Posts by rowdypanther12

The Glass Bead Game😍

It’s really helpful because it matters so much to us that they can travel to and from school with a neighbor, especially when dealing with absences. 👍

What if they don't assign the same teacher for after-school care as the one in her actual classroom?
Mine starts at Stenjevec Elementary School in 2016, and she'll probably end up in a class with German language electives.

Just be my little informant, okay? 😘

Kate Morgan14 said:Personally, I don't care if she stays in after-school care rather than walking home alone. At least in the program, they're playing and socializing—she won't be the only one hanging out until 5:00 PM...

Even though we live just two blocks from the school, I’d much rather have her under supervision at the school than walking home to an empty house for an hour or two.

I get that, but I think I'd prefer my little one to gradually get used to being home alone.

By the way, I'm making a note to bring some heavy-duty staplers for the school inspection.😁

I didn't actually intend for her to handle everything on her own to the point where I wouldn't even know which grade she's in.
If she hits a wall, of course I'll step in and help her try to figure out the solution herself.
But as for correcting her homework... I'm really not sure how she'd feel about that.
Since I've already proven myself wrong more than a few times in my life, I'll just admit I don't know.
For now, my take is that if she gets it wrong, she gets it wrong. It's her lesson to learn.

Adam Evans62 said:Okay, you seriously need a reality check.
Do you live in a bubble where nobody actually has school-aged kids? Because what you're saying is wild.
You really think your kid is just going to walk into first grade and handle everything solo without any help? Good grief.😵Don't take this personally since we're strangers, but I genuinely can't believe someone is this out of touch with how things work.
Anyway, good luck with the start of the school year. Hope it goes well. And please, for the love of God, check back in a few months and tell us how your kid is supposedly managing every single assignment entirely by themselves.😉

So, I get what you're saying. I'm also convinced that all of this is doable and that the curriculum isn't even harder than when we were kids—if anything, it's easier—so comments like this just really throw me off.
Since you're a teacher, could you please explain something to me?
I still have some time before school starts, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to preparation.😂
When did it become "normal" to EXPECT parents to do the schoolwork alongside their kids? I was just talking to my neighbor about this; there are parents who push their kids to get straight A's and everything, yet the teachers themselves assign homework that basically assumes parents are going to step in and help!
Since when, and why?!
Isn't it reasonable to expect a 7-year-old girl who is mature and responsible to be able to handle her own school responsibilities?

I honestly don't quite follow you—I'm not sure why you're surprised by my reaction. I have no intention of doing my child's schoolwork for them; I just want them to go to class, learn, and handle their own responsibilities.
I don't want it to be assumed that I'll be stepping in to help, especially with assignments that seem to require parent involvement for 90% of kids.
Since she’ll be starting elementary school at seven and a half and can already read, I’m confident she’ll be able to tackle these worksheets on her own.
But honestly, I don't think this is a reasonable task for a kid who's just starting school and still mastering reading.
It feels wrong to me that there's an expectation for parents to do schoolwork alongside their children. Sorry if I'm behind the times, but I just don't see it as normal.

It’s only been a week, and this is happening because the library is short on books and the professors 😁
My kid hasn't even started school yet, and I honestly, truly have zero intention of stepping in to help.
That doesn't mean I won't be there if she gets stuck—it's like if I helped her pull up her tights so they were easier to put on, even if I'm not actually wearing them myself.
Things like this just really frustrate me, because once I heard about this collection being over 100 pages long, I asked my neighbor whose little girl is in second grade, and she confirmed they actually read all 100 pages of poems.
They’re fun and sweet and perfect for kids, but asking children to read 100 pages is almost impossible.

edit, MG, yeah, exactly that—but with a parent's help. Is that actually normal?
edit 2, I'd really love to hear from other moms if this book is standard practice or if it's just an outlier.

I’m telling you, this book was actually assigned to kids for reading assignments 🙂
the whole 🙂

Adam Evans62 said:You can let a first grader tackle their reading list solo. They’ve got a few books they can handle on their own—like Hrabrica. But honestly? It’s totally fine to help them out. Especially when it comes to actually understanding the story. At that age, most kids are so hyper-focused on just the mechanics of decoding the words that they miss the point entirely. They'll plow through five pages and have absolutely no clue what they just read.
Every single class has those few kids who are already reading ahead on their own from day one. Of course they are. But most of them? They need actual guidance and someone to walk them through it. 😉

I honestly can't tell if you're missing my point or if I'm just being unclear.
What's the purpose of assigning books that kids aren't even capable of reading or understanding on their own? How does it make sense to assign reading material at the very beginning of school under the assumption that a parent is going to do the heavy lifting?
Why aren't they just reading ten-page picture books with ten sentences?

