Are they pushing elementary school students a bit to hard in the U.S. today?

[Corki]

Yes and no. It’s a quality vs. quanity issue.

Kids today have much more homework and much less usable content. The emphasis is on drill and repetition rather than mastery. While a lot of this is “teach to the test” driven, a lot is just poor curriculum development with little fleibility for teachers to go deeper or move on if the students are getting the concept. Another factor in this is the NCLB mentality paired with mainstreaming of students with learning disabilities. Unless your child gets tracked out into a “honors” or “GT” class, the class will move at the pace of the slowest third of the students. So that means more repetition and boredom. Anything that is boring will feel like drudgery to the students.

There are also many more “required” content areas so each is treated more superficially. Some teachers jokingly told me that if you added up all the required minutes of content for each subject, the kids would be in school 23 hours each day. Prior generations of students did not have to squeeze computers, sex ed, cultural diversity classes or tolerance lessons into the school day. Discipline problems and classroom management issues also errode the time spent learning in class.

There is a lot of emphasis on hands on activities in school and while that is fun for the students, it is not an efficient teaching method for most learners. The result is that the real practice is pushed into the homework. I see this a lot in Math. My kids often get a lot of practical application of the concepts in class but learn the step-by-step procedures by themselves (or with me) when they do thier homework. In my day we would never have been given homework without examples being worked first in class.

So yes elementary students are being pushed too hard but it isn’t toward a better education.

 

[human_being]

I made a mistake posting this under social justice. I meant to post it under the moral forum.
Well, the 4th grade science exam had all of the systems of the body. It had the digestive, respiratory, skeletal, muscular,circulatory, and excretory and all of the major parts and what they do. Todays English final will have all kind of things that I'm not a good teacher at all on. It has personal pronouns, possive pronouns, plural pronouns,singular pronouns, subject pronouns,compound predicates, compound subject, declarative sentences,direct objects, exclamatory sentences, imperative sentences, interrogative sentences, predicates, and subjects of sentences. It also has apostrophes, commas, capitals and why,and a few more things. There are no question and answer study guides or fill in the blank worksheets. She said she did them in class. Good because I can't teach this stuff. I don't use it. I don't need it and I can't teach it. I feel bad for my daughter though. I can usually help her. I could only refer her to the questions at the end of the 5 chapters that are in the book. I helped with the science exam and she knew it well by the time we were done but I can't teach this English stuff at all.

 

[human_being]

I also had to review for the exam with my 2nd grader. She really needs good grades on these finals to pass. I got a 9 page packet with 72 math questions on it. I took the packet out to the store and copied all 9 pages 3x each so we had something to work with. She also has a religion final tommorrow. It is on 5 chapters which is the whole book. I put in 5 hours last night and 4 hours tonight reviewing/teaching. I put in many 2-3 hour homework nights at the beginning of the schoolyear. That lasted for months until some of it started sinking in. My older daughter is tutored 2 days/week for an hour after school. Taking another 2 hours of my week. They both have extra help for at least one class period by an intermediate unit teacher 1x/week. I just don’t understand why when I go over this stuff they don’t know all of the answers. My daughters like school. After they started doing their homework on their own, this year, they began doing it right after school before doing anything else. It usually takes them about 20-60 min. now. I just think it is a ridiculous portion of the day to be spent only on school. They get up at 6:30 to get ready and oftentimes are not done with the schoolday(homework and all) until 5:00p.m…

 

[mkingdomlvr]

I made a mistake posting this under social justice. I meant to post it under the moral forum.

Well, the 4th grade science exam had all of the systems of the body.  It had the digestive, respiratory, skeletal, muscular,circulatory, and excretory and all of the major parts and what they do.  Todays English final will have all kind of things that I'm not a good teacher at all on.  It has personal pronouns, possive pronouns, plural pronouns,singular pronouns, subject pronouns,compound predicates, compound subject, declarative sentences,direct objects, exclamatory sentences, imperative sentences, interrogative sentences, predicates, and subjects of sentences.  It also has apostrophes, commas, capitals and why,and a few more things.  There are no question and answer study guides or fill in the blank worksheets.  She said she did them in class.  Good because I can't teach this stuff.  I don't use it. I don't need it and I can't teach it. I feel bad for my daughter though.  I can usually help her.  I could only refer her to the questions at the end of the 5 chapters that are in the book.  I helped with the science exam and she knew it well by the time we were done but I can't teach this English stuff at all.

