[GCFL-discuss] How Times Have Changed

Wed Feb 25 13:51:47 CST 2009

Siarlys, 

Re your comment:  "Friends of mine in South Carolina have a grandson the schools wanted to put on Ritalin a few years ago. He was squirming a lot in class too. Why?
He finished his work quickly and got everything right, then had nothing to do. This leads me to the conclusion that ADD stands for Administrative Deficiency Disorder. If the kid exhausted what you assigned, give him more work, or something more challenging. When I was in elementary school, my teachers would tell me 'Go to the library and get a book, come back here by <TIME>.' No hall passes either -- I ran into that in junior high school." 

When my son was in kindergarten, I was called in for a parent-teacher conference. The complaint by the teacher was the my son was disrupting the class. When I asked how, the reply was that he would sit and make jokes, or ask the other students what they were doing, or squirm around in his chair. I asked, "Does he get his work done?" The reply came, "Yes, he finishes it quickly." I then asked, "And what do you have him do while the other students are finishing their work?" The reply, "I tell him to sit quietly and wait for the next activity." I was stunned! This was an educator of kindergarten students?! Asking a 5-year-old boy to sit still for up to 10 minutes while his classmates finished their work?! Very tactfully (that was then; I would not be as gentle now!), I suggested that she send him to the back of the room with some books, or let him play at the sand table, or play with puzzles. Her reply, "Why, I couldn't do that! The other students would
 want to leave their work undone and go do what he is doing!" Again, I was stunned! "Okay, give him some extra work to do. He loves to write stories and draw pictures." Again, the reply, "But the other children will want to do that, too!" Knowing I was getting nowhere with her, I went to see the principal. She explained that this was a first-year teacher, and she (the principal) would work with her to solve the problem. Gues what the solution was? When he was finished with his assignment, my son got to go to the back of the room to read, draw, write stories, etc., and any other student who also finished her/his work early also got to go to the back of the room for the same activities. Duuuhhh! 

A week before his first grade year ended, he came home in tears, crying because he wasn't going to be promoted to second grade because he hadn't finished his workbook. When I talked with the teacher the next day, she called my son over, apologized to him, and explained that he was working on the third-grade workbook and that he would be promoted. Smart teacher. Kid finishes his work early, challenge him with more difficult work! 

Our education system is in a very sad state. My husband is a math instructor at a community/technical college. In order to graduate with an AA degree, students must pass college algebra. All students must pass the pre-algebra math course before taking college algebra. Even so, he gets students who can't multiply or divide simple numbers and have no idea what to do with fractions. It's frustrating for everybody. Especially the parents who have to pay the tuition for the student to repeat the course. My husband is on the advisory committee, and he is trying to get the bar raised for the pre-algebra class to make sure students can do basic math. Unfortunately, the "old guard" at the school sees nothing wrong with the current system in which 30% of the algebra students fail the course and repeat it one to two times in order to pass it. My husband suggested to the advisory committee that if a student passes the course with an A or a B, her/his tuition be
 refunded. A student on the committee topped his suggestion with, "Don't refund the tuition, apply it to any other course the student wants to take the next semester." Gee, there are some students who really can think! Let's reward them for it. 

kateinmo 

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