I find it honestly kind of strange that parents are expected to sit down and read entire books with their kids. Wouldn't it make more sense if the reading list was actually designed for beginners? Like, maybe start with picture books that are only a few pages long, then move up to short stories, and eventually work our way toward actual books...
I don't really get it—don't kill me, but I just don't see the point.

Are we really assuming parents will be reading this? Seriously? Is that actually... expected??

and someone’s actually going to hand out 110 pages of poetry for the freshmen to read 😁

I only mentioned the thing about the reduction because I totally misunderstood the assignment 😂

Adam Evans62 said:All this talk about students being overwhelmed by too much material is total nonsense. I can personally vouch for that. In my 11 years on the job, I’ve seen the exact opposite. Every year, textbooks actually cut back on the sheer volume of data, and there's more time allocated for practice and review than ever before.
As for grading, we still have way, way too many straight-A students in our elementary schools—especially in those first four grades. It’s mostly just parent pressure on teachers and administrators to make sure their kid gets top marks. Then comes the inevitable shock and disbelief when those kids hit high school, where the standards and the workload are actually rigorous.

Personally, I’d scrap traditional grading entirely. Just stick to percentages and descriptive feedback to show where they stand, but tighten the hell up on the actual criteria used for assessment.☕

You popped up at just the right moment.😁
Can someone please tell me if this is supposed to be a required reading for first graders that they need to finish entirely?

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/example-reading-list

Because some teachers assign this entire book as summer reading.😁

On another note, I was looking over a first-grade math quiz recently and was completely lost.😂Terms like "dividend" and "divisor."😂
It’s not that I wouldn't want to help (and I really would), it's just that I wouldn't even know how.😁

Of course, we didn't have any grades for the first four years of elementary school, and everything worked out just fine. In fact, there are several other countries where they don't use grades even longer than that.

Lawrence Torres56 said:Look, the whole point of having grades in first grade should be to nudge kids toward learning, which shouldn't be an issue for anyone—kids or parents alike.
And hey, if we think our kid is doing "well enough," isn't that just our own subjective opinion? It probably doesn't have anything to do with reality and everything to do with—forgive my bluntness—our own insecurities... instead of dwelling on those, maybe we as parents should focus more on the actual kids, especially during this first year where the foundation for everything else is being laid down...

By the way, personally, I don't believe there's such a thing as a kid who "can't do school"; I think there are just kids who haven't been taught certain concepts in a way that actually clicks for them... which, unfortunately, brings us back to the mistake many parents make, assuming someone else is solely responsible for all the heavy lifting while we just sit back.

As a parent of a first grader myself, my one major gripe with elementary school is just how long the days are. Twenty-three hours of school a week is way too much for kids this age; their attention span is basically tapped out after three or four hours tops.

So... maybe tell your friend that when her kid gets home, she should sit down and actually go through everything they did in class that day... once she does that, she might just realize exactly what I'm getting at. 😁

Wait, so you really believe it's the parent's job to step in and teach the curriculum to the child? 🤔

That’s exactly what I was thinking 😁 basically, if the kids already know more than what's required, you can't just raise the bar for those who only meet the minimum requirements.
In other words, it's either about the punctuation or whether the specific knowledge was actually requested; if he's a little kid, he should have gotten a 3, but if the question wasn't even asked, then she really messed up.

I've been thinking about how grading actually works lately. I was reading a post by Flying buttres, and while everything seems to make sense at first glance, it starts to feel a bit fuzzy once you dig deeper.
Does the environment really dictate the grades?
For instance, if you're in an honors class where everyone is a grammar perfectionist, everyone might end up with an A. Meanwhile, in a different classroom, maybe everyone just gets Bs or Cs because the standard is lower.
On the flip side, if nobody in the class can master punctuation, would just getting the right answers be enough to earn an A?
It makes me wonder if grades are sometimes just pure luck—like, are you only doing well because you happened to end up in a class with struggling students, or vice versa?
Or is there a strict curriculum in place, where the requirements for an A on that second semester English midterm are set in stone regardless of the class average?
Is punctuation even factored into the grade?
If it isn't a formal requirement, then kids who put in the extra effort to get their punctuation perfect deserve some kind of recognition, even if they get the same A as someone who got the right answer but totally botched the punctuation.

Just Google the reform; there are plenty of articles out there about it.

But honestly, this feels like the first reform that actually carries some weight, especially since it isn't just being driven by political maneuvering.