Those are all things we did in school back in the Dark Ages. I don’t see why they should not be learning them now.

 

[bmadamsberry]

The reason they have to learn those things is because you do use them every day (as you speak, as you type). There has even become an emphasis on them because of the recent generation’s text messaging culture. When you turn in a paper and it has u instead you, btw for by-the-way, etc. There are students in middle school that hand in papers like that. Furthermore learning those good ol’ predicates and adjectives not only gives you good paper writting skills, vital for college and high school, it also gives you a very good understanding of the English language from which you can learn a foreign language. I do agree, though, that some things that the students learn are pointless. It does get easier, though. Once I hit middle school I began doing my homework on my own and my parents never had to help me again. Hopefully, your kids will be motivated when they go to middle school and high school, and then you can just look over their shoulder as they go through school. So while it’s difficult now, just wait and it should get easier.
I remember when I went into 3rd grade… I cried the first night because of all the homework that I had, lol.

 

[Gia_B]

It’s has been nine years since I have been and elementary school student (I finish my first year of college next week) and things must have changed since I was that age. I don’t remember having a lot of homework in elementary school and middle school. I actually had a lot of free time. In high school I had a lot of homework (an essay every day or two), but not before or after that.

As for being “taught to the test,” that didn’t happen at all. Yes, in eighth grade we did take two or three weeks to go over proper written response, but it was hardly the whole curriculum. I my be a little biased because I was in advanced courses at the time, but in eleventh grade my Honors Pre-Calc II teacher and my AP Language and Composition teacher each devoted one class period to that year’s test. It was, basically, “Answer the question and you’ll be fine.”

There are a few things that I wish I was taught more of in elementary school. My AP Language and Composition teacher found out that he was the first teacher ever to be given the task of teaching my class grammar. It was that year that I learned what a preposition was. I didn’t learn what a indirect object was until the next year in German class. Those are two thing that I think I should have known before high school. Then again, I went to public school . You can tell by looking at my handwriting.

 

[jmcrae]

Yes and no. Because the teachers are now forced to teach “to the test” they now teach how to spit out the answers as opposed to why those answers exist and how to find them.

If they actually do teach the kids the “why” aspect, and show them how the answers are arrived at, then it won’t matter what questions are on the test, because the kids will be able to answer anything that is asked of them. So, this seems like an excuse, to me.

For example, the students would be taught that 5X5=25. Though this is helpful, it is much more helpful to teach why 5X5=25 and in this way the student is now prepared to find out what 6X6 equals

Right, I agree. And then you only have to teach it once, and the kid can arrive at the answers to the entire times table under his own power. So, it seems like it would be much more efficient to teach the how and why of it, while using memorization as an extra tool in the tool box. (For example, if they memorize everything up to 9x9, along with the how and why, they’ll be able to quickly work out any multiplication problem given to them.)

It seems like a combination of teaching/learning styles should get you the results you need, quickly and accurately. It shouldn’t be “either/or”.

 

[human_being]

Those are all things we did in school back in the Dark Ages. I don’t see why they should not be learning them now.

I think it’s like a driver ed. teacher requiring a driver to know all parts of a car and fix it before being allowed to get a license to drive. Predicates and all that. The main point to me is that they can read. I’m not a great writer but I can read to try to understand things and I can speak the language. I think it makes sense that a more advanced student following honors courses or something may have a need to study the individual parts of sentences but disagree that it is a necessary state requirement for all children to know this in 4th grade. What about legal immigrants who speak a different language. I think they’d have to stay in 4th grade for 5 years before being able to go on to 5th. Interoggative is a much to advanced word for a 4th grader to understand. i can barely spell it. If it can’t be taught and understood thoroghly by 95% of the class within the regular school hours I don’t think it should be a state requirement. I have a job. The job needs to be done in a certain amount of time. If the teachers are being asked to teach a certain amount of material in a certain amount of time it should be an amount that is thoroghly understood by the vast majority in the allotted classroom time. It’s like pushing 2-4 hours overtime on children. Not much different than countries who have child labor. Because it all leads to employment anyways. If a family decides to advance their child by taking extra, outside of the classroom instruction, that is fine. But if a family decides that it is fine to learn the bare minimum, that should also be fine. No state required nonsense that may keep a working class of poor child extra years,(and there may be alot more of them with the looks of this economy) when maybe it would just be best to allow them out to work and help their family.

