<p>“I’m not criticizing students who socialize at school, I’m criticizing those who do nothing but socialize, and make it hard if not impossible for teachers to actually teach in classes.”</p>
<p>You would think the teachers could manage their 40 minutes a day of actual teaching time effectively, and then just let the kids socialize or do whatever they want for the remaining six hours. (They’d learn more, too.)</p>
<p>My, so smug. 40 minutes of teaching time a day, are you kidding? And what do you think these 40 minutes should be filled with? English? Math? Chemistry? Art? Music? Everything all at once?</p>
<p>So what I’m hearing is a lot of people saying “screw those damn troublemakers, they’re not worth the effort!” Is this what it boils down to?</p>
<p>Did you bother to look at the Greenwood study? 1.1 to 1.7 hours of academic time max. But this was assuming it was material the students didn’t already know, and were prepared to take in. </p>
<p>If you’ve got a prob. with that, take it up with Greenwood.</p>
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<p>It’s because there is a set of skills every student should possess. I’m sure plenty of students hate reading/writing classes but it shouldn’t be their choice whether or not to learn reading/writing,</p>
<p>You make an assumption based on facts not in evidence, namely, that being in class (or being in class 180 days a year for 12 years) actually makes it more likely that students will learn to read and write. There is actually quite a lot of evidence to the contrary, though I don’t have time to post it.</p>
<p>For the motivated family and/or student, the amount of time spent in class could be considered wasted. However, for many children, that amount of time isn’t nearly enough. Learning doesn’t continue in many families outside of school. Kids who are challenged with cultural and or other academically inclined programs and conversations outside of the school hours will probably do fine. It is the ones who don’t get that kind of “nurturing” that cause teachers to have to move at a slower pace. We have kids down here who are damn proud of the fact that their mom works at McDonalds because to them that means she has a job. At school we have to be very careful not to demean so many of the jobs kids on CC would not even consider for a summer job, let alone regular employment. There are many free programs our area offers but if the parent isn’t interested, the kid probably won’t get to go. It isn’t a question of getting them there either since the family seems more than able to get them to sports practices multiple times a week. When education isn’t important to the parents, it is difficult (though not impossible) to make it important to kids. Homeschooling parents with kids in HYP are not the norm. In fact they probably have it so much easier than any teacher in any school. If you don’t believe me, after your kid has graduated and you have no one else “in the nest” at home, try substituting at one of your local schools. Do a long term sub, not the day to day stuff and see how much you are able to teach in 40 minutes (or even 140!)</p>
<p>Regardless of which kind of children they are, regardless of their families, regardless of their teachers, they are only receiving 1.1 to 1.7 hours a day of academic time. And this assumes that they don’t already know the material, and they are prepared to receive it. This is in school, and has nothing to do with homeschooling.</p>
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The question is… why are both types of students in the same classroom, being taught the same curriculum at the same pace? Are either type of student’s educational needs really being met? From what I’ve seen in too many classrooms, no.</p>
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<p>Can you name me a country without an extensive schooling system that achieved a high rate of literacy? Or, most easily, can you identify an instance where, after implementation of a public school system,the literacy rate failed to increase in a state after a period of 15 or so years?</p>
<p>But regardless, I’m talking about the principle of things, not how well schools perform in actuality. That is, school should be made up solely of elective courses.</p>
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<p>Apparently, this is plenty enough time to get them into Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>If we did compress the “academic time” in schools into a 1.7 hour time period, what would the kids do for the rest of the day?</p>
<p>The root of many problems is the family/atmosphere.</p>
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<p>Well, here in North Texas we are starting this year on August 24. But both boys are in band and it starts up on August 3rd (M-F 8-5). Some time is spent in the gym practicing but a lot is spent going through drills in the parking lot in the hot hot sun. My boys don’t like the heat but they want to be in the band.</p>
<p>To answer Post #89, “Can you name me a country, without an extensive schooling system that achieved a high rate of literacy?”</p>
<p>I don’t need to go to your second question, because the first one is almost too easy for words. It’s a little country. </p>
<p>Called the United States of American, circa 1790.</p>
<p>“If we did compress the academic time into 1.7 (actually 1.1 - 1.7) hours time period, what would the kids do the rest of the time?”</p>
<p>How about, LEARN?</p>
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<p>And the United States of America did not have an extensive schooling system? Did not have numerous regions with mandatory education schemes? </p>
<p>Well, I distinctly recall something named The Land Ordinance of 1785…</p>
<p>Not a single region nor city had a mandatory education scheme. In fact, before Horace Mann (who invented the term “common school”), there weren’t any municipal or state education systems, mandatory or voluntary (and Massachusetts only instituted their mandatory requirements in the 1870s, when, at times, they march Irish kids to school using an armed constabulary.</p>
