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Old 12-04-2010, 03:20 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,427,335 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John23 View Post
I've always seen technology as discounted in public schools. They don't want students to understand the history behind it, where it's going, formulas for it, etc.

When I was in school in the 90's, we'd watch movies in class, lol. Movies we had already seen at a home, like Rambo, or Die Hard or something. Not Ken Robinson. Leaving the tv on in school is like leaving the tv on at a daycare center. Not much difference. You don't explain the intricacies of technology to 4 year olds. And you don't explain it to 16 or 18 year olds.

No technological role models were presented in school....yet look at the wide array of people in the last 30 years....Andy Grove, Steve Jobs, Gates, Wozniak, Gordon Moore (Moore's law). Hard to inspire the troops when you don't present anyone. We've probably already reached a tipping point. It takes a certain aptitude to be a technological innovator. You can't keep taking remedial math and english in highschool or college, and think you can be a technological innovator.
The problem isn't that we don't want them to know it, it's that we don't have more time to teach it. We have the same length school year we had 50 years ago before most of today's technology was invented. Certainly before it was in use by the average citizen. You can't add content without adding time or doing a significant amount of work on your own. I supposed we could just add to the homework load so we can fit everything in that everyone wants us to teach. THAT would really make our overscheduled students and their parents happy. They already complain about homework because it cuts into sports and part time jobs.

Seriously, we NEED a longer school year. We NEED to follow the lead of other countries who already have 220+ day school years. We need 6-8 more weeks of school per year.
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Old 12-04-2010, 03:49 PM
 
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I complain about homework because the research overwhelmingly says that it has few positive benefits for young kids (and possibly some detrimental ones), and it's only beneficial for high school students in moderation. I also think that the schools shouldn't be able to intrude into private time to such an extent; kids need time to do other things, too, to make them well-rounded people. Maybe we just cut out some of what we think kids need to learn (does all this fact-cramming really matter?), or, if people are dead-set on the idea of kids learning X amount of information before graduating, why not add another year to the total?

I'd be inclined to the just cut back on the quantity of things to learn, though, and go for quality, not quantity. The numbers out there for amount of time spent in school and achievement don't match up, either; time alone is not the answer. (an interesting article on the subject, with some links: On School Time, It's Better, Not More)

Maybe a longer school year would help, but it's not a magic bullet. I think schools are covering a great deal of territory as it is; does every student need to know all of this?
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Old 12-04-2010, 04:08 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,427,335 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist View Post
I complain about homework because the research overwhelmingly says that it has few positive benefits for young kids (and possibly some detrimental ones), and it's only beneficial for high school students in moderation. I also think that the schools shouldn't be able to intrude into private time to such an extent; kids need time to do other things, too, to make them well-rounded people. Maybe we just cut out some of what we think kids need to learn (does all this fact-cramming really matter?), or, if people are dead-set on the idea of kids learning X amount of information before graduating, why not add another year to the total?

I'd be inclined to the just cut back on the quantity of things to learn, though, and go for quality, not quantity. The numbers out there for amount of time spent in school and achievement don't match up, either; time alone is not the answer. (an interesting article on the subject, with some links: On School Time, It's Better, Not More)

Maybe a longer school year would help, but it's not a magic bullet. I think schools are covering a great deal of territory as it is; does every student need to know all of this?
Well, if I can't assign more homework and I don't have more class time, how do I teach extra material? I've got you complaining we don't do enough to bridge the gap between the haves and have nots and other posters claiming we're not teaching stuff like the history of computer technlogy in spite of the fact the school year has not been lengthened. If you want more taught, and it can't be done with homework, we need more time. This isn't rocket science.

If you want to compete with countries that have a 220 day school year, take a wild guess what you need....a 220 day school year. If in school instruction is what works then you have to give us time in school to do the instruction. Why we insist on keeping our, antiquated, 9 1/2 month school year is beyond me. Actually, it isn't. Then you'd have to pay teachers wages comparable to what they can get in industry. Right now, the only perk for accepting lower wages is the summer off and many teachers work the summer to supplement their wages. If you take that away, without a proportional pay raise, you'll see teachers who can get jobs in industry start walking.

This is a dog chasing its tail. We can't teach more without more time and we can't get more time because no one wants a longer school year so we can't teach more. If you recall, I asked, in another thread, what should we toss out? We either need more time or we start tossing material out so we can make room for what people want taught today. Okay, you want school to bridge the gap between the haves and have nots. What are you willing to throw out so we will have the time to start closing the gap? What won't be taught because we're concentrating on that gap....oh wait...taking ANYTHING out means the gap gets bigger...Forget I asked...

