Why I’m Homeschooling My Kid in Science Next Year
It’s no surprise to me that Colorado’s public school system is not good. I mean, I’m a product of the Boulder Valley School District and I can tell you first hand that it’s not great at preparing one for college, or anything for that matter.
So, it shouldn’t come as a big shock to me that I need to pick up the slack for what my sons are NOT learning about science in school.
My first experience with just how bad things were occurred back in the early 1990’s. I was giving a presentation to some 5th graders when I asked the question: “When did the United States first land a man on the moon?”
No one raised their hand. In fact, most didn’t know we had ever been to the moon, and of those that did know, a substantial fraction doubted that we were there at all (parents were probably moon-landing-hoaxers).
And I have a TON of stories like that.
Fast forward to this last school year. My 7th grade son is a very good student, gets A’s in just about everything. He LOVES science, especially astronomy (imagine that) and he and I have great conversations about what the universe is like and what it’s like to be a scientist. He eats that stuff up so I know he does his best in his science class.
Yet, throughout all of last year, his grade in science was C-. In every report card.
Photo Credit: Lost In Scotland
Technorati Tags: astronomy education, becoming an astronomer, csap, homeschooling, no child left behind
He was devastated because he knew how important science is to me and he always thought he knew science better than all of his classmates (and I agree with him, I’ve met some of those kids. Let’s just say critical thinking doesn’t come naturally to them).
Getting that C- consistently really took a toll on him, he couldn’t understand what was going on. He really knows his stuff and always scored well on tests.
Naturally, I talked to the teacher to investigate.
It turns out my son IS a good student, DID understand the material and WAS way ahead of the other students in his comprehension of the material.
BUT, he couldn’t organize his science notebook.
“I’m sorry, he can’t organize what?”, I asked.
“His science notebook. He failed the notebook checks. They were worth 100 points each, almost 80 percent of his grade.”, the science teacher calmly explained with a huge smirk on her face.
“What does that have to do with science?”, I asked, but by then I knew what was going on and that I wasn’t about to get anywhere. I left the teacher conference furious.
I’m all too familiar with this kind of teacher. She was a stickler for organization. All materials had to be inserted in the notebooks EXACTLY and each item had to have the name in a certain place, with the information outlined EXACTLY as specified.
Now, I understand the need to teach kids organizational skills, I really do. But to make it 80% of a grade?
What this teacher really wanted was the students to do all of her work for her. She didn’t want to have to search through reams of paper to try and figure out what the student knew. She just wanted to open the notebook and start checking off the existence of items, each containing the proper words so she could get through the grading as fast as possible.
She wasn’t the slightest bit interested in whether or not the kids learned anything, only that the notebooks were in proper order.
This isn’t all though folks, not by a long shot. I mean, I could let that go if that were the only issue because he would get a different, and hopefully more competent teacher next year.
But in Colorado, all students are required to take the Colorado Student Aptitude Test (CSAP), as part of the Leave Every Child Behind Act. This means that all school year until March, but especially from January to March, my kids are getting immersed in that test. The teachers do NOTHING ELSE but teach that test.
Then, after March, when the pressure is off, the teachers pretty much coast through April, May and the first part of June. This is the only time when my kids have a real chance at getting a useful education, and it’s wasted because “Whew, we’re done with that test.”
The CSAP is the only thing that is actually measured, so everything else, like the actual education itself, is ignored.
I simply cannot allow my kids to come out of the education system in Colorado without learning basic science and developing their critical thinking skills. As a parent, I take full responsibility for my kids education, so I’ll do it myself.
So, every Tuesday and Thursday of the next school year, I’ll be pulling my then 8th grade son out of class for his last period (along with his friend and three other homeschooled students) and teaching them science.
How can I do this? Why would the school let me take the boys out like that every week? Because so long as the boys are in class for a certain percentage of the school day, the school gets the credit for them and they get paid. The principal told me that’s all they care about: getting paid. I could do whatever I wanted with them in science as long as they met certain minimum knowledge standards.
Standards they do NOT hold themselves to, by the way.
No problem though, I can meet those just by spending one hour in front a telescope with them.
The two days I’ll have them at home will be spent teaching, discussing and working on science topics with assignments to do on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I picked those two days to meet because of the seemingly infinite number of three day weekends the kids get in school for ‘planning days’ and other holidays. This would minimize any missed days due to that bullsh*t.
So now, I get to spend the rest of my summer planning a science curriculum for my son and his friends. You can bet it’ll be heavy on astronomy, but I can guarantee you that, based on what I’ve seen so far, they’ll be WAY ahead of their classmates by the time I’m done with them.
And I couldn’t care less about the state of their goddam notebooks.
Hallo, science teacher here. From Canada.
This caught my interest:
It’s about the only thing I can disagree with you on… If you have 160 or 200 students, the teacher’s life is all about efficiency. And, for better or worse, that includes an organized notebook.
Hell, I even go further – my students use a specific colour duotang for every one of six units. After they submit the unit, I hold onto them until final exam review time. Unless of course a paren t writes in to say that they can handle the storage duties, and like to review past units with their kids.
Amazing how little that happens, though.
Anyhow, yes, we do. We do impose certain procedures on our students so that our (teachers’) lives are a bit easier. And it does, as you point out, also teach organization.
A lasting skill, arguably more important than memorizing who Clyde Tombaugh was.
