I remember back when I was in school my favorite classes were Music, Science, and Math. I can remember being a hard to handle young lad more interested in socializing than learning about the days lessons. I was one of those kids that was intelligent but lacked the motivation to learn and would much rather play hooky than actually attend lectures. However, in my day if I didn't show up it wasn't just detention; I would receive a strap on the hand or stay after school and write on the board.
Times have definitely changed, and for the most part as far as discipline is concerned for the better. But as far as the teaching/learning environment I'd have to say that the school in our area, and from what I've heard it is endemic of the entire Canadian school system, they are certainly lacking.
My eldest daughter is in grade 8 now, she can hardly spell, her mental math is atrocious, she's reading at two levels below her grade. She has absolutely no interest in going to school at all, she doesn't like her teachers, she finds it very difficult to concentrate (she has ADHD) and she really just doesn't care. As a parent, I'm in touch with the teachers and principle about her situation and I'm working with her nightly to try and keep her caught up.
Well, I'm shell shocked now. When we are at home doing her work, she seems to pick things up rather efficiently. She can write and read well enough from what I can tell (reading novels that I do) and her math seems to be ok as well. Her mental math does need work though (times table memorization) but all in all nothing as drastic as what I've been told. I am rapidly finding that if I teach her something at home, it tends to stick, if I test her here at home she does very well, if I ask her to reason out a problem I've given her she does very well at that. I'm starting to think that this isn't so much her problem as the way she is being taught. I decided to speak with a friend of mine that home schools her children and it just floored me. Her children are 3 grades above where they should be if they were in a public school. This boggled my mind so I went and spoke to some other parents that home school their children and I found out that their children are also way ahead of the learning curve. So what the heck is up with our public school system? Why are our children falling behind like this and where is the school board in all of this...don't they measure these things to be sure that our children are actually learning in the schools?
My main concern is what the heck are they doing in class to teach these kids? I mean she is coming home now with up to 2 - 3 hours of homework. They have almost no extra curricular activities, her music and computer classes are abysmal, and there doesn't seem to be too much emphasis on arts.
As a single parent I just cannot afford that kind of a time commitment to home school my children, even though I know that she would learn much better in that situation. There are 30+ students in one class and I can't imagine how hard that is on the Teachers. Oh, and let me be blunt here, I am not in anyway blaming our Teachers for this problem. I think that for the most part they are all very overworked and underpaid, but the buck has to stop somewhere and unfortunately, they are the ones at the front lines. Someone has to step up and take responsibility for the education of our children. The parents have a huge role as well, but our ability to affect change is very limited, our ability to involve ourselves is also limited due to many considerations (jobs, responsibilities, bills..etc).
I honestly think it's time parents banded together and fired those on our School boards to send a message that it's time to wake up and look at the education that our children are getting. These children are our future, and it would be a pretty sad future if our next Prime Minister can't read.
Times have definitely changed, and for the most part as far as discipline is concerned for the better. But as far as the teaching/learning environment I'd have to say that the school in our area, and from what I've heard it is endemic of the entire Canadian school system, they are certainly lacking.
My eldest daughter is in grade 8 now, she can hardly spell, her mental math is atrocious, she's reading at two levels below her grade. She has absolutely no interest in going to school at all, she doesn't like her teachers, she finds it very difficult to concentrate (she has ADHD) and she really just doesn't care. As a parent, I'm in touch with the teachers and principle about her situation and I'm working with her nightly to try and keep her caught up.
Well, I'm shell shocked now. When we are at home doing her work, she seems to pick things up rather efficiently. She can write and read well enough from what I can tell (reading novels that I do) and her math seems to be ok as well. Her mental math does need work though (times table memorization) but all in all nothing as drastic as what I've been told. I am rapidly finding that if I teach her something at home, it tends to stick, if I test her here at home she does very well, if I ask her to reason out a problem I've given her she does very well at that. I'm starting to think that this isn't so much her problem as the way she is being taught. I decided to speak with a friend of mine that home schools her children and it just floored me. Her children are 3 grades above where they should be if they were in a public school. This boggled my mind so I went and spoke to some other parents that home school their children and I found out that their children are also way ahead of the learning curve. So what the heck is up with our public school system? Why are our children falling behind like this and where is the school board in all of this...don't they measure these things to be sure that our children are actually learning in the schools?
My main concern is what the heck are they doing in class to teach these kids? I mean she is coming home now with up to 2 - 3 hours of homework. They have almost no extra curricular activities, her music and computer classes are abysmal, and there doesn't seem to be too much emphasis on arts.
As a single parent I just cannot afford that kind of a time commitment to home school my children, even though I know that she would learn much better in that situation. There are 30+ students in one class and I can't imagine how hard that is on the Teachers. Oh, and let me be blunt here, I am not in anyway blaming our Teachers for this problem. I think that for the most part they are all very overworked and underpaid, but the buck has to stop somewhere and unfortunately, they are the ones at the front lines. Someone has to step up and take responsibility for the education of our children. The parents have a huge role as well, but our ability to affect change is very limited, our ability to involve ourselves is also limited due to many considerations (jobs, responsibilities, bills..etc).
I honestly think it's time parents banded together and fired those on our School boards to send a message that it's time to wake up and look at the education that our children are getting. These children are our future, and it would be a pretty sad future if our next Prime Minister can't read.
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