The only workable solution to bridging the gap is unacceptable. If we stop teaching the haves, we'll close the gap between the haves and have nots. I have a feeling the haves' parents will not stand for that. You can only close the gap by doing more for the have nots than you do for the haves and THAT would take a longer school year or, at least, a longer school day so more work could be done in school where kids have support. Of course, that would cost more and no one wants the bill so it's not happening any time soon.

You ask if students need to cover all of this and yet you complain that the haves get taught more???? The answer is no they don't need to be taught all of this so why do you concern yourself with the fact the haves get taught it and the have nots don't? The haves can be taught more because we're not remediating them. You really need to read your own posts. In one breath you complain that we are not teaching inner city kids the same things as we do kids in elite schools and then you turn around and ask if we need to teach everything we are teaching??? Could you please pick a side of the fence to stand on? Straddling a picket fence has got to hurt.

It sounds like the only acceptable solution, to you, is to cut out everything that isn't absolutely necessary (of course, first you have to decide what is necessary) and teach no more than that to anyone. In other words, stop teaching anything extra to the haves so the have nots can catch up. Not only would this be unacceptable to the parents of the haves, they'd pull their kids and put them in private schools where they will get what they are getting now so it would do, absolutely, no good.

Last edited by Ivorytickler; 12-04-2010 at 04:27 PM..
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Old 12-04-2010, 04:41 PM
 
28 posts, read 59,982 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
The problem isn't that we don't want them to know it, it's that we don't have more time to teach it. We have the same length school year we had 50 years ago before most of today's technology was invented. Certainly before it was in use by the average citizen. You can't add content without adding time or doing a significant amount of work on your own. I supposed we could just add to the homework load so we can fit everything in that everyone wants us to teach. THAT would really make our overscheduled students and their parents happy. They already complain about homework because it cuts into sports and part time jobs.

Seriously, we NEED a longer school year. We NEED to follow the lead of other countries who already have 220+ day school years. We need 6-8 more weeks of school per year.
What we should do is cut out requirements like chemistry, algebra 2, American literature etc, and make them electives. The majority of the population never uses chemistry, why make students take it? I'm sure ones who are interested in science will take it. Or if they want to learn about American lit or take algebra 2, they will. Throw out the stuff that we don't need or hardly ever use and add other elective courses that deal with technology. More students today will need to know how to use Microsoft Word than to debate how Poe may have died or be able to write chemical formulas.

If we change the length of the school year to keep up with modern times we should atleast update the required curriculum to modern times as well.
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Old 12-04-2010, 05:02 PM
 
10,629 posts, read 26,650,244 times
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Who cares about competing with other countries? Shouldn't we be worried about getting our own educational system in order first? (and again, the stats don't show that the US spends less time instructing kids than many other countries).

I'm trying to discuss quality of education, and that's not something I measure solely in quantity. That seems to be somewhere where we disagree. You're not listening to what I'm saying. And I'm not sure where in the world you get the idea that I advocate cutting out everything that isn't absolutely necessary, and teach no more than that to anyone -- that's absolutely NOT what I advocate, in any shape or form.
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Old 12-04-2010, 05:21 PM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,201,502 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CDuser13 View Post
What we should do is cut out requirements like chemistry, algebra 2, American literature etc, and make them electives. The majority of the population never uses chemistry, why make students take it? I'm sure ones who are interested in science will take it. Or if they want to learn about American lit or take algebra 2, they will. Throw out the stuff that we don't need or hardly ever use and add other elective courses that deal with technology. More students today will need to know how to use Microsoft Word than to debate how Poe may have died or be able to write chemical formulas.

If we change the length of the school year to keep up with modern times we should atleast update the required curriculum to modern times as well.
In terms of hours vs days..US kids are in school 200+ MORE hours than those kids in Asia. I don't think adding more days and more hours will help us catch up; we have deeper problems than "not enough time".

FoxNews.com - Obama Proposes Longer School Day, Shorter Summer Vacation
"Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests -- Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days)."

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Old 12-04-2010, 05:45 PM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,653,495 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post

I gave my kids a background research assignment for a lab and actually had kids ask "Can we just cut and paste?". Um, NO!!! Read it, if you don't understand it, research it some more, if you do understand it, explain it to me!!! Seriously, I'm not sure being able to use technology is such a great thing.

As a teacher, I should be expecting my students to USE technology but I should also be expecting them to treat it as a tool not the be all end all. The human brain is what has to decide which source is trustworthy when two say something different. That is once we get past the problem of them thinking the first thing that pops up in Google HAS TO BE RIGHT
I do not understand you at all. You teach a first year science course and then complain that children do not understand the expectations and skills science demands.

