetry and Shakespeare and literary analysis, but a strong focus on academic writing, logical argumentation, nonfiction reading, and finding fiction genres that the kids actually enjoy in order to cultivate lifelong readers. And if they passed a writing test after three years, I would not insist on a fourth year of English if an additional STEM course would better support their career goals.

That's here too.  Apparently AP has replaced "college prep English," so if you're college bound, you feel like you have to take AP.  While I do want my kids to do the reading and learn the writing, what I don't like is how much of the class is prep for the AP test.  When I took college prep English, it was mostly about improving grammar and composition skills, which I feel are sorely lacking in my kids' education.  And even the literature - when I was a kid, we read classics.  My kids are in 12th and have hardly read any classics.  Their "AP literature" reading assignments have been a series of modern-day dystopian novels.  It's disappointing.

[fairfarmhand]

7 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

My school had an honors track that was between Gen Ed and APs.  They ended it when I was in 10th grade and I was so sad.  I didn’t want to deal with AP everything but spent Gen Ed classes reading novels in the back of the class.   

We found honors classes very good for my science kids and skipped AP altogether in lieu of dual enrollment. (Except for my oldest who suffered through ap) My kids stressed over testing and we found with my oldest that ap classes were harder or more time consuming than just taking the college classes. I figured that if they’re gonna do all th work, and still have to pass a test for college credit, why not just do dual enrollment and have a full semester with lots of tests and grades for the college credit?

[Faith-manor]

34 minutes ago, SKL said:

I agree - even high IQ people with no learning disabilities don't need to be encyclopedias.

The reason I'm picking on math (other than the OP was about math) is that at least in my state, they upped the math requirements to what used to be "college prep," but they didn't up the English requirements.  In other words, you can still graduate with "general English" if that's what you want to do (though you do have to achieve a minimum English score on state tests).  You still have to have 3 years of science, but there are general options.  You don't have to do foreign language for a high school diploma.

Most kids would still benefit from doing as much math, writing, literature, science, and foreign language as they can fit into a reasonable school schedule.  But I would stop short of making this a requirement for graduation.  If that means a basic diploma is "meaningless" to some of you, so be it.  It's better than no diploma at all due to arbitrariness.

Like I said up top, I favor the two years of basics high school, followed by two years of real, very well done Tech Center for trades and professional licensing, then out for kids who want to do something besides a four year college major. I think different kinds of diplomas are okay. I also think that we need to stop treating kids like herds. Butt he foundation must be fixed because we must give as many kids as possible, the skills to be able to choose to make up a gap or deficit in order to change tracks if they want, or decide they don't like their profession and do want to do something else. Right now we push them into higher and higher math levels without the foundation being there, and it serves no one. Fix the base. The  if some kid does not like their professional track, they can say "Hey I want to take trig, I want to take AP Bio, or whatever" and then do that, and move into their new program. Mostly, we are just failing kids left and right. Neurotypical kids do not all need to take Calculus. But they need a firm foundation in which I'd they changed their minds and wanted to, they aren't paying for remedial pre-algebra, followed by college algebra all of which won't count for anything, and then finally into college trig. Same with writing. They all need that foundation so they don't get relegated to remedial English before taking basic college writing or even worse and we see this a lot in our area, high school graduates who have to take remedial reading a 099 class at the community college because they can comprehend grow up reading. Neutrotypical high school graduates. This is all kinds of wrong. 

[TechWife]

15 hours ago, EKS said:

Unfortunately, when you group by achievement, you will get things like 8 year olds in with 18 year olds, which is a whole nother can of worms.

I think it's another can of worms because the design of the can is faulty. Teaching higher level material can be done in a developmentally appropriate way. It doesn't necessarily mean putting an 8 year old with an 18 year old. It can mean having a 8-12 year old class working on an advanced multi-disciplinary project. We could do a better job of integrating subjects in high school and/or not tie specific subjects to specific grades, both of which would allow for it to be normal for a wider range of ages to learn together. These ideas would require teachers to be educated differently and the schools to be designed differently, or changing the design of the can, to use the metaphor.