(OK, I just threw that in to bug you. I am an amateur astronomer, so please, no flames!)
Anyhow, you’ve done well grasshopper, and nothing short of what I would do. Well, I might call the Pricnipal and see what she had to say about the 80% thing.
My guideline is that no line item on a report card will be responsible for a significant drop in grades (we don’t do letter grades hereabouts, but equivalent to a letter grade drop) should that item be bombed. Except for quizzes and exams, that is.
80% for notes is clearly stupid. I salute you for not going Islamic on that teacher’s ass.
Regards!
Teacher With a Bad Attitude
My mom was a 7th grade science teacher for almost 30 years. Before that she had actually worked for Dupont for a few years. She was a great teacher, and I learned so much more from her than I did in my own school. My mom brought home extra frogs to dissect & took me and my friends to museums and on “field trips” all the time. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world to sit next to my mom as we’d watch NOVA & Nature on PBS together, discussing what we each learned.
But as she got older, she was paid much more than the school district would have to pay a fresh-outta-college teacher, and so they started to move her around, teaching different grades each year, until she felt forced to retire.
It’s such a shame that the system is set up so that it’s so easy to discourage good teachers, and yet so hard to get rid of the truly bad ones.
I hope you cherish the time you have with your son; your story has reminded me how much I have to thank my mom for.
Two words.
Teacher’s Union.
You can’t fire them.
I was homeschooled, and am currently a Freshman in college.
All I can say is, I’m blown away by how easy “real” school is in comparison to homeschooling. As long as you allow your kid to have an adequate social life, I highly recommend homeschooling.
I loved being homeschooled, I was allowed to progress so much faster without being slowed down by other students.
It’s an incredible learning experience for both the student and the parent. Go for it!
I happened upon your blog from reddit, and I must say I agree with you. When I was in junior high, we learned all the important stuff and there was no CSAP or anything (I live and grew up in Queens, New York). But I admire your ability to weed out bad teaching behavior from merely a student saying “my teacher hates me” because they don’t want to admit the bad grades are their fault. My parents would ALWAYS agree with the teachers NO MATTER WHAT, until now that I’m an inch away from being 26, now they’ll admit that a lot of my teachers were idiots. Gee thanks guys, but that would’ve been more helpful when I was, oh I don’t know, seven?!
Go you.
You complain that the teachers and administration are selfish, and only care about finishing grading as fast as possible, getting good test scores, getting their money… all valid points.
Then, rather than try to fix the system, you — selfishly — just pull out your own kid and his friends?
Moral of the story — the teachers only care about themselves, and you only care about yourself. Good lesson for your son.
I feel for your kid, and I can relate VERY much.
I graduated this year, class of 2007. I’ve survived public schooling for about half of my educational career – left a private school in fifth grade over a parents issue with a new principal.
Since then, I’ve run up against the old ‘copy this exactly the way we show you’ so many times it made me want to scream. I’ve been exposed to several new-fashioned methods of note-taking, each more complicated than the last and less useful. Fortunately in high school the staff didn’t yet subscribe to this nonsense.
80% of the kid’s grade for neatness is utter B.S. Thomas Edison’s invention factory at Menlo Park was probably an utter mess – and look how he turned out.
This overemphasis on organazation could have two root causes:
1. An excuse to have very little actual content to teach and just have tons of busywork.
2. An attempt by the powers that be to drill your kids to follow to the letter what the person in charge says, whoever that may be.
As much as I hate to say it, both of them may be to blame. Our public educaiton system is a national embarassment and so #1 wouldn’t surprise me at all. As for the second, companies from Mcdonald’s to the myriad telemarketing places place high value on low-skill employees who do exactly what they’re told, over and over and over.
It’s all quite frightening, really.
Maybe I missed the boat here?
Why did you wait until the end of the year to find out why your child was getting a poor grade? There are progress reports and report cards throughout the year?
I don’t mean to offend, but if/when my child comes home with a grade that is not the norm, my wife and I immediately get involved to find out why and what we can do to correct the problem.
Also, at the seventh grade level I’m sure your child was well aware that this notebook was a big part of his grade – - why didn’t he take responsibility for this?
I hope my comments didn’t offend you – - just thought I’d offer a different view.
I think all parents need to be very involved with their child’s development because it’s obvious some school systems are not and we can’t expect the system to ensure each child is properly educated – - sad but true.
apply some of your science to the moon landing videos and u would know y they dont teach that crap in school
its like teachin the kids we attacked iraq cuase it was right thing to do
My freshman year science teacher put it best…
“In college they don’t care how you organize things, that is left up to you. You are the ones who need to be able to organize information in which ever way works best for you, and because I am preparing you for college, I am going to prepare you for that and NOT care.”
It’s very comforting to meet parents that do care and take action.
I wish you the best of luck with your en devour and hope that other’s will see what is really going on and follow suit.
Lets face facts, the US’s public school system is a joke at best.
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt was a top official at the Department of Education. She wrote a book exposing how the whole purpose of the Department of Education is to dumb down the kids of america so the elite can have an easily fooled group of sheeple. She thought this is so important that the books is a free download on her site. There is also a movie on bit torrent. Just go to pirate bay and type in Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. The book is huge and has documents galore that she took out of the department. If you know a teacher or someone in education go burn the video or download the book and get it to them. We got to wake people up to this criminality.
