Twilight

No post yesterday, sorry. A big nasty headache has been eating away at my resolve to stay human.

On a somewhat ironically related note, I've finally finished the first book in the Twilight series. I've promised countless students and friends, even my mom, that I would read these books. It's been years now and finally I've slogged my way through the first book.

Yes. Slogged. As in trudged my way through a cumbersome tome of mind-snagging implausibilities.

Sorry. Don't hate me, but it was really not as good as it was built up to be. It did pick up toward the end. But you have to just willfully suspend so MUCH logic to get through it.

Anyway, I'll begin New Moon today. Wish me luck. If you like eerie coincidences, it begins on September 13. That's today. As Sheldon Cooper might say, I love it when things work out.

I'm reading these because a local theater is going to show all four movies when the last one comes out next month and my friend wants us to go. It sounds fun, but I refuse to watch movies I haven't read as books--if they were actually books first. So, I have to get reading.

But really. Come on. This stuff passes as great? Barbra Kingsolver, Belva Plame, Toni Morrison, John Irving, Eudora Welty, Maya Angelou, Pearl Cleage. Just off the top of my head, all these are miles and miles, leaps and bounds, better writers. There are so many more.

Not that I'm trying to disparage Stephenie Meyer. I haven't written four bestsellers. My hat's off to her. But the stuff that satiates the masses in this great nation. I really do worry for the American education system.

Oh, I forgot to add this. A friend sent it today and I did, honest to goodness, LOL.

 

Twilight Series

I'm Not Kidding

I spoke with my son's principal today about how the first week has gone. She agreed that if he has all "A"s at the end of six weeks, she'll consider allowing him to promote to fourth grade. She did, however, stress that if he goes to fourth he'll have to take the fourth grade standardized test, and if he doesn't do well, she'll be asked why she allowed him to promote. And of course, he’ll be at a disadvantage then because he will have missed the first six weeks of fourth grade.

Really. We have an administrator who's willing to take a chance on a kid after six weeks, but who'd really rather allow him to sit mostly idle for an entire year because she's worried about that end of year test score and what it means to her financially.

This system is NOT one for the kids. It's leave every single kid as behind as possible, lower the standards as much as we can without straight forward public humiliation, so that we can pass that test.

Crime in Italy! Crime in the classroom.

And speaking of that, I also spoke to his teacher this morning about perhaps giving him more, and more challenging, homework. As I did this, I cringed inwardly at my mental flashbacks of Taiwanese parents coming to me to ask for more homework for their children. But this is different. Right?

I felt awful. My kid looked at me like I was kicking his puppy. But I want him to LEARN something this year. I want him to keep the good study habits he learned in Taiwan. He doesn't need four hours of homework, but a bit more than four problems covering material he's already learned would be nice. I don't like the attitude he's developing that school is so easy that he doesn't need to try.

Anyway, her reply was that they just had a conference with some math specialists who are trying to convince them to give NO homework for math because it stresses the children too much.

I'm not kidding.

And this is a campus where, last year, seventeen teachers were laid off due to government spending cuts. I realize that this has to be just the most stressful job. I'm secretly kind of glad that I'm not employed as a teacher here. But come on. I care. I really care. Not a lot of parents here care. Couldn't they be glad that I care and willing to work with me?

The principal even said that they usually have very few "A" students in fourth grade here and that from this she understands that they are challenging the kids. Well, from this, I might guess that this is a tiny little red-neck, slap-a-tick, town where most moms and dads work in factories or farming and don't spend time with their kids being concerned for their education. I'd even bet a good percentage of the moms and dads here don't read on as high a level as my son. Maybe fourth grade is a challenge to most of these kids, but there's a reason for that.

I'm not kidding.

School's in for Autum. School's Out Forever.

 

Alice Cooper on the school board? Nah. That really would be too cool for school. But here are a few thoughts on what it might mean to be in school these days. This may go astray a bit. Forgive me.

 

My son's been a third grade student here for one week. He should be in fourth grade and, though he's happy to be on easy street, I'm very worried and disappointed with the way things are going so far.