 

[Faith-manor]

28 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

The extremes we are struggling with are between gen ed classes and APs. Those are the only ELA choices offered by our public high school, and they are at wildly opposite ends of the spectrum. The principal strongly steered my mathy, English-averse son away from the gen ed ELA classes because "they don't read any books at all and just work on learning to write a paragraph". That is not going to prepare him with the skills he needs. But he wants to take high level math, science, computers, and Spanish...he does not want to be forced to take on the load of AP English classes.

I wish there an ELA sequence for STEM students - light introductions to poetry and Shakespeare and literary analysis, but a strong focus on academic writing, logical argumentation, nonfiction reading, and finding fiction genres that the kids actually enjoy in order to cultivate lifelong readers. And if they passed a writing test after three years, I would not insist on a fourth year of English if an additional STEM course would better support their career goals.

Yup. Extremes. I do not understand WHY! Why?Why?Why? In my high school in 1984, there were a bazillion options for English and Lit, for math, for science, for history. It was so interesting to be an 8th grader and go over the list that last quarter of school listening to parents, teachers, and guidance counselor recommendations of the many classes offered, and chart out a course. We even had the following music and art options:

Concert Band (for everyone who had taken band all through middle school), Pep Band, Marching Band, Jazz Band, Symphonic Band (audition only), String ensemble (we didn't have enough string students to have an orchestra), choir (for anyone who wanted to learn to read music and sing assuming they could carry a tune in a bucket), chamber choir (audition only for credit but rehearsed after school), Glee Club (for credit but after school), Art 1-4 plus drawing for beginners, intermediate drawing, advanced drawing, Art History, Art Appreciation, Music Appreciation. We had three music teachers and three art teachers in order to manage it all. Robust PTA that did a lot of fundraising for special things like the band traveling to state honors band or marching band championships, choir when it traveled, gallery showings for student artwork, and combined with the theater department, one major musical per year. The first semester theater department put on a major play. And that play was serious. The drama teachers would make them rehearse the play, the playwrights, symbolism and messaging, you name it. Parents fundraiser to make sure they could make or buy costumes, create good sets, make props.

English had lots of options from just basic foundational stuff to a one semester totally devoted to Shakespeare class for those that wanted it. Sometimes students wanted enough electives that they took a zero hour course (7:30-8:30 pm), and an after school like Chamber Choir or Marching Band.

One could work your schedule out so that if you were taking a math or science or English that was pretty tough for you personally, you could take other courses that were well done but not so heady and stressful, yet have a full load, and not hurt your chances of doing what you wanted to do as a future graduate.

We had a big staff, a well trained competent faculty. Sure we had kids determined to skip school, act up, and sleep through class. They were a very small group of students compares to what teachers report today. I think that is because we had something for everyone from two years of woodworking and metalworking, to home economics.

This is what I want to get back to doing. Big staff. Big, expert faculty. Lots of options, but all of them based on the fact that elementary school and middle school get.themjob.done. I am also willing to admit I do not know how to change political and administrative culture, federal education policy stupidity, societal mindsets in order to make it happen. I think it is embarrassing to be a nation this rich and NOT provide this for our future workers, future voters.

 

[Heartstrings]

2 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Yup. Extremes. I do not understand WHY! Why?Why?Why? In my high school in 1984, there were a bazillion options for English and Lit, for math, for science, for history. It was so interesting to be an 8th grader and go over the list that last quarter of school listening to parents, teachers, and guidance counselor recommendations of the many classes offered, and chart out a course. We even had the following music and art options:

Concert Band (for everyone who had taken band all through middle school), Pep Band, Marching Band, Jazz Band, Symphonic Band (audition only), String ensemble (we didn't have enough string students to have an orchestra), choir (for anyone who wanted to learn to read music and sing assuming they could carry a tune in a bucket), chamber choir (audition only for credit but rehearsed after school), Glee Club (for credit but after school), Art 1-4 plus drawing for beginners, intermediate drawing, advanced drawing, Art History, Art Appreciation, Music Appreciation. We had three music teachers and three art teachers in order to manage it all. Robust PTA that did a lot of fundraising for special things like the band traveling to state honors band or marching band championships, choir when it traveled, gallery showings for student artwork, and combined with the theater department, one major musical per year. The first semester theater department put on a major play. And that play was serious. The drama teachers would make them rehearse the play, the playwrights, symbolism and messaging, you name it. Parents fundraiser to make sure they could make or buy costumes, create good sets, make props.