As someone interested in science yourself you should know first hand that keeping an organized notebook is an extremely vital skill to have in the science world. Without a notebook, any work you do as a scientist is entirely meaningless. The maintenance of a notebook is necessary for publishing papers and, if need be, reproducing your results.
Your rant about the notebook is quite insane to be honest. Yes, sure, if you do poorly on your notebook there is no way to do well in the class. But if you look at it the other way, and you do well on your notebook, its very easy to do well in that class. Why is maintaining a notebook so difficult?
Organization is also an important life skill. If your son cannot keep a notebook organized how do you expect him to keep track of bills and other important tasks?
And a curriculum heavy in astronomy? That is worse than having a teacher with crazy notebook demands. Your son is going to suffer as a result of your terrible overreaction to a bad teacher experience. How can you just try to mix in all the sciences and then focus in on astronomy? Also, astronomy is useless at a high school level. Try chemistry or biology or physics… When was the last time you saw any standardized exam with astronomy on it? Never? That’s right.
I cannot believe this article was written. What a terrible vent. Find something else to do. In the time you wrote this you could have been helping your kid organize his fucking notebook.
I got so bored by the public school system here in CO when I was in JR high. This example of teachers here is only the start, and the school system could care less about the students. When I have kids, they will be home schooled.
Having been a science teacher my entire career (35+ years), I thought the essay was pretty accurate. Unfortunately, since all these tests have come down on teachers, and their survival in their jobs depend on students doing well on a test, they will naturally “teach to the test”. This is a very huge mistake because no real teaching could get done, and many “teachable moments” have to be passed by because if an administrator happens by a classroom where this is happening and the teacher is not “teaching the standards”, that teacher is in a lot of trouble! I know since I have been there.
The teaching load is way too heavy for a teacher who wants to do a decent job. I challenge anyone to read 160 papers every day written in the terrible prose of the students! It is almost impossible to have less than 60-70 work weeks at a rate of pay which is always less than a “real job”.
In additoin, too many parents don’t really care, or worse yet, blame the school and teachers when their child is the one who screws up. This is a HUGE change from when I first got into teaching.
So, let’s see, the teacher has to please the students, parents, administrators, and most of all themselves. It is a very difficult job, and not no wonder 50% of all new teachers quit the profession within the first 5 years of geting into it!
I wish I had answers, but clearly, hitting everyone with tests that must be passed, no matter what, is not the answer.
I am all for home schooling. Recently I was assisting one of my friends daughters with her final major work sewing/art for the HSC (Higher School Certificate in Australia) and she had no idea how to cut out a pattern correctly, how to do darts effectively, how to even use a sewing machine correctly, had NO idea what different stitches were used and what they were called, no idea between the different machine needles and why you used one over the other and had never, in year 12 sewing, put in a zipper.
I shook my head and when I met the teacher I realised why. The state of the Australian schools are about the same as above. very sad indeed.
Sadly, this isnt a Colorado-specific incident. Michigan is no better, and I feel this is just what the education system has become.
School is really just a day long “rinse and repeat” session… with an “A” student only needing to be able to memorize, understanding is not needed, nor is it rewarded.
Memorizing facts may be enough to “learn” history, but is not enough for a person to be able to put mathematics or science to use. This is obvious in our colleges as Asian and Indian (by birth, not by race) students come out of our universities as doctors, researchers and the like, while those schooled in the U.S. predominantly choose a business major (welcome to mediocrity).
Our school system is in ruins and we do not wish to face it.
On a trip to Russia a few years back I saw high school aged children paint and sculpt, and so many exceptional pianists and violinists that the term prodigy isnt appropriate. More excelled at music than did not!
Here we are dropping our music and art classes so that we can buy the athletic team new uniforms… so that 1 student in 50,000+ can have a slim shot at a career in sports.
I completely understand what you mean and you are fully in right to teach your son yourself. I would go as far to encourage you to fully homeschool him although then he loses out on the social aspect of attending school.
I’m a sophomore in college right now. I spent 7 years in the Colorado public system though. Ohh boy, do I remember CSAPs. How you explained it was exact to the point. The first 7 months of school was studying for that test. We all knew it was easy coasting after March. We didn’t get out of school for another 2.5 months although we could slack off after that.
Similarly in my science class in 9th grade, I would consistently be marked down because I forgot to bring my daily planner to write down our homework. Unfortunately though, unless we do something to change the schooling system it’s not going to change itself.
You’re right on. I’m a public school teacher who works in a DEP (Disciplinary Education Program). I see so many kids in there who are bucking the system, and in my opinion, rightly so. The only reason I teach at this point is because I know what my replacement would be like.
Your kiddo is fortunate indeed.
I’m dropping a college course because, after student teaching, I realized that the most important thing about learning– reading books and coming to conclusions, was being done for me by the professor.
i.e. I hope that you don’t “over design” your curriculum. i.e. I tend to like the idea that educators should follow the interests of the students because diversity makes our society tick.
thus, at this point, I try to get away from professors and read and analyze the material myself; in general, my reading ability has improved tremendously.
Okay, I’m back, and I’m sorry this reads like a treatise. Maybe I just think that teachers really are one of the great underappreciated groups of people, or maybe I’m just too darn opinionated. I apologize in advance.
