Teaching News

Correct spelling is important just because it makes texts more easily readable. And if students' spelling mistakes are accepted, they will never learn how to write correctly. Moreover, they are given the feeling that good spelling (and grammar) is negligible, that they can write however they please. That can make reading very hard - you can see it in young people's contributions to internet forums.

By the way, have you, too, noticed that there are more spelling errors in books - including students' textbooks - than there used to be? Are books no longer edited carefully?

PS: Please forgive my own errors - I do my best, but English is not my first language. :D

it takes money to provide children with a free education. Where is a country left when they can't educate their children? What happens when there is no money left?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26012346

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Originally Posted by motherhubbard

it takes money to provide children with a free education. Where is a country left when they can't educate their children? What happens when there is no money left?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26012346

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People scoff at economics as if money grows on trees. You don't create money out of nothing. If the the economy is not prospering there is no money for things that don't generate income. Reality is reality.

Education doesn’t generate income for the government, but when we fail to educate it does end up costing the government.

In the school district I work in, we received word that some new grading policies were going into effect this year, including: accepting all late work, letting a student who flunked a test re-take it as often as he/she needed to until they passed, not giving a homework grade if it lowered the student's average, and we were not supposed to give a zero for a daily grade (that would have to be approved by the principal).

That idea lasted about three days, but there was, thank God, enough of an outcry that they dropped it. My school district is shooting to win the Broad prize for most improved urban school district in 2010, and we are not currently making enough headway. New York City won this prize recently, I believe. (I hope I spelled everything correctly! :))

I am literally and inevitably appalled when poeple do not know how to master the fundamentals of English language.Probably they are exuberant of playing online games,which I detest it.By no means they shall be so indolent,they should think of their own precious future.

An exam board is removing a poem about a knife-carrying violent loner from its anthology for GCSE English because of fears over teenage knife crime.

The AQA exam board has decided to withdraw the poem Education for Leisure written by Carol Ann Duffy.

The exam board is writing to schools to advise them to destroy the copies of the anthology - and says it will send replacements not containing this poem.

The poem begins with the line: "Today I am going to kill something. Anything."

It describes the thoughts of a disturbed, isolated individual who feels underappreciated and undervalued and who kills a fly then a goldfish. The poem concludes with this angry loner going outside with a bread knife.

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I have not read or heard of this poem. Though I have found a review here:

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/a...olannduffy.htm

If anyone has a copy, could you please PM it to me? Thanks!

A description of a fascinating sounding school with an unusual approach. Keep in mind that this is in an Chicago inner city school where the drop must be huge. And Chicago inner city is one of the worse in the country.

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Making Education Work
by George Will

CHICAGO -- Waves of Slovenians, Bohemians, Irish, Italians and others have crested and receded, and today the Pilsen neighborhood of this polyglot city is a heartland Ellis Island, a port of entry for Mexican immigrants. There is a neighborhood school to teach their children important things -- math and history, of course, but also how to navigate a revolving door, how to behave in an elevator, and how to identify the salad fork and the soupspoon.

From Cristo Rey Jesuit High School you can see the Sears Tower to the north, where some students work. All the students work somewhere -- at more than 100 companies and law firms -- one day a week, at jobs paying $20 an hour, the money going directly to the school, covering 70 percent of its costs.

To work in the Sears Tower, a student must pass through something perhaps not encountered in his or her family's Mexican village or in Pilsen -- a revolving door -- and might have to change elevators en route to the Tower's upper floors. Before going to work, many of the school's 14-year-old ninth-graders, like their parents, have never been downtown.

