<p>What’s with all the poems? My middle schooler is assigned to write a least one poem every week, and that’s not in writing or literature class either. As a matter of fact, in those classes they have not yet done a poetry unit. She has had to write poems about science, social studies, health, etc. Some topics just don’t lend themselves well to poetry, such as the tilt of the earth’s axis.</p>
<p>I’m a teacher but I can’t help you with the poetry thing. Sorry, I have never heard anything like it! </p>
<p>My most recent pet peeve is the ridiculous and excessive use of acronyms in the school setting for every incentive, committee, curriculum strategy, etc. EVERYTHING is an acronym. Nobody can keep them straight and sometimes the acronym is longer to say that the actual phrase! Giving it an acronym doesn’t make it any more important or relevant than it is without one.</p>
<p>Does this problem exist in other professions?</p>
<p>When my kid was in high school, a creative project was required in Geometry. I thought the entire project a ridiculous time waster, and encouraged the writing of ridiculous limericks to satisfy the requirement. Grade: A! The teacher didn’t get the subtle push back.</p>
<p>Video projects. Especially video projects with groups assigned by the teacher that in no way consider where kids live, and what kind of involvement in sports or extra-curricular activities they have that substantially constrain the project. Add to that the really, really low educational value of most of what is done for the videos, and you have a time sink. A big time sink.</p>
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<p>Or not.</p>
<p>[Ben</a> Wilkinson reviews Tilt by Jean Sprackland](<a href=“http://www.towerpoetry.org.uk/poetry-matters/reviews/reviews-archive/211-ben-wilkinson-reviews-tilt-by-jean-sprackland]Ben”>http://www.towerpoetry.org.uk/poetry-matters/reviews/reviews-archive/211-ben-wilkinson-reviews-tilt-by-jean-sprackland)</p>
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Yep, because editing a video is fun for the kids but hugely more time-consuming than other applications.</p>
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<p>The military.</p>
<p>Group projects are a pretty big waste of time often. You have one person who does a lot of the work, one who does none of it, and a few mixed in there doing a little bit.</p>
<p>Another one I hate (and maybe more at the college level) is when the students (or groups of students) have to get up and teach. Isn’t that what the professor is paid for???</p>
<p>What about AP tests which are unlikely to be accepted for useful subject credit?</p>
<p>For example, Physics B and Statistics (most majors requiring the subjects require calculus based courses).</p>
<p>Medicine is loaded with acronyms, which can mean different things in different contexts. It’s very confusing to us folks who have not had the benefit of a healthcare education & sometimes even confusing among MDs!</p>
<p>I’m constantly stymied by those who post here–students, parents and others–who refer to “UM” or “UofT” or “OSU,” for example, and I never have a clue whether they’re talking about the University of Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana or Mississippi! Aaargh! With 4,000 or so colleges and universities on the scene, sorting all this out is time-consuming! Yes, sometimes the context of the message or responses helps sort it out, but wouldn’t it be so much simpler to identify the school by name?</p>
<p>I was taught in school–lo, these many years ago–that the first written use of an acronym was followed by its meaning: “UC (University of Cincinnati),” or the reverse “University of Cincinnati (UC),” especially when the acronym is used often in the writing that follows. Don’t schools do this any more?</p>
<p>Also, when there is some slang or web shortcut that isn’t necessarily all that widely known that is also thrown into the post. We all come from such different backgrounds, it takes effort to decipher some/many of these acronyms & abbreviations.</p>
<p>I admit I’m guilty sometimes of abbreviating USoCal more often as USC, but these alphabets from Us with similar initials is VERY confusing, especially if we can’t tease out or remember the details of the posters (& their kids) on the sometimes extremely long threads.</p>
<p>Well, one anti-trend I hate (as a professor) is the painfully slow adoption of word processed final exams. We still have big halls full of students at little desks writing frantically for a couple of hours. The (usually) terrible handwriting makes grading slow and probably less objective.</p>
<p>I agree with the remark about stdents teaching the classes. I am a grad student and recently took a course that was a mix of undergrads and grad students. Each week, groups or individuals had to get up and teach the chapter. Ughhh! I am also a teacher so not really a big deal for me (although I just love teaching all day and then going to my class that I am paying good money for and teaching some more!). But the worst part was paying tuition to sit and listen to undergrad students interpret the text for me. While the Harvard educated professor sat at the back of the room!</p>
<p>Yes, the acronyms in education are ridiculous. Personally, I think their existance is designed to distance parents and keep them convinced that the teachers are the education experts. For one thing, these acronyms aren’t actually shorter or simpler than the label we grew up with. Example: in our district, vocabulary, or vocab for short, they have now re-named D.O.L., pronounced D O L, which means daily oral language. The second reason I think there’s an ulterior motive to these labels, is that they change them regularly. Would that be to keep the parents excluded from their world of expertise? While D.O.L. is what vocab is called for child #3, it had a different name when the older two were in the same school. The drug and alcohol resistance program used to be DARE, and now it’s SAFE. (Granted, I know they did actually change the curriculum, but when you write to the parents about the program, why can’t you call it drug education or something normal?) Thus, just when you learn all the stupid acronyms, they change them to put you back in your place. In addition, the labels often aren’t as intuitive like SAFE such that you could just guess what it is. Would you guess that PATTERNS is outside reading? Yup, Parents and Teachers Together Encouraging Reading Novels. Reading is two syllables too; why not just call it that?</p>
<p>For DennyAlaska: the [thread=52585]Abbreviation thread[/thread].</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Thanks; that helps!</p>
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<p>As a student I have to repeat how true all of this is. Video projects almost always end up being a pain. Another common issue is that typically only one (maybe two) people in a group for a video project knows how to edit video footage, giving them a hugely disproportionate amount of work. Video projects are one of the reasons why I’m happy to not take Spanish this year.</p>
<p>Video projects:</p>
<p>I would have the same reaction as everyone to these. But one of my kids is currently going through an intense, highly-competitive selection process for a multinational corporation’s management training program, and darn if one of the last steps to separate the wheat from the chaff isn’t a video project! It seems they regard the ability to use video tools effectively for communication as an essential skill for middle managers/young leaders. So . . . maybe all that crap pays off in the end? Video is the new writing? (Or part of it, at least.)</p>
<p>Get this, my 8th grader had to rewrite a passage of some book in texting lingo - like gtg lol lmao?? Can’t imagine the teacher will be able to read it, and who exactly is this educating?</p>
<p>Back in the day, I always hated the “whole language” approach to writing. I’m glad to see that phonics is back in vogue.</p>