Penny, I enjoyed your comment. I am not, however, sure that you indeed gave me two –separate- branches of science as examples (that was a joke, I very much recognize the importance and distinction of the two). :) I too am a nonlinear thinker. That’s exactly why I needed to keep a notebook: by the end of a lecture I was debating whether gravity was an effect of the uniform expansion of particles throughout the universe, and so I frequently had to go back and look at what had actually been talked about. Actually, the truth is, I only occasionally went back to look at my notes, but I had a much easier time staying on track while I was taking them. It was also very nice to have them on the rare occasion I needed them, even when they were not neat or orderly. Yes, I too experienced lower grades due to poor organization, but it encouraged me to understand that, in order to share information, I first had to organize it.
I am not lucky enough to have an eidetic memory, though I understand how having a good multidimensional memory makes it difficult to re-organize notes on paper. Also, I admit that, because people think differently, note taking is not for all of us, and one style is certainly not for all of us. In part, what concerned me is that the student had to get past at least one report card before anyone brought up the issue of needing to try a different tack. I am glad that it was eventually discussed, and I just hope that another parent, reading this, has the chance to jump on a solution earlier. It’s unfortunate that the teacher was inflexible on this point, but then, how does the teacher know the kid who has trouble organizing from the one who slacks off all week and then crams for a Friday test only to forget it Monday? Yes, I am aware that there are solutions, but I also do not agree that this teacher is inherently lazy or misdirected in using this particular one. In fact, I would give this teacher kudos for attempting to do something other than simply “teach to the test”.
I do think a notebook and the skill to use one are good tools, but I’m also not here to condemn people who have difficulty with “the box”- I know I did, and I think many good minds (notably Einstein) do. Sometimes a little adversity breeds genius. Nonetheless, good notebooks are a generally important life skill and certainly a good way to learn forms of organized problem solving, observation, information sharing, and record keeping that are extremely valuable to science. Perhaps the grading could have been reweighed, but I am not overall against using this as a guideline.
Kath, you point out something important about your mom. I think all kids can learn a LOT from their parents, and I think all children are “home schooled” at least a little. I also think you make a good point about school systems having some bureaucratic flaws. Unions are both good and bad. I currently work under a union contract, and I chose this job because of that contract. I know that there are some bad apples where I work, who survive because of the union, but I also know that the vast majority are genuinely good, diligently hard working people, who have to deal with the scum of society on a daily basis and can still go home smiling. So do unions work? They do if they set a good example and provide burnt out workers with a good exit plan. They don’t if they force people out who should be there or let people in without proving that they are right for the job. They also have to work with, and not against, management unless it simply becomes impossible to agree.
I’m not out against home schooling. I have some very good friends who were home schooled, and I can’t say they are particularly different from my other friends (we are all “different” but it’s hard to separate the weird from the weird, and the weirdness is a product of the selection process, not necessarily the home schooling). I do think the home-schooled have a potential to miss out on learning from their peers, and that is usually a shame. Smart kids will often learn valuable things from their peers. That does not mean that a home classroom can’t be set up for peer involvement though, and I have certainly seen many set up that way.
I will say that the one aspect of my home-schooled friends that is anecdotally consistent is that often they are almost unconsciously and unintentionally elitist. They describe me as being one of the few people “smart enough to be worth talking to” (I have them very cleverly fooled) or mention how grateful they are that they were not “held back by the other students”. In all of my time working with students, I rarely found that there was not something that one student could not learn from another. In my time as a student, I learned at least as much directly related to the course through peer interaction as I did from the course material, and this was not the fault of the material. While at least one of my home schooled friends is very near brilliant, at least three of my close high school friends were certifiably brilliant, and I was the one so touchingly described here as “holding them back”. Fortunately they didn’t see it that way.
Yes, there were idiots in my high school. One of my friends was once induced to say of a classmate “I just want to go beat my head against the wall, until I can be as stupid as him and understand”. There were also bad teachers. At least one of them was more or less forced to retire the year after I had her class, as was another excellent teacher who was just in the wrong program. Another probably is still teaching, despite being utterly inept. There were teachers I loved that my classmates hated. There were teachers I disliked that my classmates adored. For every bad teacher or student, though, I had at least two that truly inspired me and brought a subject to life even if I was terrible at it. The truth is that the worst of my teachers were not terrible; they were simply mediocre, but I am not against your judgment that your this “bad apple” isn’t working for your son, and I congratulate you in managing to work with the school to the extent you have. Don’t put the weight of one teacher on the whole system, though, and I hope you make an effort to seek out good teachers (and teach this to your new students) and work with them in the future.
I say this because I believe in teachers. The best of mine were exemplary both as teachers and as people. They encouraged me to think outside of the box, to do research on my own time, to ask questions and, yes to think critically. They also taught me to take good notes, set up equations, learn tricks for mathematical expansions and memorize a few things that I would need over and over again. They did not prepare me to follow blindly, nor did they encourage me to criticize blindly (I learned that from craigslist… oops). They often gave me information that was unpopular but true, and asked me to take it in the larger picture. They occasionally let us lick slugs. They appreciated our lame jokes, and opened up their classrooms for discussions during their break times. One even gave her class her home phone number, as if grading and teaching a few hundred kids wasn’t enough. This year in Beaverton, Oregon, I was witness to a team of middle school students led through a school program who were doing college graduate level research. (See ORTOP, National Competitions- I can proudly say this team won first place and it was no easy match.)
Of my friends who wished they had found a better path through life, it was often a strict community outside of school that they blame for their lack of foresight, usually not the school. I, however, learned a lot in school that I simply would not have learned otherwise.