 

[mkingdomlvr]

Like I said-I don’t have children, so all I have to go on is my own experience in school. We learned everything you say your kids are learning now, and we all seemed to find plenty of time to play. Our neighborhood was full of kids riding bikes and playing ball from after school until supper. Of course, most of us didn’t watch TV during the school week and we didn’t have video games. That left plenty of time for homework after dinner before bedtime. I don’t recall being stressed out or upset about schoolwork at all.

My cousin and his wife have 5 children. After a visit to the local public school, they chose to educate all of them at home until HS, and their reasoning was primarily academic. They felt that the school was too busy worrying about their self esteem and not enough about their reading, math and science skills. Their oldest is nearly out of HS now, he’s been in honors the entire time, and will likely go on to a very good college. He has said all along that HS was “a walk in the park” and he was far ahead of his peers when he got there.

I

 

[Cat]

My two daughters attended a private, secular, college-prep country day school. Their academic day started at 8:00 A.M. and they were finished with the academic portion of school at 3:15 P.M. Then they started the extra-curricular activities. (That is what “country day school” means–the academic and the extra-curriculars are included with the education.) Sometimes they would come in at 7:00 A.M. for extra-curriculars, mainly club meetings and music practices.

The public schools in our city have much shorter hours–they start at 9:00 A.M. and they’re done at 2:15 P.M. Actually, all the schools vary in the start and finish times to accomodate the ponderous bussing system in our city, but the time spent in school is only 5.5 hours, compared to 7.25 hours in my kids’ prep school.

That tells you the whole story–kids who are only attending school for 5.5 hours are NOT being pushed too hard!

Read the Little House books. School started at 9:00 A.M. and was finished at 4:00 P.M. Kids today have it easy, especially, as so many others have said, much of elementary school is mushy psychological stuff promoting self-esteem, actualization, personal development, diversity understanding, and modern world-view. There are no Christmas pageants in public schools, but the classes will spend weeks preparing fluffy brotherhood songs and posters for a Martin Luther King celebration day, and then on his birthday, they stay home from school and go to the Mall and eat junk food! Seems to me that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is turning over in his grave!

With all this self-esteem promotion, 50% of our nation’s children are overweight or obese. Whatever happened to “recess?!”

My personal feeling is that one reason why kids appear to have more schoolwork today is that they have a lot more extracurriculars that take up much of their afternoon and evening. When I was growing up in the late 1960s, I had piano lessons. That’s it. I came home from school, practiced for a few hours, and once a week, my dad drove me to piano lessons.

Once I was in high school, I had more going on. But in elementary school, piano lessons were it. All the rest of the my out-of-school time was free.

But today, elementary kids are doing so much. My girls were both involved in figure skating from the time they were four years old. Once they were in school, they practiced in the early morning hours (6:00 A.M - 7:30 A.M.) because it was cheaper and it allowed them more time in the afternoon and evening to cram in still more activities.

Along with the practices came all the tests, the competitions, the ice shows, and the social activities. Yes, I’m talking elementary school! It got even busier as they got older, the jumps got bigger, and the competitions got harder.

And then there was synchronized skating teams–for seven years, we commuted into Chicago (65 miles one way) for 5:30 A.M. practices on Saturdays and Sundays, and several evenings a week for additional practices (the team is one of the best teams in the world).

My older daughter did ballet, community theater, and was very involved in church clubs.

My younger daughter did violin, piano, and several other sports.

They didn’t watch TV because they were never home. Friday night was our big family “crash night” and thankfully back then, the kids could watch good shows like Family Matters and Step By Step and Sabrina the Teenaged Witch on Fridays. Now it’s all junk unles you have cable.