<p>Some towns and villages, especially in New England, had school houses, all voluntary, and not extensive. But literacy in New England in 1776 was about 90% (and many of those who were not literate were African-American slaves, especially in Connecticut, where there were large tobacco plantations.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense went through half a million copies.</p>
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<p>Really? Because Massachusetts required an elementary school to be supported by every township of more than 50 families… back in 1647. </p>
<p>Of course, then there’s the Land Ordinance which, by law, set aside land in every township for the use of education. </p>
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<li>Don’t buy into the 90% statistic. It’s highly flawed. </li>
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<p>[Literacy</a> among New England’s transient poor, 1750-1800 | Journal of Social History | Find Articles at BNET](<a href=“http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_n4_v29/ai_18600988/]Literacy”>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_n4_v29/ai_18600988/)</p>
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<li><p>Not extensive? Farley Grubb once calculated that 70% of children in the 1790-1800 era received schooling. That’s extensive for me.</p></li>
<li><p>[Progress</a> of the United States in … - Google Books](<a href=“Progress of the United States in Population and Wealth in Fifty Years, as ... - George Tucker - Google Books”>Progress of the United States in Population and Wealth in Fifty Years, as ... - George Tucker - Google Books)</p></li>
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<p>These stats are from the 1840 census. Before Horace Mann’s reforms were implemented thoroughly. We see some 47000 elementary schools in the united states on record, and the ratio of elementary school students to the white population in 1 to 4 in New England. I’d assume ratios in 1790 weren’t too much worse. </p>
<p>That’s a pretty extensive schooling system to me. Not entirely public, of course, but I never did mention public.</p>
<p>Well, schools set up three months a year in the 1770s by itinerants to teach their charges to read Scripture hardly seems extensive to me. 47,000 schools in 1840 (not 1776) is still a TINY number. But I wasn’t talking about 1840, but 1776. Illiteracy ROSE in New England through 1840 (that was exactly Mann’s argument as to why common schools were needed). Literacy in the 18th Century was achieved without the vast majority of those 1840 schools cited.</p>
<p>At any rate, a high rate of literacy was achieved and half a million copies of Common Sense sold, and then passed hand-to-hand without the population having extensive schooling. What did George Washington have - nine months? Ben Franklin had two years, between the ages of 8 and 10 (and relatively short school days). Alexander Hamilton had a little tutoring, and (oddly enough) some classes at a private Jewish school (in St. Kitts, as I remember). Nathaniel Greene educated himself - in mathematics, military tactics, and law. (He later worked to establish a public school in Rhode Island.)</p>
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<p>Considering that they didn’t have to spend time teaching anything else, 3 months is probably more learning reading/writing than modern schools teach. </p>
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<p>The let’s cut down the numbers to 41000 schools outside the South. Damn impressive to me… considering also that 20-25% of the entire white population was in grammar school at any given time, in non-South regions of the united states. </p>
<p>Now compare this with actual census data:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1840b-02.pdf[/url]”>http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1840b-02.pdf</a></p>
<p>Maine, for example, had about 25% of its white population in elementary school (chart on previous post). According to the census, 5-15 year olds constituted about 27% of the free white population. That means nearly 100% of the school-age free white children (assuming most kids left school before they reached 15) in Maine went to school at the time.</p>
<p>You can check the rest of the data yourself. But I won’t be surprised if the numbers are similarly interesting.</p>
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<p>I don’t have any hard data on the number of schools in 1776 on me. Do you? Because otherwise I’m not seeing any proof.</p>
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<li>I’m sure great potato famine had something to do with said illiteracy.</li>
<li>I’m also sure literacy increased once horace mann succeeded.</li>
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<p>I highly disagree. All the data I’ve looked at indicated a large number of schools in New England at the time. How large, how many people went to school, I don’t know. I don’t know how you could know either unless you provide some concrete proof. But what I can say is that education policies up to 1840 did not seem to change extensively. Even without any massive state sponsoring of schools, we can see that from the data I provided that the number of children going to school was very strong. Since there’s not much of a paradigm shift in educational policies in those decades prior, I fail to see how you can automatically conclude that NE in the 1700’s did not have extensive schooling.</p>
<p>And by extensive schooling system, I mean a schooling system that covers large segments of the population.</p>
<p>“I don’t need another article telling us that we to work our kids like Orientals in order to “make our nation succeed”.”</p>
<p>Rugs are Oriental. Chairs are Oriental. Lamps are Oriental. People are not Oriental. Sorry</p>
<p>p.s I’m not Asian btw.</p>
<p>There’s no need to be sorry, White_Rabbit. </p>
<p>It’s like calling African American people “The Negro”… in this day and age, it’s not acceptable anymore.</p>