That said I have learned a lot more being involved in the teaching process. I think it is good for everyone to teach, and I think you are giving your son and his fellow students the opportunity to share a great wealth of knowledge with their peers. I hope that you don’t forget to teach the basics of the scientific process, and spend some time on problem solving (be it the kind that happens in the lab or the kind that happens on paper), and I am glad to hear that you will spend time with the telescope- I hope you find other hands on demonstrations (a lot of university and museum web sites have some excellent ideas for these). Also, don’t neglect community outdoor programs and regional innovation competitions. Spend some time talking about ethical science. Lastly, make sure your students are responsible for helping a few of the people who were “dragging them down” catch up a little. You never know, they might learn something. :)
I find it disappointing that such an interest in the development of the students as scientists isn’t matched by an equal concern for their development as people who don’t blaspheme, even when it could be argued it’s deserved as in the case of the notebook.
I wish I had the ability to do this. My son has to do the similar damned test and I raised hell with the school over the exact same issue. The fact that the teachers, and school, are ONLY focused on getting the kids ready for that test, forsaking anything they don’t think will be on that test. No child left behind is leaving our nation behind, we will woe the day when we realize what this test is doing to our entire countries children.
As a recent student of the California public school system, let me say THANK YOU!
I was always one of the smartest in most of my classes, but am very poorly organized and forgot to turn in quite a bit of homework, so I was getting very low grades (despite acing every test put in front of me)
I decided to skip the whole high school scene all together because of that. After my sophomore year I took the California High School Proficiency Exam (like a GED) Took a year off to plan the next few years of my life, and am not in a JR college with goals to transfer to UCSC.
From what penny was saying, I just have a question on note-taking skills. Since you have a eidetic memory, doesn’t mean everyone else in the class has it. In elementary, it is to prepare everyone who has all kinds of different learning style to practice the idea of note-taking and organizing notes. I agree with what the teacher has done in her position, for the students in her class would not care if it wasn’t for marks. Forget the idea how the teacher wanted to get through it as fast as possible, it is also in student’s best of interest. If the student doesn’t like the teacher, tell their parents, get a new teacher, simple.
Interesting enough, the teacher that taught that grade 8 class is probably new to teaching. I don’t blame that at all. And I think the idea of having you pull out the kids out from last period is a good idea. Well, in my old high school, we got to choose what kind of course to take, didn’t have to take all the mandatory courses required. If I wanted to, I could have taken all sciences, physics; chemistry; biology. And later in the years of high school, I could even go into deep concentration if I was really interested in science.
Chris
I’m a high school student from Texas. We’ve had to take a standardized exam like the CSAT since…well, as far back as I can remember. It is the most mindless, idiotic thing I have ever been forced to undertake, year after year after year.What you say is true here as well. Teachers spend the majority of the school year teaching to the lowest common denominator, the pointless babble for the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and skills) It’s material that in other countries would equate to several grade levels below. Why? Because some parents prefer that rather than admitting that their child is slow in certain areas and requires some special education. They take it as an insult for their child to be classified as challenged, not even necessarily mentally retarded. This ignorance passes down to their children also, producing the stigma that there is something ‘wrong’ with them, which only makes it harder on those kids.
The inadequacy of the government funded educational system, my parents lack of proper education to homeschool me with has forced me to teach myself whatever I can, however poorly as it may be taught. Autodidacticism is great, but it shouldn’t have to be a last resort because the government didn’t keep their responsibility to properly educate me.
Here’s to you, your kids, and more parents realizing the same.
Welcome to a Republican America! At least they’re being exposed to “science” and not taking Sunday school classes. I wish you well and hope your sons succeed in college.
I truly understand what your son was going through. In my first computer class in High School, I lost 20% of my mark because my binder was considered incomplete. Apparently, I was totally at fault for not keeping and taking every single handout and note. Every time a handout was given I wondered, why would I need to write it down and have 4 hand outs about how to copy a file. This was a class where my teacher had to ask me for answers and clarifications on the materials she was teaching. In fact I probably could have taught that class myself.
Unfortunately after my mother argued with the teacher, we were forced to photocopy another student’s entire binder and then place it in mine. Something that was absolutely a waste of time and gave no indication that about my knowledge of the materials.
I hope you continue to post on the progress of your home schooling. My wife and I are expecting and I am seriously beginning to worry about what my child will be taught.
The education problem is a nation-wide issue. Teachers are being taught to teach on the strictest levels instead of teachers being hired as lovers of knowledge who are able to spread the love of knowledge. I would not be the college student I am now without the guidance of the one teacher (out of about 50-some). I owe my mind to this woman who had the uncanny ability to make me excited about discovery, intellect, argument, and problem-solving. Besides her, I nearly flunked out of high school because well… I never did any homework and I only took tests and wrote essays (and only because ‘that’ teacher was an English teacher, and actually gave me challenging essays to write about, but was still somewhat restricted by the inaptitude of my peers). I was frustrated in high school, and I’m now frustrated with college because the general education classes I’m required to take are being slowed by the same the same kind of peer who never was taught how to love learning, but only taught how to ‘get a grade’ and ‘go through the motions’. I’m actually glad that, most of them don’t have what it takes to maintain actual knowledge in college and are forced to drop out because it’s ‘too hard’. I’m not glad because they’re misfortunate; I’m glad because they are no longer a burden in a class to ‘baby’ and take care of.