For anyone who feels that this is too much for children–the kids loved it, and now that they are grown-up, still say they loved it. They learned to be very efficient in time management. They learned to study at the rink, or while waiting for a music or dance lesson, and my older daughter often studied in the car. And for the most part, we (parents) were with them almost all the time. Skating is a sport that parents have to be there for.

And when you think about it, in the generation before mine, the kids were just as busy, but they were doing adult work, often back-breaking farm chores. My dad often says that the reason he dropped out of school in 8th grade is that he would fall asleep trying to read after finishing chores and supper. And my mom dropped out in 9th grade because she had to pick cotton and help take care of several younger siblings.

 

[jmcrae]

I think it’s like a driver ed. teacher requiring a driver to know all parts of a car and fix it before being allowed to get a license to drive. Predicates and all that.

These are just the names of the parts of speech. Knowing how the English language is put together makes you a better communicator, even if, after the course is over, you never remember all those names again.

The main point to me is that they can read. I’m not a great writer but I can read to try to understand things and I can speak the language. I think it makes sense that a more advanced student following honors courses or something may have a need to study the individual parts of sentences but disagree that it is a necessary state requirement for all children to know this in 4th grade. What about legal immigrants who speak a different language. I think they’d have to stay in 4th grade for 5 years before being able to go on to 5th.

Professional language teachers tell us that it takes about three months to become fluent in a second language, and learn the parts of speech, if you practice and study it for three hours a day.

Interoggative is a much to advanced word for a 4th grader to understand.

Actually, for a fourth grader, learning the word “interrogative” and learning the word “supercalafragilisticexpialidocious” takes the same amount of time, and we certainly know that they can do the second one, easily enough.

i can barely spell it. If it can’t be taught and understood thoroghly by 95% of the class within the regular school hours I don’t think it should be a state requirement. I have a job. The job needs to be done in a certain amount of time. If the teachers are being asked to teach a certain amount of material in a certain amount of time it should be an amount that is thoroghly understood by the vast majority in the allotted classroom time. It’s like pushing 2-4 hours overtime on children. Not much different than countries who have child labor. Because it all leads to employment anyways. If a family decides to advance their child by taking extra, outside of the classroom instruction, that is fine. But if a family decides that it is fine to learn the bare minimum, that should also be fine. No state required nonsense that may keep a working class of poor child extra years,(and there may be alot more of them with the looks of this economy) when maybe it would just be best to allow them out to work and help their family.

An education is not just about being able to be employed in low wage jobs. It’s important that children be able to harness their own creativity, to use their minds for more than just understanding and following low-level instructions. Some of those kids are also going to be our politicians and our business leaders, as well as our actors, musicians, entertainers, and TV producers - and since we don’t know which kids those are going to be, we need to make sure that they all have the best possible chance to become the best leaders they can be, by giving them tools for communication, tools for thinking clearly, and tools for leadership and for creative endeavors.

What they choose to do with those tools later in life is, of course, up to them.

 

[human_being]

These are just the names of the parts of speech. Knowing how the English language is put together makes you a better communicator, even if, after the course is over, you never remember all those names again.

Professional language teachers tell us that it takes about three months to become fluent in a second language, and learn the parts of speech, if you practice and study it for three hours a day.

Actually, for a fourth grader, learning the word “interrogative” and learning the word “supercalafragilisticexpialidocious” takes the same amount of time, and we certainly know that they can do the second one, easily enough.

An education is not just about being able to be employed in low wage jobs. It’s important that children be able to harness their own creativity, to use their minds for more than just understanding and following low-level instructions. Some of those kids are also going to be our politicians and our business leaders, as well as our actors, musicians, entertainers, and TV producers - and since we don’t know which kids those are going to be, we need to make sure that they all have the best possible chance to become the best leaders they can be, by giving them tools for communication, tools for thinking clearly, and tools for leadership and for creative endeavors.

What they choose to do with those tools later in life is, of course, up to them.

