Red Skelton

[Tiger]

Originally posted by Maverick
Actually the school systems still teach. There is a bit of a problem in what they are teaching at times. Things like self esteem, no one loses, everyone is a winner, don't hurt the kids feelings by actually holding them to a standard of learning as opposed to real subject matter. Couple that with parents who didn't do much other than housebreak their kid and feed them full of stuff like they have more "rights" than the school or teacher does and only the teacher is responsible for their little darlings learning anything. Not to mention that the parents will sue the school / teacher if their little darling gets upset.

You can take a kid to school but you can't force a kid to learn anything if they are not motivated to do so and the parents don't care. If the kid is not held accountable to show they actually have done the work, and met standards so they can be promoted you get kids who did learn the system will push them through if they work or not. They get very surprised to find the rest of the world is not like that and they will be expected to actually work later on.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

My wife teaches 2nd grade, she has kids in her class who can't legibly write the alphabet, one that doesn't know the alphabet past "J", and several that can't add 3 + 2 even when using their fingers to help them.  The district has a policy that you cannot 'fail' a student and hold them back without the parent's permission regardless of what the student does (or in these cases does NOT) learn.


Back to topic:

Red was brilliant, I wish someone would follow in his footsteps

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by Tiger
Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

My wife teaches 2nd grade, she has kids in her class who can't legibly write the alphabet, one that doesn't know the alphabet past "J", and several that can't add 3 + 2 even when using their fingers to help them.  The district has a policy that you cannot 'fail' a student and hold them back without the parent's permission regardless of what the student does (or in these cases does NOT) learn.

Sounds like a Kalifornia-based policy.  They certainly don't have that policy in our school districts here in WA state.

[Maverick]

Rip,

It's the same in Southern Arizona too. When I was subbing I had one kid in a class who had a desk in the corner facing the back wall. When I took roll that day the rest of the kids said little "johnie" (not the real name) would be in after 9:00 AM when his Dad brought him in. School started at 7:50. Dad got a call every day from the school advising him that lil' johnie wasn't in school again. Dad had to leave work, get the kid out of bed and drive him to school. Lil' johnie also never took a test or did any work. He just put his name on the paper and put his head on the desk and went to sleep.

I asked this kid why he did this. He said very mater of factly that he had been doing it for 3 years and he know the school was going to pass him anyhow so there was no reason to do the work. He was in 5th grade at that time. When I asked him what he thought he was going to do for a job, he said his Dad was a foreman at his job and would give him a job when he got out of highschool. He figured he would be able to sleep in late then too.

This kid was not the only one to figure things worked this way either. I saw it way too often.