I’m very glad, Tony, that you are taking the initiative to make sure your children have the necessary skills that are required to excel in college and not be a burden to a college class, or be a waste of college tuition (weather it be from your pocket, hard-earned scholarships, or student loans). I just wish that more schools would employ teachers who actually cared about the minds they were responsible for maturing and looking at education as a joy that needs to be paid forward.
You have my full agreement and sympathy. But you are too generous on one point.
Like your son I always loved and excelled in science. I am a National Merit Scholar, have a post-graduate degree and in the last IQ test ever administered in a US elementry school had a score of zero (explained to me that the test they used was insufficient to measure my IQ). Yet throughout my public elementry schooling I received not just mediocre but failing grades. When my mother came to meet my teachers, among the many behavioral problems cited were reading my own books in class instead of paying attention and writing essays that deviated from the assigned material.
As to the point where you were too generous? Your sons teacher was not so lazy that she wanted everything laid out for her. In fact, the organization of the notebook is the only thing she could possibly offer a grade on. She doesn’t have any idea of science beyond what she can read out loud from the primer. Nor is any such knowledge a requirement for her job. Likewise, my reading teacher was illiterate. Also not a prerequisite.
I totally understand the intentions behind your move to home school. But dont your think changing schools might be a better idea? Science in school should cover a broad set of disciplines – Physics, Chemistry, Biology. Do you have the expertise to teach all of these?
My experience in school (India) was pretty good. Compared to what I have seen in the US, I came out of the K12 equivalent system very well prepared for college. That would not have been possible without teachers with in depth knowledge in what they were teaching. At the very minimum a school teacher should have atleast an MS in the area he/she is teaching.
There is something to be said for learning organization in a science class. In college labs your lab notebook organization is at least supposed to be important.
In general middle school sucks. I was like your son and had organization problems. In high school my chemistry class also had a notebook that we had to keep track of all the worksheets, I didn’t do so well on it, but it didn’t matter since the grade was mostly based on the tests. Middle school is all worksheets, notebooks and posters, which can put your son at a temporary disadvantage.
My main suggestion would be to on the lookout for the good science teachers. I had an awesome biology teacher in high school. I’m sure you could get some fetal pigs and dissect them at home, but do you really want to? ;)
I’m in highschool an I have never had a good science teacher. The one’s I’ve had in high school can’t teach. They may know the stuff, but they can’t teach at all. One teacher gave us worksheets to do every class, another did nothing and another just read us the textbook everyday. They are absolutely terrible.
I am a high school drop out, from a Colorado High School. I am also a college drop in. If you don’t know what that is I am not certain I can explain it satisfactorily .
During my years in the public education system I found myself driven further away from school. During my elementary school years I was extremely interested in science. I read books on astronomy, geology and any other branch of science which caught my fancy.
It’s amazing what a book report will do to a young mind when faced with a question such as who were the main characters, the book was on geology. My teacher surely thought that igneous and sedimentary were people.
The years were good to me however, in junior high school notebooks were an important part of our grade as well. I was thankful for having a teacher who knew a great deal about science, public education was not her first career field. Years later I find myself thanking her still for making me think about science and it’s methodology. In her class I learned much about the fundamentals of chemistry. Many of the skills she taught me I still find useful.
My high school was not much different from most I suppose. My chemistry class had a total of three students for the quarter and the school would have drop it had I not applied. My math skills were not of a level to admit me to the class yet the teacher intervened to admit me to the class. I still hold that teacher in the highest regard.
College was a real learning experience. My knowledge of science was often greater than my educators. I had during the years I was away from school learned a great deal. I visited colleges and Universities around the country often sitting in on a lectures which interested me. I talked to the students read their text books and learned to learn. I learned that all math devolves into the math which preceded it. Calculus becomes algebra, algebra become arithmetic. I can do arithmetic. :-)
I have met Clyde Tombaugh and discussed telescope making with him. Spent many an evening under the stars with friends talking about astronomy. One of my best friends of a days gone by today teaches physics at a University. He believed in me for a long time, I always hope to see him one more time again.
Science allowed me the opportunity to expand my world to encompass the Universe. Education at a public school level taught me that education comes from the mind as well as the heart.
The idea of being able to question is fundamental to science so I will leave this with two questions. If the school fails the student who is at fault? How does the teacher decide who is to fail?
Fantastic that you knew to take your child away from the profoundly stupid — how else would they (the gov’t employees) ever have a chance to learn? Meetings? Conferences? Letters to the school board? A friendly chat with a bureaucrat? I know parents who have tried to do things the “right” way, but they always wind up either withdrawing their kids or hiring a lawyer.
Organization and planning ARE useful (Stacks-Of-Paper-Everywhere-Girl is here to tell you), but when the structure itself is the ultimate goal, what are you learning? My, but you have a tidy sock drawer!
Sadly, cj is quite correct about our public schools. My own twelve years were sheer misery for the most part. Mom taught me to read when I was a toddler, though, and I taught my sister, who was a VERY skilled reader by age 3. She described the G.E.D. as “The most pathetic test I’ve ever taken”. Our education didn’t take place on any campus! I recall spending my grade school years reviewing the exact same material, learning the exact same information, and taking the exact same tests, because the teachers started with the lowest test score in the class and went from there. By age 11, I was completely glazed over and tuned out. There was nothing new to learn. One adult classroom assistant in 6th grade “corrected” a writing assignment (in red ink), so that I would understand that “horse” should be spelled “hourse”. There were literally NO challenges, except for trying to hide from the kids who didn’t like white people, and who wanted to make me bleed for the crime of having light skin.
