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It's not an insult. It's a fact. I actually knew you'd comment on the numeric discrepancy but chose to round up anyway, hoping you wouldn't derail the conversation even more. The comment is pedantic because it is not relevant to this discussion.
Point well taken. I will try to minimize that tendency but I will not avoid calling out on referencing the desires and needs of dead people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BirdieBelle
EXCESSIVE absences are a red flag.
School systems all have their own policies about that, with a specific number that triggers a truancy report. In the previous systems I've worked for it was 29 days.
The trouble is that CPS reports are a solitary and confidential function. A teacher, principal, school nurse or guidance counselor/psychologist is not supposed to discuss a report with colleagues. Some can be reasonable; others, a solitary absence can motivate a report, especially if he or she does not like the family. In my situation I was doing extremely well in 10th grade Social Studies/History (don't remember the name of the course). My teacher had been my homeroom teacher in 9th Grade, a difficult year for me. My father wanted to know how I was doing in 10th Grade. She wanted to discuss 9th Grade. From my understanding they had a raucous disagreement at Open House. That April I took the qualifying exam for AP History. She blackballed my entry into any AP courses in her department.
In Senior Year I took the American History AP exam, getting a 5, a perfect score. After graduation the department chair ran into me at a concert and gave me the good news, at the same time asking me to be "quiet" about it. I relayed this bizarre discussion to my mother (we both like the department chair), and she informed me that I had been excluded by the teacher from the AP course. and my subsequent score was an embarrassment to "certain people." Not wishing to leave my home town on a negative note, I complied with the department chair's request. On balance I am glad I did so.
In more modern times, the chosen vehicle for that teacher's bile may well have been a CPS report. How do I know; we got hit with a report partially because my older son wore a T-shirt from the school at which the principal was previously employed. She did not see anything funny about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClaraC
In my observation, children who miss school because they're traveling to other countries tend to be the very successful students, and missing a little in elementary school doesn't put them at risk for failure, or falling behind.
This reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's short story, Harrison Bergeron. "Handicaps" are placed on more successful people to make their performance equal to rather than better than others. It's the war against over-achievers.
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You apparently have never been in a school in this day and age.
First, of course, every school district has different standards and the only ones you hear about on the news are the ones that do things poorly.
As for bringing in extra supplies, there is nothing wrong with those of us who have money helping supply the poorer children.
In second grade, they did bring in 44 pencils, but only 2 erasers, 2 boxes of crayons (1 for each semester probably), 2 black dry erase markers, 1small bottle of glue and 2 glue sticks, 1 pair of scissors, some construction paper, some loose-leaf paper, 2 spiral notebooks, 2 composition books, several folders of different colors (1 per subject), a pencil bag and 2 boxes of tissues.
Note that the tissues are shared and maybe the pencils, but most things are for the individual child even the loose-leaf paper and construction paper was usually for the individual child.
My grandchildren have *never* had a lunch confiscated despite the fact that my autistic grandson never ate a healthy lunch. Breakfast is served in the lunch room not the classroom and in general, it is not sugar-filled. There is sugar since that is what the kids will eat, but it has been like that since I was in school way back in the 1950s for kids who had free or reduced price meals. Pizza is the preferred meal for most of the kids and they have a breakfast pizza as well as a lunch one. Packing lunches is usually healthier.
I wish they had banned dodgeball in gym when I was in school because I hated being hit by a ball and it was often hard and hurt, but they also don't ban it in most schools in the US today. The fact that a few schools do does not make it a rule.
In case you have not read it you should read the things that your history teachers got wrong and the ones that are incorrect even on the monuments. Try Lies Across America by James Loewen and Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by the same author.
Some examples - Napoleon was not short - they used French inches to measure him and those are longer than English inches - so he was actually taller than the average European at the time at 5 feet 7 inches (not 5 foot 2). Henry Ford did not invent the automobile although he did create the Model T. George Washington did not chop down the cherry tree and he did not admit that he did. Mason Locke Weems, a Washington biographer, invented the story to uplift children. Christopher Columbus did not discover America. He never even set foot on North American soil. He never made it past the Carribbean where he brutalized the natives. The names of the ships taught to kids were nicknames not the real names of the ships at all. The Thanksgiving story is a big lie. The modern, feel-good story is propaganda that's only 120 years old, but there was a celebratory feast in Massachusetts in 1637 — proclaimed by Gov. John Winthrop for the return of Puritan gunmen from hunting and murdering hundreds of Pequot Indians. Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb. It was a group effort with many scientists collaborating, but he took all the credit (he did put up the money and hire the scientists). There were actually only 12 original colonies as Delaware was a part of Pennsylvania. There were also two loyalist colonies in Florida that you never heard of in school. Abraham Lincoln was NOT an abolitionest. He said publicly and repeatedly that he would tolerate slavery to preserve the Union. His anti-slavery sentiments, at least early on, seemed more pragmatic than moral, as revealed in his famous "house divided" speech. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was limited in effect — first limited to slaves in rebel states, and then not universally known. Slavery did not end with the civil war. The 13th Amendment supposedly ending slavery still allowed forced labor as punishment for a crime. Convict leasing existed in every Southern state for decades after the Civil War. Tens of thousands of Black Americans who committed no real crime were kidnapped off the streets by corrupt local sheriffs, convicted in informal local courts for vague "crimes" such as vagrancy, issued fines they couldn't pay, and sold to businesses to work in mines, timber yards, farms and railroads in conditions often worse than slavery.