English had lots of options from just basic foundational stuff to a one semester totally devoted to Shakespeare class for those that wanted it. Sometimes students wanted enough electives that they took a zero hour course (7:30-8:30 pm), and an after school like Chamber Choir or Marching Band.

One could work your schedule out so that if you were taking a math or science or English that was pretty tough for you personally, you could take other courses that were well done but not so heady and stressful, yet have a full load, and not hurt your chances of doing what you wanted to do as a future graduate.

We had a big staff, a well trained competent faculty. Sure we had kids determined to skip school, act up, and sleep through class. They were a very small group of students compares to what teachers report today. I think that is because we had something for everyone from two years of woodworking and metalworking, to home economics.

This is what I want to get back to doing. Big staff. Big, expert faculty. Lots of options, but all of them based on the fact that elementary school and middle school get.themjob.done. I am also willing to admit I do not know how to change political and administrative culture, federal education policy stupidity, societal mindsets in order to make it happen. I think it is embarrassing to be a nation this rich and NOT provide this for our future workers, future voters.

 

We had all of that in the big, well funded school I went to in Maryland.  I was so disappointed to move to Arkansas and not have access to any of that.  It was really stark the rich options that some kids had access to and not others.   

[TechWife]

12 hours ago, SKL said:

Yes!

The other thing they are doing now is expecting kids to group up in class and teach themselves - without a textbook.  It sounds too crazy to be real, but yep.

I have a funny story about this. When I was in 4th grade, there were too many students for one classroom, but not enough for two classrooms. There were two classrooms of 5th graders, but they weren't full. So, they re-organized the classrooms. There was one 4th grade class, one 5th grade class entirely of 5th graders and one 5th grade class that had seven 4th graders in it, doing 4th grade work. I was one of the seven selected to go to the 5th grade classroom. I do remember some instructional time, but we largely worked independently & helped each other.

Fast forward to 7th grade. The 7th grade teacher asks me and one other student to stay behind. He brings out our math worksheets, that included some long division problems. We both worked the problems the same way and came up with the correct answers. But, he could not figure out how we came up with our answers - the work didn't make any sense to him. He had us show him how to do the problems. We were doing it "wrong." He wanted to talk to our 4th grade teacher to see how we were taught, did we happen to be in the same class? Why yes, we were. Then we explained the 7 kids in the 5th grade class to him. I still remember the alarmed look on his face.

He went about teaching the two of us to do long division the "right" way and we picked up on it quickly, and moved forward with no issues.

Then it came time for me to homeschool. A few years in I went to a homeschool conference and was exposed to different methods of teaching math. It turns out that we were solving math problems more in line with the way Singapore math laid things out - learning the concepts and the mechanics together, understanding that the concept drives the mechanics (I may have described that poorly, but that's the gist). I also understand now why I drove all of my teachers a little nuts looking for other ways to do things - all kinds of things, not just math.

So, there you are. I'm a product of this method. I'm not sure there was any added value to us learning to write out long division the "right" way, but it didn't harm us. Less motivated students likely wouldn't have the same outcome we did.

[Faith-manor]

3 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

We had all of that in the big, well funded school I went to in Maryland.  I was so disappointed to move to Arkansas and not have access to any of that.  It was really stark the rich options that some kids had access to and not others.   

This!

And in 1984, my high school was not all that rich by any stretch. Very rural, rural funded, lots of money spent bussing kids from hither and yon. Yet we had it. We also complained whenever we met rich kids from Frankenmuth that had even more at school than we did! 😂 