The summer before beginning at CRJHS, ninth-graders go to a behavioral boot camp where they get what David Whitman calls "a dose of cultural imperialism" to inculcate bourgeoisie values, from personal hygiene to table manners. The school believes that some Latino traditions should be tempered: Many of the students had been raised to show respect by speaking quietly and avoiding eye contact while softly shaking hands. That is not how things are done downtown in the city of broad shoulders. Before long, the children are introducing themselves with firm handshakes, and are introducing their parents to the Loop. [Snip]

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http://townhall.com/columnists/Georg...education_work

Just thought you teachers might find it interesting. As to my opinion, this is a great approach. It supports my belief that people in general and kids more specifically need boundaries to avoid dysfunctionality. The US public school system has failed the inner city and all one ever hears from teachers are excuses and that their job is impossible. No, they're approach is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

It supports my belief that people in general and kids more specifically need boundaries to avoid dysfunctionality.

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you mean we just have to tear down the boundaries their foreign traditions have constructed in order for them to succeed?

how can "cultural imperialism" be construed as a good thing?

Virgil, I think this is a fantastic idea. It sounds like high school that is preparing students to work in the world, and I believe that is something high school should do. It sounds like it targets immigrants, which is a good thing in many ways. But immigrants tend to have a strong work ethic already and are more likely to seek advanced degrees than natural born citizens.

"The report shows that the children of immigrants attain higher levels of education than their parents -- and indeed, are more likely to attain college degrees and advanced degrees than the children of nonimmigrants."
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-e...0.1857721.html


I wish they had a work study program that targeted unemployed, at risk, citizens as well.

As for cultural imperialism, we’ve come a long way. We no longer punish children for speaking their native languages and we are no longer segregated. There will always be room for improvement, but cultural pluralism and acceptance is a big deal.

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Originally Posted by Il Penseroso

you mean we just have to tear down the boundaries their foreign traditions have constructed in order for them to succeed?

how can "cultural imperialism" be construed as a good thing?

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I think the cultural imperialism comment was a little tongue in cheek. What exactly is cultural imperialism? They are being guided into American norms. They are after all in America. I suppose they or their parents don't have to accept it. No one is forcing them into this school. It is volentary. The students are given three hours of homework per night, gven a tough college oriented curriculum, pushed into part time after school jobs, and not passed along for the sake of passing. Sounds like a great education to me.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

volentary

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tssk tssk!! :)

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I think the cultural imperialism comment was a little tongue in cheek. What exactly is cultural imperialism? They are being guided into American norms. They are after all in America. I suppose they or their parents don't have to accept it. No one is forcing them into this school. It is volentary. The students are given three hours of homework per night, gven a tough college oriented curriculum, pushed into part time after school jobs, and not passed along for the sake of passing. Sounds like a great education to me.

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Maybe in practice this comes across better than the description as far as the indoctrination scheme, but I just have concerns that this could easily go too far (as these kind of ideas have so often in the past). I think it's also important for these students to understand that their individual cultural upbringing has validity, particularly in today's global economy.

"And all one ever hears from teachers is excuses and that their job is impossible." Those are fighting words, Virgil. I happen to work in one of those inner city schools, and it is indeed difficult, although I wouldn't go so far as to call it impossible. In fact I am, this year, teaching the lowest of the low, the students who failed our state-mandated Reading/Language Arts test. The ninth grade level test, I have heard, is actually written at the seventh grade level.

Last year only 66% of my regular English I students passed this test. And I promise you we worked very hard on skills for that test. It is a difficult task; please do not read one article and then decry its' difficulty and blame the teachers. From what I have seen of the educational system in my city they are the least to blame. There are many factors that go into the making of a well-educated person.

We're just going to have to disagree qimi. I don't balme the individual teachers, I balme the system itself. Of course its complicated. All I can say is it's not working and all I ever hear from teacher's unions is a conitunation of the status quo. You can work doubly hard and you will not see appricable results. Something needs to change in the approach to teaching from a systemic level.

I agree, and I wouldn't listen to unions. It is a systemic problem. If you want to lay some blame, I would look at administrations, from the highest echelons to those in the schools themselves. I've been in this awhile, and they are really terrible at their jobs. I've only worked for one good principal, and they (his superiors) ran him off. And honestly, they really went into super terrrible mode after 'No Child Left Behind,' They are afraid and they don't know what to do. I spoke with a consultant at our school and she actually said that to me.