3 months 3 hours/day is alot for some people. Probably alot of people. The rest is all well and good for me as long as it is being taught, and thoroghly understood, by the students IN SCHOOL ON SCHOOLS TIME.( if they want to lengthen the schoolday that is fine with me) If schooling is a state requirement and they make the requirements they should do it on there time and make the curriculum doable on their alotted time of my life. I work some crazy hours sometimes and it should not be up to me to educate them on things that I don’t understand myself. Basic reading and writing and math I can help with but teaching alot of the other stuff is beyond me and I am not getting a college degree to learn it myself. And my kids should not be punished with another year of schooling because I am not capable of teaching certain subjects,I am not a schoolteacher. and I surely don’t approve of the new growing trend of poisoning children with meds because they don’t take well to schooling and their parents can’t teach the stuff that the state requires.

 

[aspawloski4th]

You wouldn’t like my line of thinking then. I think the legal adult age should be moved back up to 21 and schooling required right up to that adult age, so we are not job training or paying welfare to them later in life when todays amd tommorow’s jobs can’t be done by them. If we keep up on this lacksidasical attitude twards education in our country most of our kids when grown up will either be flipping burgers or competing with migrants for apple picking jobs. Gm isn’t hiring anymore, making a good living on a brainless job is about to become a things of the past and rightfully so.

 

[drno]

I am not from United States, but I went to 6th grade (it was back in '93) in San Diego, so I can compare the two school programs.

I remember than in my country (Croatia), we learned fractions in 5th grade (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). In my San Diego school, we learned fractions in 6th grade, and they focused on addition and subtraction only, and only few “smarter” kids were taught fractional multiplication/division.

Another thing is languages - I was learning English from my 2nd grade, French from my 4th grade, and I started learning Latin from my 5th grade (contrary to what most people think, Latin comes in very handy when you are learning other languages; even English borrows a lot of words from Latin). In my San Diego class there were only few kids who were learning Spanish, but most kids could speak English only.

And, maybe the most important thing is, teaching children to organize their time and manage their priorities. In Croatian schools homework was much, much more serious that what I experienced in San Diego school. And when you have serious homework to do, and you have strict deadlines, you learn how to organize your time. Someone could probably say that kids need to play and not do homework, but I did have a lot of time to play, and today (as 28-year old) I don’t feel as if my childhood was bad because of sometimes hard homework assignments.

I’ve heard statements stating that so many other countries are so much farther ahead my whole life and I really haven’t seen the results. I’ve always heard that the Chinese were so much smarter yet their technologies and products don’t seem so much better. I’ve heard the same type of comparisons about the Japanese and about India. Yet I don’t see so much proof other than Japanese electronics, and I don’t doubt that our electronics would be just as advanced if people would be willing to pay a bit more for the labor involved. I also heard the stories of how the Russians and East Germans were so much more advanced yet their countries have collapsed.

A lot of very good students that went to University with me (in my country) moved to United States after graduating, because they can earn much more money working in the United States. My good friend is currently working on his PhD thesis in University in Arizona. He told me that most of his colleagues are not born in United States, and his professor is from Latin America. I personally don’t care, but I think that if american schools don’t improve, in near future americans will be working low-wage jobs, and highly-skilled immigrants will take over better jobs.

 

[CWBetts]

I voted no because I have spent the last four yoears as a tutor at a regional campus of a large university. Students are not learning. I have had to essetially teach students mathematics skills that should have been mastered before the 8th grade. I am talking basic fractions (addition. subtraction. multiplication and division), story problems involving mixtures, story problems involving distance, and basic quadratic equations. This is not hard stuff. I also had to tell people when the Revolutionary War was, and why it was fought. I have been asked who was involved in the Cold War. (And this was from a poli-sci major!!) Whatever is happening in our schools, many students are not learning the basics.

 

[human_being]

I voted no because I have spent the last four yoears as a tutor at a regional campus of a large university. Students are not learning. I have had to essetially teach students mathematics skills that should have been mastered before the 8th grade. I am talking basic fractions (addition. subtraction. multiplication and division), story problems involving mixtures, story problems involving distance, and basic quadratic equations. This is not hard stuff. I also had to tell people when the Revolutionary War was, and why it was fought. I have been asked who was involved in the Cold War. (And this was from a poli-sci major!!) Whatever is happening in our schools, many students are not learning the basics.

It’s kind of my point. I would like it learned THOROUGHLY in school. NOT QUICKLY… I think they push too much too quickly and it is not learned very well. It’s maybe the quantity vs. quality thing. And maybe alot more repitition should be used instead of going from subject to new subject to new subject so quickly.

