In a message dated 9/8/2003 7:37:33 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<<
What the school board member was actually trying to say is that kids can use
microsoft office to learn word processing , same program everybody else
uses. >>
Nice try, but no. She was really surprised that //e computers could do
word processing, and no one on the school board came to her defense. Remember,
lots of computers were placed in classrooms without training teachers how to
use them, or supporting them with software. Oregon Trail, Word Munchers, Math
Munchers and maybe, if you're really lucky, some StickyBear might be all that
were in the teachers' software library for years. AppleWorks? Ha! Even
when districts bought district licenses for it, most folks didn't know what to do
with it--especially without a printer. So the answer every year is to
upgrade the computers--newer, networked, and obsolete before they're installed.
Did they buy the computers? Sure. And the kids? They take 5 questions
tests in a text-based program which ask simple recall questions about books
they have read. Yeah, we really needed new computers for that.
<< I worked with an older guy who said his kid can only tell time with a
digital clock, how lame is that. >>
Usually, it's the twenty and thirty-year-olds that I run across that
can't/won't tell time with an analog clock. "It's too hard."
<< I think schools are trying to teach kids to be conformists, not to be free
thinkers and to learn tasks in different ways. If there are 5 ways to do
something your kid must do it the 1 way the teacher thinks it has to be done
(or is told it has to be done by the school board).
Are kids taught to learn anymore or just recite stuff back to the teacher? >>
Sad, but true. State standardized testing is tied to funding and
supervision of districts/schools by the state. Schools/Districts want money and
don't want to be told how and what to teach, so it's easier, safer, cowardly to
bow to the bean counters and follow the test writers so that each year students
will (hopefully) make their ten points progress. "Don't worry about helping
the bright ones," our principal told us last year. "See? We earn more points
by raising a poor student a little, than we do by raising a bright student a
lot." So, now we teach fourth graders out the fifth grade math book, because
those are the concepts on the test, not the fourth grade material that was
adopted by the state and we were told to teach. Rush, rush, rush--get through the
10 months of material in seven so the students have been at least exposed to
the concepts before the end the the year test--which is taken in April or May,
not June. Yes, there are five ways to solve that problem--and Jenny can
learn them in short order and be ready to tackle new concepts-- but Billy and Juan
are two years behind already. Just get them so they can do it. Jose? He's
absent two days a week now and falling farther behind each month. Hard to be
responsible for a student who isn't in the classroom to learn, but we are.
Fifth graders reading at first grade levels are given fifth grade books
that they can't read, leave class to get help reading--and are given more fifth
grade level reading material that they can't read. Why? Because bean
counters have declared that the reason Johnny does poorly on the annual test isn't
because he can't read worth spit, but because he's being tested with fifth
grade materials that he hasn't been exposed to, because he was reading 2nd or
third grade material more within his reach.
Same for math. No, he can't add, but his class is working on multiplying
fractions, so that's what he's supposed to learn in resource.
What will solve this problem?
More computers, of course. Same answer given for records, tapes,
filmstrip projectors, movies, instructional videos, ...
Taxpayers have seen more and more money spent on schools without big
increases in scores, and they'd like some evidence that more money will address
the problem. That's reasonable. Computers? That ain't the answer. As Woz
said at KFEST, he visited a primary grade class and asked how many of the kids
read books. Hardly any hands went up. How many of them had a computer a home?
Every hand went up.
Oh, how did we ever learn to read without computers?
JaY
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