 

We've just come home after spending the last two school years in Taiwan. Part of the reason we were there was to give him a chance to learn about that part of who he is--Taiwanese. It was important to me that he have some understanding of that side of himself. His father isn't in the picture until he looks in the mirror; then there are lots of questions that I felt would be better answered where they really all started.

 

Plus, it was important for me that he have a chance to learn some Mandarin--and he did. My son did a GREAT job of learning a language that he didn't speak a word of when we landed, and of learning subject material through that language. I'm very proud of him!

 

But he should be in fourth grade this year. After spending the last two years studying his tail off, he feels like he can almost sleep through school. He told me, in fact, after the second day of school that he thinks he'd be fine in sixth grade here. And he's right! I bet he really could do it.

 

When I took him to Taiwan, two years ago, he had just finished up with first grade here. In Taiwan, I chose to put him back into first grade again because he was going to have to study through a language he didn't speak. And in third grade, there's a big jump for Taiwanese students because they have to learn about 3-5 thousand characters that year. If they don't already have the spoken vocabulary for this, it's truly a daunting task! Even for kids who've never been outside Taiwan, third grade is a tough year.

 

So, I put him first again to give him time to catch up. I wasn't sure how long we'd be there, but I knew he needed a chance to learn to speak before he had to write.

 

He did very well. He brought home straight "A"s. But the school her wants him in third grade simply because he hasn't been to third grade.

 

Come on. Is anyone home? He hasn't been to second either, here. Second grade here and second grade in Taiwan aren't equal.

 

For one thing, in Taiwan first and second graders still only attend school for half days. Full day school days don't begin until third grade. Not that students don't study all day. Most study from sun up to sun down. After school, there are any number of cram schools for Taiwanese students to study in, and they do.

 

My son had 4 hours--that's FOUR hours--of homework every night in first and second grade in Taiwan. That was working with the Taiwanese tutor I hired to help him with his work because I couldn't read it. And that's NOT including any cram school hours, which I didn't think he needed on top of his regular school work.

 

These are only two simple examples of why it shouldn't mean anything to the local administration here that he's been to second grade, but not third. There are many other differences that I won't bother to type out. You get the idea.

 

He's learning math here in third grade that he learned in first grade there. All the books in his library are babyish books that he's too advanced for. He's reading on a 6.5 grade level for me. When he was studying in Taiwan, I didn't push spelling or writing in English, but I did encourage him to read as much as possible. I knew (I thought I knew) that as long as he had his reading skills, he'd do fine if we came back here.

 

So my child is now fully bilingual, and fully bi-literate, but the school here won't allow him to study in fourth grade.

 

Why? He brings home one worksheet for homework. This one worksheet has four questions. Stuff he learned two years ago. This is a total joke.

 

Why indeed. When he came back here and I asked them to put him in fourth grade, they insisted on testing him. They gave him a standardized test that they use for end of year promotion to fourth grade. But he'd never seen such a test before. He didn't fail, but he didn't do well enough to cause them to allow him to study in fourth grade. He only spent twenty minutes on his reading test--which most end of term third graders take in two hours. And he still didn't fail it. He just rushed through it.

 

He took longer to take his math test, but was confused by the questions and the vocabulary--most of which he knew only in Mandarin because he'd learned his math overseas. And yet he still passed that test, too. It was all format and unfamiliarity, plus a little boy's impatience with a silly test that he knew was too easy for him.

 

So what do I do? I'm a teacher myself and I take my own son's education very seriously. I'm quite frustrated with the local administration's tick-the-box approach to this, with no real concern for providing my son with the best education they could provide him with. But I have no money, at the moment, for private instruction, and to homeschool him, I'll have to have very flexible employment.

 

Really, the education system here is in more trouble than most people likely realize. Where’re the critical thinking skills evident in this situation? The child is not familiar with this testing procedure and format = he's not ready to promote. It doesn't matter if he knows the material or not, or if he has other knowledge that his peers don't, or if we're wasting his time by not giving him access to new knowledge.

 

If the administrators can't think more critically than this, the school's out forever, indeed. No point in thinking for yourself any longer at all. Just learn to be a box ticker. Ugh.