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We're right here, trying to ensure that our children receive an excellent education, which includes knowing how to write well!
Additionally, we're hauling our children to summer math enrichment courses, music lessons, and sports practice. We're taking them to the library and ensuring that they complete their summer reading requirements. We're teaching them how to cook healthy meals, do their laundry, and manage other household responsibilites, so they'll be able to live on their own one day. We're sitting at the kitchen table reviewing math facts every morning and reading bedtime stories every night. We're taking them on vacations to historical sites and teaching them what it means to be citizens of this nation. We're planning and leading Boy/Girl Scout meetings and organizing public service projects. We're teaching them how to play chess, Scrabble, & Monopoly. We're sharing the joy of planting a garden with them and giving them the first sweet strawberries of the season. We're taking them to the dentist and doctor for check-ups, and ensuring they get plenty of exercise and a good night's sleep.
Guess what! Even with all that, sometimes we still have kids who fail to achieve proficiency in certain subjects. So sorry to disappoint you.
Last edited by formercalifornian; 06-21-2011 at 09:05 PM..
[quote=bisjoe; This is why the best school performance is in upper income areas. The parents are well educated and want the same for their kids, so they encourage learning and contribute financially and with their time to help.
While their may be some lousy teachers here and there, even the best ones cannot educate kids if the parents don't support the school, and they don't make sure homework is done and help them with it.
I have no problem 'letting' my child fail a test for choosing not to study or paying consequences for forgetting their books at home or vice versa at school.
However, I would never allow these things to become habitual enough where my child actually fails a subject for a marking period. I would absolutely step in well before that happened.
That is my job as a parent. I have lived a lifetime that my children have not, and therefore understand the long term consequences of some of their actions. I do not expect my 11 year old or even my high schooler to understand the life long consequences that may result.
That is why they are the children, and we are the adults. To actually expect a child, even one of high school age, to actually be able to grasp the long term consequences of not doing their best in school, is unrealistic.
And by the time they do learn that 'lesson', it is too late.
The point is that the home consequences are so painful that the child doesn't wish to make the same bad choices over and over. Of course you would step in before making bad choices would become habitual- by not allowing playdates, electronics, etc. In other words, if your child forgets his homework, you don't take it to school, you let him take a zero. If the zero brings his grade below a certain grade for the term, then the home consequence kicks in. Simple.
My daughter went to a college that had "writing courses" in all disciplines wherein the students were graded on their writing as well as their content. She took a biology writing course once. It is important for scientific people to be able to write clearly, so people can actually read what they have written.
One of my alma mater's biggest selling points is its fairly extensive writing requirements across all curricula. I wholeheartedly agree that it is important to be able to communicate clearly and professionally in writing, no matter one's discipline. It's a basic skill, not some specialized skill set.
One of my alma mater's biggest selling points is its fairly extensive writing requirements across all curricula. I wholeheartedly agree that it is important to be able to communicate clearly and professionally in writing, no matter one's discipline. It's a basic skill, not some specialized skill set.
I agree, WRT writing itself but the ability to grade someone elses writing is a specific skillset. I can write. I had intensive instruction in writing in college but it really was limited to my style of writing and the particular mistakes I happened to make. I've never gotten less than an A on a research paper. I cannot, however, take someone elses paper, find all the mistakes and identify them. I didn't learn their mistakes and how to correct them. I learned my own. I could rewrite their paper and make it right but I can't correct their mistakes. I can write a proper sentence but I can't tell you what makes it a proper sentence. I just know one when I see it. This is why I don't teach English.
I would not think to grade chemistry lab reports for grammar. As I said, If I recognize which grammatical error a student has made, I'll point it out but often things don't sound right but I can't tell you why they don't sound right. Then I grade for content. The only instruction I could give in such cases is "There are better ways to say this" but that's so vague it doesn't empower the student to correct their mistakes. It's too bad they don't make kids take tech writing with my class so their writing teacher can handle the proper way to say things while I handle the science. Grammatical errors just are not my forte.
The error in logic here is in thinking that if someone can write they can teach writing. That is as illogical as thinking that if you can read you can teach someone else to read. Just because I can do something doesn't mean I can teach it. For me, it is physical science that I understand well enough to teach. That's why I teach the physical sciences.
I'm not going to argue about this any longer, because the horse is well and truly dead, but I would like to clarify that I do not believe, nor did I imply in any of my posts, that content takes a back seat to grammar. Excellent writing requires both.
As for the point of this thread, parents can do all the right things and still have a child who scores poorly on standardized tests.
I'm not going to argue about this any longer, because the horse is well and truly dead, but I would like to clarify that I do not believe, nor did I imply in any of my posts, that content takes a back seat to grammar. Excellent writing requires both.
As for the point of this thread, parents can do all the right things and still have a child who scores poorly on standardized tests.
So can schools. When it comes to my students who won't work, there is nothing I can do to improve their test scores.
How exactly does the presence of a gaming system prove that a parent doesn't care about education?
Haha. It doesn't for all families. But I definitely know of many instances where the kids play for hours on end all day. Maybe if they cut that time in half they could review for tests and the like.
I think a lot of people (especially some of the teachers on this forum) have misunderstood what I meant when I said virtually all parents want what is besat for their kids.
We in health care don't always agree with what these parents want either. But I think the way to approach parents is to feel that they want what is best for their kids. If giving the kids a breakfast before they go to school is what's best, tell the parents "Kids learn better when they've had something to eat" in the morning. If a student is missing too many classes due to sports, tell the parents you think the kid would do better if s/he were in class more. I know I'm being simplistic, but hopefully some get my point. I also think that teachers (those that do this) should quit reviewing on a daily basis what is "wrong" with parents.
I think most do want the best. I think there needs to be a distinction made between wanting the best and doing the best-- and we can even split hairs to distinguish between doing the best and their best.
Some people, whether they're parents or not, teachers or not, or something else entirely, simply don't have much of a "best" to offer.
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