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I teach undergrad and grad students online, so my only form of communication with them is written. If I had a dollar for each time I see the following errors, I'd never have to work again. This all goes back to elementary school:
1. "Definitely" being spelled as "defiantly"
2. Whether vs. weather
3. You're vs. your
4. Affect vs. effect
5. There vs. their vs. they're
6. Apostrophes being used to make words plural ("The student's went outside...")
7. Where vs. were
8. Here vs. hear
and so on and so on, ad nauseum. Spellcheck will not catch these errors. Kids need to be taught! I am embarrassed at the "dumbing down" of Language Arts instruction in American schools. Spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar are important!
Getting back to the OP there is no reason for school vs homeschool. I still remember sitting with my dad learning to write my name and doing other things when I was a kid (long ago) WHILE I was in school. Do you think having a child in school means you don't have to do squat except drive them to soccer practice? It's a battle line people like to draw so they can feel a "win". That's really most of what I see these days when it comes to education....a battle that doesn't really exist. Nothing prevents anyone from teaching their kids anything, anytime, anyplace, even if they happen to go to school.
This is a ridiculous statement. Of course parents can and should teach their kids all kinds of things, but they should not have to fill in giant gaps that are not taught in school, like spelling. What the OP is concerned about goes far beyond supplementing what her child is learning. What happens when you feel a school is inadequate overall? Teach them in every subject yourself? No. You find another way to give them the education, one you can supplement and support or do yourself.
I've never even had a career until recently and I've had occasion to use all kinds of math. Used fractions for cooking and figuring out how to halve a recipe. The geometry was what I used when I wanted to build a garden fence and calculated how much materials to buy and how to square up the corners so it wouldn't look like a crazy parallelogram. I keep a running total in my head when I shop so when I go to pay for it I have a pretty good idea whether the figure is right. Trouble is, to take geometry you have to have algebra first, so really, geometry is the basic minimum to function in life.
Thank goodness you don't have an occupation like building the airplane you ride on then.
Well, of course I don't. I have no interest in aeronautical engineering; why would I pursue the requisite skills?
Quote:
Believe it or not there are many people who do use those skills on a daily basis.
"Many"?
By this logic because there are cardiologists performing many cardiac caths every day we should all have learned to calculate the fractional flow reserve of coronary arteries.
I don't think some of you understand the concepts of field-specific advanced education.
By all means lets have every high school graduate excel in everything from aviation to zoology, when they graduate at age 94 we should have an excellent and competitive workforce of cadavers.
I think you have dismissed spelling perhaps a bit too hastily.
The principal is your "pal." It is principal. Not principle. Spellcheck doesn't help you with that, though you posted that you thought it did.
I have had, shall we say, unsatisfactory results from employees who rely on spellcheck.
Spell check also didn't catch "principles" rather than "principal's." It often doesn't catch punctuation issues.
My gosh, is it now too much to ask of our kids for them to learn basic grammar and spelling? Thank GOODNESS that my daughter is home schooling her four kids. Her five year old is learning Latin, for Pete's sake. In the early years, kids are veritable sponges when it comes to language arts. It's a shame to waste that potential and hope that SpellCheck addresses the problems later.
Whole Language was on its way out when I started teaching 21 years ago.
My kids graduated in the early 2000s. They were victims of "Whole Language" for their entire school careers. Thank goodness that two of them enjoy reading and that compensated somewhat.
I think what's being missed here is that the OP is talking about the lack of spelling tests in THE FIRST GRADE. As I said earlier, it is not uncommon today for spelling tests to start in the 2nd or 3rd grade. This school may teach spelling, but teach it in the later grades or teach it along with learning vocabulary words. She also said that it's a school with a great reputation, considered one of the best in her area, so I doubt they are ignoring spelling altogether. If nothing else the students have been doing well on those stupid standardized tests, on which believe it or it you'd have to be able to spell at least decently to score high.
The other thing to note is that the OP is complaining that the teacher isn't customizing lessons for her gifted son. One thing to realize there is that it is fairly early in the school year, most teachers are still trying to get a handle on all the different ability levels in their classrooms. Customizing comes a little later usually, after a month or so. Also, the principal is probably right that true giftedness becomes more apparent around the 3rd grade (and older). Some bright kids get ahead in the early years but by the then it evens out more as more kids catch up. The OP's son may actually be gifted, or he may just be really bright. There nothing wrong with being a smart kid but not every smart kid truly needs a special school.
Anyway, the first grade has changed a lot from what it used to be. A lot of the old curriculum has moved to kindergarten, while other things have been pushed to the second grade. Now they do a good deal of teaching and reinforcing of concepts in the first grade, so that kids understand more of the logic behind things before they get to the memorization of hard facts in the later grades.
I have nothing against homeschooling and the OP may very well be making the best decision for her family, but I did want to put out there that the situation may be more ambiguous than it seems.
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