In Junior High, I begged to take placement tests to attend the local community college, but that just wasn’t DONE back then. They wouldn’t even let me take shop, though I had abundant proof that I could already cook and sew (Thanks, Mom!) with no one looking over my shoulder. Girls weren’t allowed to do that in the mid-70s. I spent my time answering cries of despair as other girls struggled with their projects in an overcrowded classroom.
There was ONE math instructor whose teaching made sense to me — I would stand in his doorway during my lunch hour. If the school had allowed me to study in this man’s algebra class, I would probably have had some math skills when I graduated, BUT…..my last name started with the wrong letter. Second half of the alphabet got the OTHER teacher, who was a virtual zombie. I graduated knowing only how to add, subtract and multiply (have since aced the algebra, but it happened in college).
There are MANY home schoolers in my town, and their children are, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, far more civilized, respectful, articulate and mature than the public-school attendees. I have never met even ONE bully or attention hog in the home school crowd (not to say they could never exist), maybe because they know their parents love them enought to prioritize their
education(s), which usually requires significant adjustments in the time and cash-flow departments. On the OTHER hand, my youngest child has shared classrooms for several years with (let’s see here….) some rather unkind youngsters, for whom the inside of the Principal’s office inspires nothing but disdain, and whose parents frequently argue against any discipline.
To be fair, there are some decent public school systems. Despite the bullies, we’re in one of them (and I keep thinking I’m going to wake up any second, and it’ll all be a dream). They even let you say “Merry Christmas” in the halls if you feel like it, and will go out of their way to bring a struggling student up to grade level. The teachers are dedicated (Whoa!) and inclined to work with individual parents to meet the needs of the kids. Not one of them so far has enthused about the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning), but they manage to make it possible for the kids to pass the silly thing while still keeping their minds and imaginations in gear. Could this be a byproduct of the local home school culture? Wouldn’t be much of a shock!
No shit. If you got paid a teachers salary then you would want all the help you could get too. Might as well get minimum wage. If teachers are as important as we think (and judging by this article, you expect your teacher to be a “all that”) then they really deserve a doctors salary… your lucky to get 28k/year and will be paying off your student loands until your 35.
So fuck you and fuck your kids. You should have tipped that bitch when the conference was over. I am sorry, but this is one of those “Fuck you. Pay Me.” scenarios.
Is. 14:12-16, Enoch 14:4
& take a GOOD look at how the ‘SLS laser’ works
Rev 3:9 (families & lying spyworld), Rev 17:2+5
choose this day who you will serve – baal, or GOD. ;)
Normally I am against homeschooling. (I know someone who has psychological problems that were caused by being homeschooled by parents who were nutcases.) But I certainly agree with the necessity of teaching good science to your child. Science classes are the most important classes there are, IMHO.
As a recent product of the Colorado public education system, I’d like to concur.
I’m a fairly logical person, but my weakest score on the ACT test (Colorado doesn’t use the SAT) was in Science. The sad part about this is that almost everyone I knew at the time also did poorly on that section.
Instead of using the CSAPs why don’t the just look at students’ scores on college placement tests? Theoretically, the fact that students have a vested interest in doing well on this test should work in the school system’s favour.
I agree mostly with what you say. But keep in mind, teachers are typically overwork, have too many students, and can’t spend the time to sift through papers. It is extreme to make organization 80% of a grade, but it should definatley be something that needs attention.
Could you handle 10 students on you few days a week? how about 20, 30 or maybe 40?
As a science teacher in Colorado I would like to say a couple of things. DO NOT BLAME US BECAUSE OF THE CSAPS. We didnt invent them, we dont like them, so blame the geniuses who passed NCLB. Also, grading science notebooks is an easy way for students to gain points in a class. I resent the comment that science teachers in Colorado have degrees in Education. We are REQUIRED TO HAVE A DEGREE IN ONE OF THE SCIENCES TO TEACH SCIENCE GENIUS. TRY DOING YOUR HOMEWORK NEXT TIME. I myself have a masters degree in Biochemistry then decided to get my lic. to teach. Science teaches us an important lesson. IF YOU DONT KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT THEN SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!!!!!!
Goodness, things have changed.
I’m not too far out of the Colorado public school system, but apparently the whole curriculum, top to bottom, has been completely shaken.
I remember taking the CSAP. Preparation time in all my classes, including A.P. was three days. Not months.
Also, the problem of organization in science notebooks won’t disappear. They do it in higher education too, especially the low level Chemistry and Physics courses. How will the problem be solved there?
I’d also like to remind each poster that, while it is incredibly easy and facile to knock civil servants in our public school districts for being incompetent, poorly trained and insufficiently funded, there are many, many excellent and well qualified teachers who made my high school experience one of the apogees of my life. Demagoguery and catch-all taunts like “Welcome to Republican America!” may be hinting at a legitimate argument, but are profoundly simple and offer nothing to the debate over our nations public education system.
I too am a victim of the “Inane Assignment” syndrome a lot of teachers prescribe too, but remember that there are always exceptional and hard working professionals who are currently being grouped together in many of these comments’ half-baked acerbic diatribes.