The above are only a few of the lies you were taught.
The bulk of your post was good, but I'm not sure why you included that last paragraph. I honestly don't remember being taught much of that stuff, but I don't recall not being taught all of it either.
The latest revisionist history seems to be that Napoleon was not short, but I couldn't find any contemporaneous reports on whether he was perceived as short or not. I don't think his height was discussed in any of my classes.
Pretty sure I was never taught that Ford "invented" the automobile.
I think the George Washington cherry tree story was considered kind of a myth even in my elementary school days (1950s/very early 60s). We really didn't talk about Washington's childhood in any of my further history classes.
I'm positive we were taught that Columbus did not set foot in the continental US. Never heard the story about the ships' names, don't much care. What were their real names?
Hard to believe the "modern" Thanksgiving story only started around 1900, since Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. History dot com does not corroborate your author's story. Thanksgiving type holidays are ubiquitous in many cultures, as well. https://www.history.com/topics/thank...f-thanksgiving
Not surprising that the "invention" of the light bulb was a group effort, just like the "invention" of the polio vaccine was, with Jonas Salk getting the bulk of the credit and being the only member of the team to be known by name.
Delaware was a separate colony by the time of the Declaration of Independence. Your guy isn't as smart as you think he is (and he thinks he is). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_Colony "Delaware was then governed as part of Pennsylvania from 1682 until 1701, when the Lower Counties petitioned for and were granted an independent colonial legislature, though the two colonies shared the same governor until 1776, when Delaware's assembly voted to break all ties with both Great Britain and Pennsylvania. . . Penn had a very hard time governing Delaware because the economy and geology were largely the same as those of the Chesapeake. He attempted to merge the governments of Pennsylvania and the lower counties of Delaware. Representatives from both areas clashed heavily, and in 1701 Penn agreed to having two separate assemblies. Delawareans would meet in New Castle, and Pennsylvanians would gather in Philadelphia."
Disclaimer: I used to live in Delaware. Every now and then an article about this would appear in the Wilmington newspaper. Essentially, the Delawarians wanted to allow slavery.
I think most people know Lincoln was not an abolitionist. I believe I was taught in high school that he said he'd do anything to preserve the union, including freeing all the slaves, some of the slaves or none of them.
Slavery as practiced on the plantations did end with the 13th amendment. Forced labor as a punishment for crime is not the same as slavery. The rest I'll leave up to someone else to comment on, as I don't feel like researching all that right now. Most of it is believable, but not exactly "slavery".
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Originally Posted by jbgusa
Yeah, the policy was I lost credit, both for a day-early departure and my father's death.
Really, do get over it. 50 years is a long time to carry these hard feelings. Did these incidents affect your life permanently (other than you posting about it on CD)?
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Originally Posted by G-fused
Absolutely. Travel is an education in itself.
That's the excuse lots of parents use. Unfortunately, it's not always true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClaraC
In my observation, children who miss school because they're traveling to other countries tend to be the very successful students, and missing a little in elementary school doesn't put them at risk for failure, or falling behind.
The problem is, schools get their funding from students in the classroom per day, so some principals can be VERY hard core about taking children out, even for a couple days, especially the more successful, compliant kids.
I wonder if the principal would be as strict with the students who are extremely disruptive, and whose presence makes classroom dynamics a challenge.
Please elaborate on this observation. When, where, etc.
Not every state funds on a daily per pupil count. Colorado does not. They have a pupil count day in October.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
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Originally Posted by tnff
There's seems to be a fundamental assumption that work will give time off when school is out. Why is that? This isn't the first time this discussion has come up and there always seems to be a discrepancy in belief about workers getting vacation time to match school schedules. That may have been the case 40 years ago, but is certainly not the case today, esp with two parents working at different job and different schedules. During the entire time my kids were in school, I was only a couple of times able to get vacation time that matched their schedules.
A kid's not going to fall behind from missing a couple days or a week. And they can make up what they missed in a couple hours at home.
No, this isn't the first time this has come up. You seem to think that no one understands how the work world operates except you. In point of fact, most of us have been in the workforce and know there's such a thing as planning, putting in early for time off, etc. As for being able to make up missed week of work in a couple hours, maybe at your kids' schools, but not at the ones mine attended. One of my DD's friends missed a week of 8th grade to go on a family vacation to Hawaii. Afterward, she told her mom never to do that again, as it took so long to make up all the work, and this was a good student.