Hey they had a 4 star chef at that time, a performance art center (which got rebuilt about 15 years ago by a wealthy businessman in the area and it went from wonderful to totally awesome), and a bunch of other stuff. Meanwhile, corn dogs were on the menu with creamed crap of corn, and some sort of slop that might have been gravy, applesauce, stewed plums, leftovers from the last biology lab project, potentially radioactive slime from the physics lab, no one really knew for sure. Eventually, a bunch of students organized a sit-in at the head principle's office for two days. Hundreds of kids refused to go to class until we were promised a fresh, salad bar with fresh fruit options. It worked! We got it! Today they would call in the state police post and sheriff's department to arrest kids for something like that. The high school civics teacher thought it was awesome sauce, and sat with them. Didn't get fired either. He told the superintendent that he could not pass up the opportunity to teach peaceful protesting as a form of legitimate civil disobedience per the civil rights of students. It was covered by the local newspaper. I figure the fact that a reporter was around is why he didn't get fired. But we got a salad bar! It was everyone's best friend. LOL, it killed the hot lunch program down to ala carte. Pizza by the slice, hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, and spaghetti. Over and over. 😂😂😂

[SKL]

26 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Yup. Extremes. I do not understand WHY! Why?Why?Why? In my high school in 1984, there were a bazillion options for English and Lit, for math, for science, for history. It was so interesting to be an 8th grader and go over the list that last quarter of school listening to parents, teachers, and guidance counselor recommendations of the many classes offered, and chart out a course. We even had the following music and art options:

Concert Band (for everyone who had taken band all through middle school), Pep Band, Marching Band, Jazz Band, Symphonic Band (audition only), String ensemble (we didn't have enough string students to have an orchestra), choir (for anyone who wanted to learn to read music and sing assuming they could carry a tune in a bucket), chamber choir (audition only for credit but rehearsed after school), Glee Club (for credit but after school), Art 1-4 plus drawing for beginners, intermediate drawing, advanced drawing, Art History, Art Appreciation, Music Appreciation. We had three music teachers and three art teachers in order to manage it all. Robust PTA that did a lot of fundraising for special things like the band traveling to state honors band or marching band championships, choir when it traveled, gallery showings for student artwork, and combined with the theater department, one major musical per year. The first semester theater department put on a major play. And that play was serious. The drama teachers would make them rehearse the play, the playwrights, symbolism and messaging, you name it. Parents fundraiser to make sure they could make or buy costumes, create good sets, make props.

This sounds like my kids' school.  I do like their school.  They really have many options.  (Besides having a considerable course catalog at high school + vo tech, they can take college courses starting in 7th if they qualify and desire.)  But the state mandates the minimum math requirement.  And there is no college prep [core] English (just general and AP).  Those are my two main beefs about the choices.

Edited February 9 by SKL

[Faith-manor]

37 minutes ago, SKL said:

This sounds like my kids' school.  I do like their school.  They really have many options.  (Besides having a considerable course catalog at high school + vo tech, they can take college courses starting in 7th if they qualify and desire.)  But the state mandates the minimum math requirement.  And there is no college prep [core] English (just general and AP).  Those are my two main beefs about the choices.

Ya. I get it. We have the Michigan Merit curriculum here. Very school tries to put everyone through it, then pressures the teachers to grade inflate. It is stupid. There should just be variety of options, and all of them well done.

One thing I hate is that after algebra 2, they decided tech center would count as a full credit of english and a full credit of math based on "they might use math or have to write something down in their tech program." Sigh. They had already dumbed down the tech center. Why can't they actually have a real introduction to electricity class at the tech center where they will learn really cool, applied things, and use the math they are supposed to know on a regular basis, and not obfuscate everything? I don't get it. Vet science should be called vet science, and it should count as a science. I personally think they should have tech center type options plus lots of humanities options in middle school where the needed math and LA is integrated into the class, we call the class what it is, and because we have teachers with subject matter expertise, we don't have to cloud it all with slight of hand tricks. Call it "Kitchen Chemistry" because that is what it is, and it has basic math, pre-algebra, and algebra 1 principles taught in the class as they go because they will need that in order to successfully complete the program, and they will write gosh darn it because we have a scientific process and it has to be documented properly. Lab reports are a great way to teach kids to communicate concisely, and effectively on paper. I am pretty sure they don't even require lab reports in middle school anymore. When I was a kid, we completed them as we completed the experiment, and handed them in at the end of the day. They received actual narrative grading critique so we knew how to improve if we were so inclined.

Sometimes it is really hard to stomach the loss of educational options and approaches that children have endured for 30 years. It was happening when my oldest was young, and she is 32. But it hadn't hit critical mass yet.

