Is elementary school still a joke?

jhsu · February 21, 2006, 9:27pm

I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in southwest suburban Chicago. I suspect things were a lot worse in the poor inner city neighborhoods, Appalachia, Native American reservations, rural Mississippi, etc.

Elementary school was a joke. Most of the time was spent learning the previous year’s material. We had to study 2+2=4 every year up to 6th grade. English class was nothing but rehashed basic grammar drills (punctuation, capitalization, etc.). A substantial portion of each day was spent on spelling, and we were tortured with long and useless homework consisting of writing out easy spelling words 5 times each and then writing out the definitions of each word.

I could have spent just 2 hours a day in school and learned just as much. If I had a real math education, I could have had Algebra in 4th or 5th grade instead of 8th grade and Calculus in 8th or 9th grade instead of 12th. If the slow pace of elementary school had continued through junior high and high school, I would have had to take remedial classes in college.

I’ve also realized that many of the bad habits I’ve had to overcome over the last 10 years originated in elementary school. Elementary school trained me to avoid challenges, operate on autopilot, expect to be able to do everything perfectly, and value credentials over the actual learning they represent. (Believe me, just because you make the grade doesn’t mean you really understand the material. This is especially true in engineering.)

Is elementary school still a joke, or have things improved? Unfortunately, the No Child Left Untested can only dumb down the educational system. At least we weren’t obsessed with those SRA test scores.

JeepMOM · February 21, 2006, 11:47pm

Gotta start some place!!

silentsailor · February 22, 2006, 1:56am

I’m a student.

Agreed, without hesitation - in retrospect, the most actual learning came in the gifted pullout classes (very basic algebra in third grade, foreign languages, basic rhetoric, etc) that could very well be implemented throughout grade levels with at least some degree of success*. Sorry to say that NCLB has simply replaced rote spelling with the same sort of exercises across the board.

s_vrone · February 22, 2006, 5:12am

I, too, agree with you without hesitation. Sadly, in quite a few school systems, the hilarity doesn’t stop with elementary school.

My actual learning always came when I discovered that the things I learned in school didn’t have anything to do with the subjects I was studying. Math is not times tables, literature is not the trashy reading that teachers jam down students’ throats, history is not a set of timelines, etc. Certainly, times tables are necessary and timelines are useful, but schools make the mistake of exposing students to only these, creating a false impression of knowledge, devoid of understanding, and they bore kids to death.

Can anyone think of any better way to beat the natural curiosity and motivation out of children than to send them to schools like these?

originaloog · February 22, 2006, 9:12am

I am way out of my element here but perhaps some peeps with knowledge in child psych can chime in too. I have had several discussions with a friend who is an expert in the above and the elementary years are among the MOST important in terms of cognitive development.

While in retrospect the learning in elemschool is very basic in nature, it is also very age appropriate in cognitive development. Children are learning language, motor skills, socialization skills, and the rudiments of abstract(ie math) thought.

And anyone who thinks that unstructured play time is a waste at this stage of life is a FOOL. The value of play is so very important for preschoolers and elementary school children for healthy child development.

According to my friend, one of the most dangerous trends today is for well meaning parents to foist age inappropriate activities on their young children and filling too much of their free time with structured activities. Another danger that has been recognized in recent years is the impact of rapid paced “children’s” programming and video games(yes, some educational ones are guilty) on healthy child development. There was something to be said for Mr Rodgers and Capt Kangaroo.

Repetition is also very important in early child development. I know it drove me crazy to read the same book and watch the same DVD over and over again. But it is so very important at this wonderous stage of life.

The one area where our education system had fallen short in the past was in the area of foreign language. Fortunately most school systems are teaching beginning second language far, far earlier than frosh year HS.

So to the OP, dont be so disparaging of elementary school education. You were a young child too once.

soozievt · February 22, 2006, 9:54am

I’m sorry to hear that your elem school was structured in this way. Not all are. My children’s elem school was nothing like you describe. I also taught elem school there before they were born. I also have a degree in child development. In our school system, the elem school is the best of the three (elem, MS, and HS). I only wish they could have kept going there up til 12th grade! By the way, our elem school teaches French starting in K.

m_amp_sdad · February 22, 2006, 10:04am

I would take my D’s elementary over her middle school. She did have pull out gifted but still learned in stndard elementary classes. It was in elementary that she developed a passion for art that led her to a creative and performing arts high school.

She attends an urban public school system. There are opportunities for parents who do leg work on school options and remain involved withthe teachers and schools, particularly at the elementary level.