OK, there is a lot to digest here. Let me just say right off the bat that I am so happy to read these comments, even the ones blasting me.
I need to clarify something first, I am taking my son out of school everyday, not just Tuesdays/Thursdays, I pick the boys up at 2:45 and we work till about 4:00.
Here’s our schedule:
On Mondays we go throught the 8th grade science textbook, so I’m not JUST doing astronomy (we’re already half way through it).
Tuesdays and Thursdays are our science “free for all” days where we talk about whatever is interesting to us.
Wednesdays are problem sets and/or project days, so far no projects, just problems sets either from the textbook or ones I make up.
On Friday we watch Sean Carroll’s course on Dark Matter that I bought from The Learning Company.
The kids are responding well to this schedule with “free for all” days being the most popular. We discuss all questions, look up the answers we don’t know, and decide if any of these things would make a good project.
At the rate we’re going, we’ll be done with the science textbook by November so we’ll have mondays free for something else.
Some things I want to clairfy:
My attitude towards teachers. I realize this post comes across as my not supporting them. Nothing could be further from the truth, my wife is a language arts teacher so of course I am sympathetic to the demands placed on them. I find it criminal that they are not paid commensurate with what they do.
The problem is, going into teaching is like going into politics, the smart and talented people who you’d really like to see doing the job are smart enough to know better. Good people stay in for a little while, then quit because they need to live a decent life earning a decent wage.
The quality people that stay in teaching IN SPITE of it all are truly heroic and are worth their weight in gold, and I’m always surprised at how many there are. Compared to the total teacher population though, their numbers are small.
I’ve been accused of thinking that teachers are idiots and students know everything. That’s preposterous.
I couldn’t care less about grades. I’m one of the few parents who really doesn’t care what my son’s report card says. All I want to know is if he’s doing the best he can and trying his utmost. One look at him on a school night can attest to the fact that he is.
My son has many very good teachers this year. I’ve met them all and almost all of them are committed people who care about teaching. He has a great math teacher, and it turns out the 8th grade science teacher is really good too.
But I couldn’t take that chance could I? Last year almost sucked the love of science right out my kid. I was not going to sit around and let a one bad experience taint a natural talent like his and turn him away from something he loved.
These things are fragile and have to be nurtured at critical times in order to thrive. It took decades for me to be able to face math after my public school education. I didn’t want that for him.
The school isn’t responsible for my son’s education, I AM. It is also my responsibility to raise a kid that can think critically, solve problems, interact with others and contribute positively to society. I take full responsibility for the fact that I have offspring, I don’t palm it off on institutions and I damn sure don’t expect them to be perfect.
But when these institutions fail, I can’t sit around waiting for them to get fixed.
Still, all this having been said. I still messed up. My son’s science teacher for this year would have been a good one, his science education would have been adequate. It turns out it’s the language arts teacher I should have been worried about.
But that’s another story entirely.
“college drop in” = trespasser.. Pay for class like the rest of us and stop breaking the law.
I would wish that more parents would do what you are doing, but I realize that’s not realistic. Many (if not most) parents would probably be bigger failures at teaching than school teachers.
More power to parents like you who know what you’re doing and have a plan as to how to do it.
@Tim: I don’t blame science teachers for anything. They have to do what they have to do. CSAP’s are what they are and they are a reality we all have to deal with. I just can’t have them getting in the way of actual learning.
@All comments who tell me they don’t teach the test: My experience is that they do. I have had several teachers tell me they do and I believe them because I trust them.
I want to also be clear that I understand the need for notebooks. Organizational skills are important, I said that in the post. Both are very important in science and I do not mean to suggest that notebooks should not be kept. It was the 80% of the grade coupled with the effect it had on my kid’s morale about being able to do science that made me act.
Oh, one more comment from my son: he wants me to emphasize that he LOVES his Social Studies teacher. He says that she is smart, funny engaging and he loves learning from her.
its the way the goddam public school system is structured!!! watch this video/documentary and really understand about what is going on:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pfRUMmTs0ZA
15 years ago, when I was still in a high-school (not in US), I had a teacher who during every class basically slowly read a course book and asked everyone to write it in the notebook, or re-write it to a notebook at home. I obviously didn’t want to follow such idiocy and refused to keep such notes, augmenting that I have same thing in the book which I own, thus re-writing it is pointless. This obviously resulted in downgrading. I had same situation later with two teachers during my study. Many years later when I’m running my own business, I actually start to question the whole idea of going through a formal education system. If I’d have to make a choice now, I’d stop my education at a high school – or earlier – and focus on developing business skils and practice by running my own business. Frankly speaking, after my college graduation I even had to waste few years to clear my mind of all the impractical business knowledge, before I started to realize that it’s all useless as every business case is special. Anyway, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Li Ka-Shing (Asia’s Richest Man), Roman Abramovich (Richest Russian), Paul Allen, Richard Branson … dozen of other billionaires are obviously smarter than me, because I have a college degree, while they don’t and this haven’t stopped them from getting highly successful.
Note: Sorry, I speak 4 languages but I’m not fluent in English.
Not surprised at all. It’s sad, but society and the so-called educational system is so twisted that there’s not much one can do to change it. I applaud you, however, for not letting your kid(s) become victim to this monstrous educational “industry”. If only I were so lucky to have my eyes opened at a young age.