 

[human_being]

I am not from United States, but I went to 6th grade (it was back in '93) in San Diego, so I can compare the two school programs.

I remember than in my country (Croatia), we learned fractions in 5th grade (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). In my San Diego school, we learned fractions in 6th grade, and they focused on addition and subtraction only, and only few “smarter” kids were taught fractional multiplication/division.

Another thing is languages - I was learning English from my 2nd grade, French from my 4th grade, and I started learning Latin from my 5th grade (contrary to what most people think, Latin comes in very handy when you are learning other languages; even English borrows a lot of words from Latin). In my San Diego class there were only few kids who were learning Spanish, but most kids could speak English only.

And, maybe the most important thing is, teaching children to organize their time and manage their priorities. In Croatian schools homework was much, much more serious that what I experienced in San Diego school. And when you have serious homework to do, and you have strict deadlines, you learn how to organize your time. Someone could probably say that kids need to play and not do homework, but I did have a lot of time to play, and today (as 28-year old) I don’t feel as if my childhood was bad because of sometimes hard homework assignments.

A lot of very good students that went to University with me (in my country) moved to United States after graduating, because they can earn much more money working in the United States. My good friend is currently working on his PhD thesis in University in Arizona. He told me that most of his colleagues are not born in United States, and his professor is from Latin America. I personally don’t care, but I think that if american schools don’t improve, in near future americans will be working low-wage jobs, and highly-skilled immigrants will take over better jobs.

My daughter just had a final exam with fractions in 2nd grade.

 

[CWBetts]

It’s kind of my point. I would like it learned THOROUGHLY in school. NOT QUICKLY… I think they push too much too quickly and it is not learned very well. It’s maybe the quantity vs. quality thing. And maybe alot more repitition should be used instead of going from subject to new subject to new subject so quickly.

These skills should be REQUIRED before graduating high school. SO obviously, there is a disconnect between what is presented in class and what is learned. IMHO, if you can’t add fractions in 4th grade, you shouldn’t be going to 5th

 

[human_being]

You wouldn’t like my line of thinking then. I think the legal adult age should be moved back up to 21 and schooling required right up to that adult age, so we are not job training or paying welfare to them later in life when todays amd tommorow’s jobs can’t be done by them. If we keep up on this lacksidasical attitude twards education in our country most of our kids when grown up will either be flipping burgers or competing with migrants for apple picking jobs. Gm isn’t hiring anymore, making a good living on a brainless job is about to become a things of the past and rightfully so.

There is nothing wrong with labor jobs. Or trades jobs. A country shouldn’t be without them. And at the risk of getting into a full blown argument I must say that I feel that I have met my share of college educated people who really don’t seem to show that the money spent on their education was used very well…It got them a good paying job with authority but I’ve seen people without a degree demonstate better management skills at times…But please let’s stick to elementary school on this one. And we may be paying welfare for a good number of people,college educated or not if the economy continues in the direction it is going. And the college jobs are getting shipped overseas almost as quickly as the manufacturing jobs anymore. I think IBM offerred jobs to it’s employees if they moved to the country’s their moving too. And I think the wage will be equivalant to the country’s that they are moving too.(but I don’t know the wage thing for a fact) but if it becomes the new trend…the college loans will never be paid back. There are alot of people who didn’t go to college and there always will be. I don’t think it’s all it’s cracked up to be. I think if someone trully desires to learn something they can do so in college…but I think the majority of students are only in college for a bigger paycheck than the “brainless guy” and alot of them that come out are not really worth a bigger paycheck than the brainless guy. I’ve seen a few come out in my time that really don’t want to work. They didn’t want to work for the amount of time they were in college and they don’t want to work now. And they definitely feel they are far above the brainless guys job although I have yet to figure why. I think the whole college thing is highly overrated. And I don’t think it is so necessary for most that go… Like I said if someone is really truly into learning something about something and their mind and spirit are set on it, they can probably achieve great things in their field… But I think most are just there for money…just like the brainless guy is there for money…But who knows maybe the brainless guy really likes his job… and actually knows what he is doing rather than pretending.

 

[drno]

My daughter just had a final exam with fractions in 2nd grade.

Wow