Teach2005 · February 22, 2006, 10:19am

I am an elementary school gifted teacher and also was educated in elementary school in Mississippi which you specifically mentioned. I find that elementary schools often are the best place for kids to have freedom in their learning. At my school kids have learning choices and are able to work at their level. Sure they learn 2 + 2, but you need to know 2 + 2 before you can do algebra.

Are elementary schools perfect? No. However, I have also taught at the middle school level and found that at that level the focus was simply on mastering the material and moving on. There wasn’t a lot of time for discovery learning. I also echo the sentiments of the person who said that unstructured play is important. I give my gifted kids fifteen minutes of our short time together each week to choose what they want to do. I have thinking games, lego type toys, and other things to do. They can also get on the computer and write stories or draw…whatever they want to do. This is often their favorite part of the day and sometimes results in the most amazing discoveries and observations. You never know what kids will observe when given the opportunity. Honestly I wish I could give them more of this time that is completely their own.

I loved my middle school kids (even when they were dramatic and moody), but I’d choose my job at the elementary level any day. In fact, I chose it over a position as an assistant professor at the university level.

bluealien01 · February 22, 2006, 10:26am

I suspect that is why homeschooling exists.?

bing121086 · February 22, 2006, 12:30pm

My elementary school started Spanish in first grade. The roaming Spanish teacher would come by once a week, but every year we learned months of the year, numbers up to twenty, and colors. We never learned how to ask a question, any phrases, and we learned the same stuff every year. I mean, not having taken Spanish since, I can still county to twenty, but what good does that do me?

I’ve had mixed experiences with gifted pull-out programs. In my math class one year (fifth grade), the teacher gave everyone a pre-test at the start of each section. If you got an A, you didn’t have to follow the lesson, but she (the teacher) didn’t have anything for you to do afterwards. When you test out, you sit at a small table in the back corner of the room; there are kindergarten-level puzzles and the like. If there were more than one who tested out, we ended up just talking, but if it was just you, it was a dull week or two.

Another teacher, that same year, did it really well. She (on her own time) developed multiple levels of spelling lessons for different levels of students. She took two students who did well in English and had them create a newsletter for the class each month as an assignment when the rest of the class was working on something else. The other students contributed cartoons or poems. She had a few students write educational story books as a long-term project. She really tailored school to the student, and it really worked well. Another teacher (in a more formal gifted program for an hour each school day) gave the same assignments but held students to different expectation levels. Or she would give an assignment like “study an aspect of WWII” and then she gave a number of projects you could do; one was for people who liked to write, for people who liked to make things with crafts, another for people who like to draw, for people who like to be active, etc.

bluealien01 · February 22, 2006, 6:46pm

I vaguely remember elementary school. I think we learned some numbers, alphabet, colors, and basic animals in Spanish, but we certainly weren’t having little conversations in the language. We didn’t even have the class everyday. I never even actually began to learn a lot of the language until college. LOL.

bluealien01 · February 22, 2006, 6:49pm

Oh man, I remember those dumb math worksheets too like “what fraction of the pizza is left?” or those ones with the corny jokes/riddles. What a waste of time…the jokes weren’t funny either.

kemet · February 22, 2006, 7:13pm

In [elementary</a> school](<a href=“Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools / Homepage”>Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools / Homepage), I was in the [Open</a> Education](<a href=“Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools / Homepage”>Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools / Homepage) program. Basically, we had three class combination: K-1, 2-3, and 4-5. There were about 50 kids in each class, two teachers, and an assistant (the rooms were very large and had huge windows). It was a truly flexible way to learn because the mutiple teachers and grade levels allowed much more teaching to different levels without having to have “special” classes for smart kids. Also, the teachers had different strengths (i.e. one taugh social studies and language arts, the other taught math and science, etc.). The curriculum was much more challenging, and kids were somewhat able to shape the course of their elementary education. In addition, we had state of the art resources (kitchens, aquarium, computer clusters, etc.). As a result, I learned a tremendous amount in elementary school. Nowadays elementary schools are even more complex. I visited my former schools last year and was surprised to see 4th graders being taught how to use pipettes!

evitajr1 · February 22, 2006, 9:58pm

I don’t know - I attended inner city Chicago k-8 school after moving and attending private school. Had to sit with slower class first year because I was so far behind. Next year, I was in accelerated class. Teacher made us buy a Turabian (boy, that sure dates me) and, we had to use it on all research papers in 5th and 6th grade (yes, I had her for 2 years). We had to write the local Chambers of Commerce to get state info for presentations, etc. We even had a class newpaper those 2 years! But of course, she never worried about teaching to a test, etc. She taught us to dig, think, and produce the best work we could. And my 8th grade teacher had us diagraming compound, complex sentences which took up more than one blackboard - we flowed over into the next. Oh, yes, that is considered passe today, but the chance of my making a grammatical error is tremendously lessened due to this training. I even remember doing Chromatography for my 7th grade science fair project. Even art class was demanding. Elementary school was no joke. Thank you Mrs. Ross!!!

