Education?
on 08/15/2010 at 08:44 AM
Don’t get me started OCM…
We moved during my 5th grade year to avoid the court-ordered bussing. While I didn’t end up being able to go home for lunch, I was still at a ‘neighborhood’ school. 5th and some of 6th grade we all went to lunch as a class and the teacher would say ‘Grace’. I liked that.
It stopped during 6th grade. Thank you Madalyn Murray O’Hair for stopping a great school tradition.
It was also during 6th grade that the optional Bible classes stopped. See, you could opt for a Bible class. It was held off-campus (we had to march across the parking lot to the local church). Don’t remember the denomination, but I do remember, if nothing else, the order of the books in the Bible.
Early 70’s?
Sorry Mick, I was in 4th grade in 1968.
Good thing I was in Indianapolis then. I missed the riots that year. In ‘73 we moved to Dayton. Parts of Dayton still haven’t recovered from the ‘68 riots to this day.
Other than that Mick, you’re preaching to the choir.
If I had a child today, he/she would be home-schooled.
I’ve been to parent-teacher conferences with my step-son. With one exception (and he was the shop teacher!), none of his teachers were as good as me. The English teacher couldn’t spell, or construct and diagram a sentence. The math teacher couldn’t take a square root. (learned that in 7th grade).
And don’t get me started on the so-called ‘social studies’ teachers…
I tutored him through high school. Result? He’s the first in his family to actually graduate.
I remember after one especially volatile parent-teacher conference, I got nasty phone calls from the English teacher saying she didn’t assign homework because homework was racist.
I did not realize how blessed I was - went to public school K-12 - most of it (K-9) in the same school building - then (1973) and now at least 97% of the freshman class graduates (my two youngest children graduated from the same HS). I saw no angst over religion - as the Catholics went to their schools and then only those who could not/did not want their kids to go so far or pay the higher tuition sent their HS kids to the public school. They were seen as the under-educated ones. I went to college but only got through a year and a half before getting married.
I’ve home schooled (tried a half a year in 2003 and did a full year in 2004/5 for my daughter) All of my kids have had a mix of DOD and public schools - only found a couple of teachers that weren’t worth the time of day - even in KY the schools on a whole were good. My two youngest kids arrived here and due to all the problems with our son after his injury - both had to take both the 9th grade test & the Graduation test (OH version) - both did both tests in one day, both did very little pre prep (neither had studied any OH civics) and both passed in the upper half. In fact, in addition to both of the OH tests, my daughter took the California Achievement test - to get back into HS after the year of homeschooling - breezed through that too and in the end also took the ACT. So even with being here less than 2 years - she took 4 standardized tests and passed them all. Overkill but certainly made the point that her previous 11 years of different schools and homechooling didn’t hurt her at all.
As far as home schooling - they have kits now - with it all. We just got lucky and I found the book & workbook and Sarah studied Chemistry with her brother - it worked out, as she has no desire to be a scientist but did get the fundamentals and because he had to bring the experiments home (they would not supply someone during class to assist him) - we just copied it & they both did it together - so it worked to both of their benefits.
In some ways - the public school system stinks but on the whole in middle, fly-over America (always avoiding the cities) it is still working.
While our school system is doing so great - just 5 minutes down the road - the city schools are failing big time - hmmm, I wonder what the difference is?