Obviously high school is an exception because it moves very fast and covers advanced topics I cant teach my children (and its 10 years away so who knows what will be happening) but the 5 years of elementary school are absolutely things we can make up in down time, travel time and when we get home without a detriment to his education. Additionally, I know schools in our area that did consider a trip to a volcano (and accompanying report and project) to be sufficient to cover the unit on volcanoes that would be missed. Some schools are obviously more strict but ive never heard of a school calling cps because of a single or week of missed school. And its not as though we would just wake up one day and decide not to send him to school for the week. These would be planned events discussed with his instructors well in advance to ensure we are doing what we need to do
Obviously high school is an exception because it moves very fast and covers advanced topics I cant teach my children (and its 10 years away so who knows what will be happening) but the 5 years of elementary school are absolutely things we can make up in down time, travel time and when we get home without a detriment to his education. Additionally, I know schools in our area that did consider a trip to a volcano (and accompanying report and project) to be sufficient to cover the unit on volcanoes that would be missed. Some schools are obviously more strict but ive never heard of a school calling cps because of a single or week of missed school. And its not as though we would just wake up one day and decide not to send him to school for the week. These would be planned events discussed with his instructors well in advance to ensure we are doing what we need to do
The written report/project probably took as much time as the class spent on volcanoes. That was just the first thing that popped into my mind. If they were dissecting a frog, obviously a trip to an aquarium wouldn't cut it (no pun intended). You'd have to dissect the frog yourself to get the credits. Or in home ec (now called family and consumer studies) if you were making a skirt, you'd still have to make the skirt when you got back.
As far as the CPS stuff- I used to work in a pediatrician's office. I can't tell you how many calls we'd get from parents wanting a doctor's excuse for an illness, even if we didn't see the kid or even talk to the parent re: said illness because the school had a policy that after a certain number of absences, excused or unexcused, they needed a doctor's note or a court order to miss any more school. Now I don't know what happened if the parent couldn't produce such documents. Heck, we had parents who had to get notes from us to get an "excused" absence from their work (parent worked for Department of Homeland Security).
As far as the CPS stuff- I used to work in a pediatrician's office. I can't tell you how many calls we'd get from parents wanting a doctor's excuse for an illness, even if we didn't see the kid or even talk to the parent re: said illness because the school had a policy that after a certain number of absences, excused or unexcused, they needed a doctor's note or a court order to miss any more school. Now I don't know what happened if the parent couldn't produce such documents. Heck, we had parents who had to get notes from us to get an "excused" absence from their work (parent worked for Department of Homeland Security).
Thing about CPS, you will never know exactly what happened. It's a nightmare.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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From our experience, and many like us.... Our kids benefited rather than suffered from 10+ yrs of travel, rather than BIS time in an age segregated classroom of clones.
High School? Who needs HS? Our State provides FREE FT college to HS students who can pass a college entrance exam in grade 9 (that is not tough for the educated).
Our kids bumbled around the world for 10+ yrs and daily participated in travel planning, spending, global cultural exchange.
They survived.. graduated Magna from STEM (paying 100% of their own way). 12+ yrs after college, they are community leaders, WW travelers, benevolent philanthropists, and have yet to 'rebel' or have a behavior or educational crisis.
Invest in your family (time not money), it will work out.
Retire / leave employment while kids are home. Start a few home businesses for the kids to run. Lots of far better options than 'school-sitting'. Travel is one of many great options. We travel very, very inexpensively (like locals not tourists). Whatever we spent on travel as a family, it paid huge dividends in all of our future. Kids learned a lot, and opened many doors.
The only issue with taking small children out of school for vacation is it sends a clear message that school is not their priority. And we can all claim it’s about family time, but family time does not need to involve travel. Given the constant barrage of school not being important that they get from friends, media, etc, getting it from mom and dad might set the stage for problems later for some kids.
As a teacher I don’t care if kids are in class or not as long as parents don’t expect special treatment for their child if they are leaving for a vacation. Unfortunately it has been my experience that this is not usually the case. I had students miss tests, lectures or labs and the parents were aghast that I wasn’t willing to stay after and work with their kids to get them caught up. One patently recently asked for home instruction (not from me) for their child after a vacation because it is given to children who are out sick for more than a few days. Crazy.
Well said.
The worst example of a parent expecting special treatment was the couple taking their child back to their native country to see relatives. They were going to be gone for four weeks and asked for an entire month of lessons and homework in advance. Needless to say that was an unreasonable thing to ask of their teacher. However, I felt sorry for the child, who was already struggling, so I prepared a list of the goals that I expected from the students during that month, plus a few fun but educational type "homework" sheets. I also gave them a few thin paperback books to read to the child (on the major themes) and have the student dictate a short story/book report. But mainly, I said to just continue to practice his basic skills (as he was in kindergarten). They promised that they would work with their child every single day on school work and promised that he would not get behind.
Well, you can imagine what happened. They returned after their month long vacation and the child was even farther behind than when he left. The parents did not complete even one activity/book/worksheet during that entire time. The parents wanted me to stay after school, on my own time, and tutor their child until he caught up. They were pretty angry when I refused to do that. However, I did give the student extra help and attention during the regular school day (taking it away from other children) and he did manage to pass by the skin of his teeth.
Of course, there is a huge difference between taking off a day here or there for out of town family activities and taking a week (or month) long vacation.
Last edited by germaine2626; 07-06-2019 at 07:42 PM..
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