system · February 22, 2006, 10:14pm

bluealien01,
Yes, that is one reason homeschooling exists, although there are many more. I homeschooled my boys exclusively during the elementary years. We had one-two hours a day of structured work (sometimes less) and a lot of time spent doing science experiments, reading together or alone, walking outside where they could ask questions about what they saw, having wonderful discussions, doing art and creative crafts, and letting them explore things that interested them. Until 7th grade, the only texts they used were math books. The rest was done using hands-on activities, videos, music, library books, visiting museums and natural areas, etc., etc.

Now that they are grown–one a college grad and the other a college freshman, both doing great–I miss those elementary years, where learning was part of our life, not something out of a textbook.

I don’t mean to criticize schools. I know there are some excellent ones. I used to substitute teach, so I have seen good and bad. But individualized education is a lot harder in a large classroom. So, yes, homeschooling is one answer to an elementary classroom that might not be all it should be.

emeraldkity4 · February 23, 2006, 1:21am

my oldest attended the same school that the Gates kids do and while she did have algebra in 1st grade- it was just the concepts not what you are thinking- she took algebra in 8th grade like everyone else

I think what is important in elementary school is learning to learn, learning to enjoy writing, reading & expression, including dance, art, drama and music.
creativity is important!

momof1 · February 23, 2006, 2:24am

Okay, I’ll play, too! I am a 2/3 multiage teacher and we have a very rigorous program. We do have to “cover” the curriculum for both grades, and prepare the kiddos for standards based assessments, BUT we have all the freedom in the world to do this. We are a very project based classroom, and work to develop initiative, independence and task commitment. Rather than using worksheets for the disciplines, we have instruction on concepts, guided practice, and then usually create a product around our theme which pulls from all disciplines and allows the students to synthesize, gathering from all that info to create a product. Last week some created brochures about the school, some did research on the origins of the school names in our district (local heroes) and created reports, and others researched national heroes in preparation for class presentations. We have 60 laptops for 110 students in our grade level, and great parent involvement.

This is a tremendous amount of work for the teacher in some ways. It would be SOOO much easier (but much less fun!) to sit them all in rows and lecture, followed by worksheets and tests. However, I don’t like to learn that way, so why would they?! This is definitely student centered rather than teacher centered.

It really takes an enlightened parent to appreciate the movement, apparent chaos, and diversity of activities going on in the classroom. It is not for some students or parents. It really is up to the parent to know the student and to choose the classroom placement that is most productive and comfortable.

As an aside, our third graders are working on decimals to the thousandths place, double digit multiplication, and algebra and geometry, as well as critical thinking skills.

In our after school program the girls (and only girls chose to participate!) can complete an easy sudoku in 3.5-8 mins. depending on the student. We have cracked codes, found number patterns, worked with fibonacci numbers and had a blast! What is really amazing is the impact this has had on the girls’ confidence and task commitment. It has really born out the results of the studies that show that girls in single gender environments do very well.

Oh! What a rant! Please know that NCLB is not so much a reason for poor teaching as an excuse for it. Thanks to all of you great, dedicated parents who are willing and able to homeschool, and to those who have given your children a great foundation and great support as they attend school. We are doing what we do for the kids. :)

digmedia · February 23, 2006, 9:52am

2+2=4 ??? :eek: I’m shocked - SHOCKED - I tell ya! Do our Congressional representatives know that fact? Back to elementary school for the lot of them!

soozievt · February 23, 2006, 11:32am

Momof1…I didn’t bother to post the specifics of my daugthers’ elem school experience, and in fact, I taught a multiage gr. 1/2/3 there for four years before they were born, but it is very similar to your school, and nothing like the OP described. I have taught on both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the field of education and trained teachers to be as well as inservice for professional teachers. My specialty in fact is thematic integrated curriculum and my kids’ classrooms, as well as my own, were multi age, developmentally appropriae practice, integrated curriculum, hands on experiential learning, process oriented, creative, emphasis on thinking, and individualized for each learner. It was not worksheet oriented or other things described in the original post at all. I only wish the rest of their education had been like it was at our elem school!

mstee · February 23, 2006, 11:51am

soozie–your elem school sounds wonderful! Our elem school used to be much like that, very developmentally oriented in the early grades, lots of projects and fun things going on all the time!–but thanks to the no child left behind pressures, they are more and more teaching to the test, doing worksheets and busywork, and basically, taking the joy out of the early elem years. I am so disgusted by the changes.

Is elementary school still a joke?

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