Posts by Michelle Ward3

Rachel Jones8 said:Which school is this... or if that's too personal, maybe just what city?
Are there many schools doing this?
Do they have to pick another one, like religion or a language, meaning they end up with two extra electives on top of the core classes?
Or is a second language actually required?

Foreign language is mandatory starting in first grade. In fourth grade, they can choose to take one more, two, or none at all as an elective.
The catch is, if they sign up, they’re stuck with it until the end. You can't just decide in fifth grade that you're done with it 😁
.

brightheron64 said:IT is my profession and my bread and butter. My day-to-day involves maintaining computer labs in local schools, but enough about credentials—let’s talk about what I’ve actually observed on the ground.

Do you want to know which teachers are the most vulnerable, or perhaps the ones most likely to lose credibility in the classroom?
It’s the computer science teachers.

To give you an idea, my own kids have been glued to a screen since they were old enough to sit up in a chair and nudge a mouse around, maybe around two years old. Aside from teaching them the very basics, I never really hovered over their shoulder or micromanaged their digital lives; I just let them go out and discover the world on their own terms. And because of that, I find myself constantly floored by the sheer level of technical intuition these kids possess...

So, now try to imagine a computer science teacher who, in most cases, has gone through standard training and is strictly bound to follow some rigid curriculum set by the Department of Education. Picture that person facing down dozens of little tech-savvy monsters who have been using computers since they were in diapers—kids who don't care one bit about a predetermined lesson plan because they rely entirely on their own intuitive, hands-on experience...

Sure, there are plenty of tech-savvy kids that age, but there are others too. That’s why I think starting slow with the basics is perfectly fine.

In our school, computer science is a mandatory elective (an oxymoron, I know) starting in first grade. Along with the kids who are already pros, we have students who don't even own a computer at home.
My daughter falls into a third category. She has her own laptop, but she’s incredibly hesitant, distrustful, and lacks independence when navigating the digital world.

That said, I notice that as she learns more, that fear* of clicking the wrong thing or "breaking" the machine starts to fade.

To head off any questions 😬
I have no clue why she’s so afraid. God knows I’m constantly diving into all sorts of experiments and deep dives that usually end with me having to reinstall macOS, and 🙄 then the boys have to come save my skin.

Regardless, even though they take computer classes, they've never actually been given a task where a computer was truly essential.

Great. How are you supposed to figure out how many items are in an equal set when you haven't even learned division yet?

Though, I suppose it’s only fair to mention there’s more to the story.
Naturally, I headed into the elementary school the next morning to ask the teacher how on earth they expected a first grader to tackle a problem like that.

The response? "Oh, you weren't actually supposed to be doing those; that's just enrichment math."

So, I can't exactly claim this is standard curriculum when the average six-year-old should be able to handle it without help.

Nicholas King said:It isn't idiotic to grade them—it's idiotic to grade them poorly.

If I recall correctly, first grade isn't actually "first grade"—kids at that stage are essentially going through a "pre-school transition year," where they are gradually moved from that kindergarten phase of "just playing all day" into a phase where actual learning begins. Besides, if we had school without any kind of grades, it would just feel like another year of daycare for most children (not all, obviously, but enough of them). And frankly, which of us adults takes our jobs seriously if there isn't some sort of accountability mechanism in place?

What’s truly problematic—aside from the curriculum being fundamentally misaligned—is that those first four years should be about instilling a foundation for how to approach learning... basically ensuring that even if they don't love it, they at least don't grow to hate school. As it stands now, kids are coming out of fourth grade as nothing more than a mindless heap of memorized facts—and quite often, they're functionally illiterate.

I can say with certainty that some of the questions are abnormal (for that age group).

Can you give me a few examples?

Having an engineering degree from MIT isn't a guarantee that someone can explain math to a six-year-old. No, I'm really not joking.

I don't have an engineering degree, but I have an example for you.🙂

I remembered a specific problem that frustrated me to tears. Even back then, I couldn't figure out how to set up the equation for my sixth grader, and even after asking for help on a forum, nothing clicked.😬
To be honest, I still wouldn't know how to teach it today unless I just told her to "guess!" And when it comes to math, I refuse to resort to that.

It goes like this:

Claire and Sarah picked 20 strawberries.
Sarah says, "If you give me two strawberries, we will both have the same amount."
How many strawberries did Claire pick, and how many did Sarah pick?

The catch is that at that age, kids only know basic addition and subtraction.

steeleagle23 said:Can I jump in?😉
Honestly, I’d find a crying kid pretty distracting if I was trying to catch up with friends. People head to a coffee shop or a local pub just to unwind and actually hear one another—you know, like you do—and having a toddler screaming in the background totally kills that vibe. It’s especially grating when the parents just sit there acting like nothing is happening and don't even try to settle them down...
Honestly, I feel like just sitting there and having a smoke wouldn't bother anyone—really—as long as it isn't getting in the way of their own comfort or making things difficult for them.

I totally get where you're coming from—I’m a mom myself (though my kid is all grown up now)—but at the same time, I also know that dealing with someone else's unruly kids isn't exactly something everyone is obligated to just sit there and take.

My turn too.😉

I’d much rather deal with general noise interrupting a conversation than have to listen to a child crying while being completely ignored by their parents.

As far back as I can remember, getting into high school was actually straightforward—it was just based on a combination of middle school grades and entrance exams. I can't recall exactly when or why they scrapped that system. Does anyone know?

ironwolf52, you probably already covered the customs duties and sales tax 🤷 but that discrepancy? That’s just the shipping fees and the postal handling charge. It couldn't be anything else.

Quick question: when you're sending larger packages, do you need to specify if they're being sent as a parcel or a registered letter?

One day at the post office, the clerk was measuring my package dimensions and doing some math—I was bracing myself for a massive bill since I had several large items—but turns out everything just came out to $14.$5.75

Then today, I hit up a different branch with three small parcels (all in those bubble mailers, definitely under 11 lbs)... and the woman there just blurted out $9.00 that every single 😠 one
would cost...
What’s actually the difference between a standard package and a registered letter? They both use the exact same form.