[SKL]

One vo tech option they have here is medical assistant or something like that.  They have to learn anatomy etc.  They don't offer anatomy as a separate class though.  That would have been a good one for one of my kids.  But to take it, you have to give up half a day for two years.  Unless you frontload your college prep options, you can't finish the college prep track while also doing a vo tech track.

One wonders why they don't offer some of the vo tech classes as separate classes open to all.  I guess they have their reasons.

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, fairfarmhand said:

We found honors classes very good for my science kids and skipped AP altogether in lieu of dual enrollment. (Except for my oldest who suffered through ap) My kids stressed over testing and we found with my oldest that ap classes were harder or more time consuming than just taking the college classes. I figured that if they’re gonna do all th work, and still have to pass a test for college credit, why not just do dual enrollment and have a full semester with lots of tests and grades for the college credit?

If we are talking about the general population it would be because some students don't have the luxury of going to another school for parts of their education. 

2 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

Agreed. There is a lot of stress out there. Too much. Kids get overwhelmed. I blame a lot of that on college admissions. No teen should feel the need to take 5 AP classes simultaneously and then set the ridiculous exam in the hopes of getting a paltry $2000 scholarship on a $25,000 annual tuition/room/board bill.  That is a mess that needs to change.

The issue is there is such a huge gap between the expectations of honors/AP vs. "regular" (a bazillion bad choices isn't fixing anything). Definitely as a teen that didn't get to do 5 APs I was bummed because I knew I was missing out. 

 

[Faith-manor]

6 minutes ago, SKL said:

One vo tech option they have here is medical assistant or something like that.  They have to learn anatomy etc.  They don't offer anatomy as a separate class though.  That would have been a good one for one of my kids.  But to take it, you have to give up half a day for two years.  Unless you frontload your college prep options, you can't finish the college prep track while also doing a vo tech track.

One wonders why they don't offer some of the vo tech classes as separate classes open to all.  I guess they have their reasons.

Agree.

When my cousin was in high school she got her EMT training and license in high school without interrupting her college prep sequence. Where there is a will, there is a way. There is unfortunately, no will. I hate that.

[Terabith]

5 hours ago, wendyroo said:

The extremes we are struggling with are between gen ed classes and APs. Those are the only ELA choices offered by our public high school, and they are at wildly opposite ends of the spectrum. The principal strongly steered my mathy, English-averse son away from the gen ed ELA classes because "they don't read any books at all and just work on learning to write a paragraph". That is not going to prepare him with the skills he needs. But he wants to take high level math, science, computers, and Spanish...he does not want to be forced to take on the load of AP English classes.

I wish there an ELA sequence for STEM students - light introductions to poetry and Shakespeare and literary analysis, but a strong focus on academic writing, logical argumentation, nonfiction reading, and finding fiction genres that the kids actually enjoy in order to cultivate lifelong readers. And if they passed a writing test after three years, I would not insist on a fourth year of English if an additional STEM course would better support their career goals.

My very academic minded 2e kid with a math disability and dyslexia took the pre AP sequence for English from middle school through tenth grade, but then she looked at what AP English required and the quality of the teacher and noped out. She’s in general ed English, to the absolute shock of her teacher last year. (He actually said I think you’re in the wrong class.  This is regular English, not AP. This is the class for people who are illiterate, asleep, or high.). Cat was like, nope, I don’t want the pressure.  I’ll take AP Environmental Science and AP Biology because I love the subject, and I’ll take AP history and government because the teachers are amazing. I’m not taking AP English with all the projects and presentations.  
 

She is happy with her choice. 

Edited February 9 by Terabith
My phone autocorrected some stuff very badly

[Terabith]

I should also note that our school district doesn't offer honors classes.  There is a Pre-AP track from 6th to 10th grades for math, English, science, and social studies.  There are AP classes offered in 11th and 12th (and earlier if you started Algebra 1 in 6th or something, but that is very rare.  More people do AP social studies in 9th or 10th grades, usually Human Geography or World History.) 

If you aren't in the Pre-AP or AP classes, there is just regular, which is ludicrous in a district this size.