Money and the environment

[PrincessPerky]

If learning is not fun it will not be continued past the forced session. So while I do agree that there is a major problem with schools I do not agree that learning should be forced, or boring, or that it cannot be fun.

My son begs me to do schoolwork most days, he loves the learning, both what as seen as work and, that which is not seen as work. , I do not have to make it boring, nor do I have to force him to know much of anything, he loves to learn all I have to do is encourage, assist, and occasionally direct him to something useful.

Also hungry kids do not learn very well, so I do feel there is need of making sure kids can eat. But I also feel that to much tax money is spent on babysitting, the system doesn't make it easy or even half the time encourage people to get out. Instead it makes it easy to 'float', both in welfare and in school. Churning out high school grads with no real skills to get by, ending up pften back on the welfare and with children in the ps system leanring the same nothing they did. Not a cool cycle.

Breaking it is the only way IMO to change the course of the education in our country. Drop the PS system, replace it with encouragement and assistance for self motivation.

[rob62521]

Pennywise, a lot of what you say makes sense, but the legislators want the teachers to prove their are doing their jobs by these standardized tests. When you have a kindergartener coming in to school who is already two years below in vocabulary, there is no miracle cure of getting them caught up other than the teacher trying to do his or her job. Very few of the people I work with are lazy; but they cannot in a few hours a day "fix" a kid who gets nothing at home or during the summers. We have special summer school classes that help the kids, but some parents don't want their kids to work during the summer. You daughter is so fortunate to have someone who was willing to expect something and you found ways for her to achieve it. Your note did not offend me, but wish we had more parent who were willing to get involved. As a public school employee, we have to live by the guideliness the legislators give us -- we can't deny anyone an education, even if they don't want it. We can't just suspend or expel children just be cause they are disruptive. Most teachers would love that because then they could concentrate on the children who are there to learn the fundamentals of reading, math, writing, and thinking skills.

[DivaJen]

Originally Posted by rob62521

As a public school employee, we have to live by the guideliness the legislators give us -- we can't deny anyone an education, even if they don't want it. We can't just suspend or expel children just be cause they are disruptive. Most teachers would love that because then they could concentrate on the children who are there to learn the fundamentals of reading, math, writing, and thinking skills.

DH and I (former public school teachers) have often said that a good shake-up to the system as it is would be to stop making attendance compulsory. Imagine if we had community learning centers full of choices instead of places kids 'had' to go to every day, 6-8 hours a day.

[PrincessPerky]

Originally Posted by DivaJen

DH and I (former public school teachers) have often said that a good shake-up to the system as it is would be to stop making attendance compulsory. Imagine if we had community learning centers full of choices instead of places kids 'had' to go to every day, 6-8 hours a day.

EXACTLY!

[rob62521]

Hear, hear!