Well duh, you are supposed to teach them that skill. I have spent ten hours in the past 3 weeks teaching how to write a research introduction, use google scholar, how to do on text citing, how to proPerly cite using CBE format, how to put error bars using standard dev, correlation and regression both in excel and SPSS.

WHY? Because those are all skills you need to succeed in chemistry as much as balancing equations. Where else would the learn those skills except in science class???

You seem to expect your students to know things before you teach them. Bizarre.

Last edited by lkb0714; 12-04-2010 at 05:46 PM.. Reason: Typos from my using my phone. The irony is palpable.
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Old 12-04-2010, 06:19 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,427,335 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by CDuser13 View Post
What we should do is cut out requirements like chemistry, algebra 2, American literature etc, and make them electives. The majority of the population never uses chemistry, why make students take it? I'm sure ones who are interested in science will take it. Or if they want to learn about American lit or take algebra 2, they will. Throw out the stuff that we don't need or hardly ever use and add other elective courses that deal with technology. More students today will need to know how to use Microsoft Word than to debate how Poe may have died or be able to write chemical formulas.

If we change the length of the school year to keep up with modern times we should atleast update the required curriculum to modern times as well.
I agree on higher level math and science courses but not lit. Honing reading and critical thinking skills is a must. I do think four years of math and three years of science should be required but I think there should be science courses for non science majors like there are in college.

As to needing to know microsoft word, the best way to learn any software is, simply, to be required to use it. Necessity is the mother of invention. My dd's attended a school where every child was given a lap top. They were not taught how to use the programs beyond the very basics. They were EXPECTED to use the programs. They figured it out really quickly and when they learned something, they, gladly, shared it with their friends just to show off. The end result is both of my kids are very computer literate. You don't need classes in how to use software. In fact, they're kind of a waste because you need practice using the software for it to stick. It's far better to simply be required to use it in other classes.

I had to take a class in computer technology in college for my ed degree. I hardly remember anything they taught me. I had to use programs like word, excel and access in my job for years, WITHOUT training...I remember most of what I used every day even though I no longer use it every day. I don't think computer classes are the answer. I think the answer is making sure you write that lit paper in word and that you do that statistical analysis in excel and that you manage data in access...or whatever programs you are using.

I don't understand Michigan's decision to force Algebra II and chemistry or physics on all students. I can understand saying 4 years of math and three of science but it shouldn't have to be Algebra II and chemistry/physics....of course, not requiring them is accepting that there will be a gap between the haves and have nots because most of the haves will continue to take them.

If chemistry were optional in my last school, I'd wager that 70% of the students would have opted out. In my current school, it would be 70% opting in and I'm not sure the parents of the 30% would let them opt out.
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Old 12-04-2010, 06:20 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,427,335 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
In terms of hours vs days..US kids are in school 200+ MORE hours than those kids in Asia. I don't think adding more days and more hours will help us catch up; we have deeper problems than "not enough time".

FoxNews.com - Obama Proposes Longer School Day, Shorter Summer Vacation
"Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests -- Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days)."
How much homework do kids in asia do compared to kids in the US???

Not a peer reviewed article or anything but I think the writer is on to something.

What Americans Can Learn from Asian Schools

I can't find anything comparing amounts of homework by country but I had a friend who taught abroad and she claims that kids in other countries do more homework.

Personally, I think days of instruction matter more than minutes of instruction because I there comes a point where you have to let kids digest and practice what they've been taught before you can move on (what is the term for this???). I would rather have more shorter days than fewer longer days. I have taught on block and off block. On block, with the same number of minutes, I struggled to keep up with my non block classes. The only way I could do it was to, literally, push forward before kids had had a chance to practice what I just taught and that did not work well.

With my 45 minute classes, I taught 30 minutes, gave them 10 minutes to practice and then they went home and did homework, we reviewed the homework the next day and then we moved on. With my 90 minute classes, I taught 30 minutes, gave them 10 minutes to practice in class then assigned homework and, immediately went on to the next topic for 30 minutes, gave 10 minutes of practice on that and we reviewed both sets of homework the next day. The 45 minute classes worked better except for labs. I liked the 90 minute block for labs. Because you don't have to set up and tear down twice, there is an efficiency.

Last edited by Ivorytickler; 12-04-2010 at 06:34 PM..
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Old 12-04-2010, 08:27 PM
 
10,629 posts, read 26,650,244 times
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Instead of comparing American levels of homework to other countries, why not just look at the copious amount of scholarship out there that shows what works and what doesn't?

I can't find the statistics or links right now, but I've read that many countries with students performing better (as measured, anyway) than American students assign far less homework than do American schools, while there are other countries with higher homework loads that come out much lower than the US on the list. I haven't read this book yet, but the authors address that question.
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