No one in the education sector is going to jump through hoops for a measly few extra dollars until the entire support system for everyone involved is actually overhauled. Frankly, we won't see any movement until institutions like the Department of Education and the SSA finally start doing their jobs properly.
Susan James said:Think about the kids currently in fourth grade. They started school right in the middle of strikes and then dealt with the Apple era... plus another two years of lockdowns. They got a tiny break to take their standardized tests, and then it's straight into the hands of China starting in fifth grade to try and make up for the lost schooling, which basically means being stuck in all-day school programs. 😬
It feels like we're heading toward extremes... and it almost feels like the whole point is to mess things up for these kids.
I think you’re giving the folks over at the Department of Education far too much credit. Nobody there is actually engaging in any meaningful, long-term strategic thinking—which explains why we see this same brand of chaotic mismanagement every few years. If they would just bother to reach out to the actual experts who work directly with children on the ground, things might improve, but even that seems like too much effort for them.
The issue isn't actually coming from external forces; rather, it’s that funds are being funneled in from abroad and then somehow have to be spent and justified. It is quite frankly a farce—unnamed individuals simply copy-pasted snippets from various foreign programs, and the whole thing looks like a total Dracula
I can't say for certain right now, though I intend to conduct a more thorough investigation once I have my laptop back in hand. Frankly, forcing an extra hour of mandatory tutoring after a full seven or eight-hour school day isn't going to help anyone. We’re already stuck doing this currently, and we all know it's a total disaster. These spins from the Department of Education claiming this will somehow magically prevent students from ever needing to study or do homework at home again are nothing short of an insulting lie.
You’re drifting completely off-topic here, though I do recall you turning just about every discussion into a grievance session against teachers and the school system. It seems your standard move is to demand they overhaul the entire curriculum specifically for your child—whether it's accommodations for dyslexia or whatever else—expecting them to dedicate 100% of their energy to one student as if the rest of the class simply didn't exist.
There is no such thing as a legal mechanism for corrections 😬
But apparently, my group is expected to handle all those fixes during overtime. Sure, why not?
The problem is, I’m already juggling four different programs, and I can barely manage a single hour of extra work when someone from any one of them shows up at my desk—let alone find the capacity to mentor anyone else while I'm at it. It is frankly absurd that anyone thought it was a good idea to pile all these responsibilities onto one person simultaneously.
Sarah Hall53 said:Look, you aren't going to end up with two different sets of standards—you know as well as I do that the only way anything from CDŠ actually integrates into the general system four years down the road is if we just raise the bar for everyone across the board.
Oh, don't be so certain. I'm convinced they'll still have childcare programs running in schools until 3:00 PM. We’ll all be completely burnt out and eventually drop dead just trying to make it home by 5:00. Personally, I'd rather be $200 richer than deal with some parent attacking me because their exhausted kid didn't finish their homework at school.
I find myself wondering: once this entire initiative inevitably collapses like every other half-baked project we see around here, will those experimental schools be allowed to keep their bizarre, distorted curriculum? It seems we're headed toward a ridiculous situation where we'll be stuck navigating two entirely different sets of standards and teaching methods simultaneously.
Sarah Hall53 said:Sweden is basically where education goes to die; you can't even put them in the same sentence as Finland.
It is quite fascinating, really. During our presentations, they were constantly drawing parallels to the Swedish system—going so far as to claim that Swedish teachers are always beaming and happy despite working full-time schedules. 🙏 Then, out of nowhere, a woman spoke up whose sister actually lives in Sweden and whose nephews attend school there, and suddenly, the narrative shifted quite drastically...
Greetings, does anyone happen to know if it's permissible to travel between one's registered residence (where I am currently staying in my own property) and my official permanent address without a pass?
We're talking about two neighboring towns here.
I mean, I can certainly head back to my hometown under "justified reasons," but the real question is: will they actually let me move back into my primary residence afterward?
Michelle Nelson4 said:Oops. My apologies, dear Professor—I certainly didn't mean to offer any "legitimate" discourse; I suppose I'll just stick to being completely illegitimate 😵 Thank you so much for pointing out that crucial fact: that in your eyes, I lack the "proper credentials" to participate in this conversation. Then again, we do live in a country where having the "right paperwork" seems to be everything...
I'm particularly delighted to learn that you are a recognized expert with a sub-specialization in the future importance of handwriting. Is this based on a PhD, or just a Master's degree?
And honestly, what am I even supposed to say in response to a post like yours? 🤷
I find it truly remarkable that anyone who has simply reached reproductive age believes they possess the absolute authority to lecture those actually trained in education on how the system should function. The sheer audacity of claims suggesting that handwriting is some obsolete relic is, quite frankly, on par with someone shouting, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M TYPING INTO A COMPUTER AT THE CASH REGISTER?"
How on earth could the teacher be at fault here? It’s strictly prohibited according to every single textbook, with the sole exception being foreign language books, which are meant to be used as workbooks.
Sarah Hall53 said:All the textbooks are free this year. But honestly, when it comes to the workbooks... nobody has any clue what’s actually going to happen for the first and fifth grades—especially with that weird rule about limiting required materials to 100 items or $67. It’s just a mess. My colleagues over in the history and geography departments are absolutely pulling their hair out right now—specifically because of those two atlases, $67. Since they can't list them as mandatory, they're stuck. I mean, how are students supposed to do any actual critical thinking or creative projects without an atlas? It just doesn't make sense...
Honestly, the whole situation feels incredibly bleak. We can only sit here and hope this entire mess collapses once the current administration is ousted and someone new takes over—though, if we follow the usual pattern of American politics, it’s often just one endless circle of shit replacing itself with another.
Not a single one of these specialists is actually an expert, nor do they act as any kind of support for the teacher; if anything, they constantly try to play boss, while being utterly useless in every other regard.
I once found myself standing there for seventeen agonizing minutes just waiting for everything to be organized for a single test. I honestly felt like a total psychopath, just hovering there clutching my papers. Then, suddenly, the next set of tests was all gathered together in a mere two minutes. 🙂
No amount of absolute chaos can seem to shake them loose. We all know someone—one of those people who should have been slapped with a formal warning or just handed their walking papers long ago—who somehow still manages to keep their job.
I make it a point never to lend out a single pen, an eraser, a compass, or even a pencil sharpener; frankly, I couldn't care less about their ridiculous little games. I simply remind them, quite pointedly, that this isn't some prestigious university and that school is their primary responsibility right now. "But once I start writing 🙂"—honestly, I don't give a damn. You're thirteen years old and you've been sitting in a classroom for eight years already, so perhaps you could try actually finding an answer for once.
Nicholas King said:Strikes aren't the only way to take organized action.
Honestly, any discussion regarding educational reform is basically dead on arrival as long as everyone involved in the teacher-parent-student triangle relies on those lazy "they're all just..." stereotypes. It’s this toxic pattern where parents and students claim "they're all just incompetent, lazy, and totally uninterested in actual progress..."; meanwhile, teachers paint the others as "all just maniacs obsessed with grades..." or—even worse—"just a bunch of hooligans waiting for an excuse to cause chaos..."—all based on nothing more than a few bad experiences with one or two specific individuals.
And then, predictably, anyone within that triangle who doesn't fit those labels feels insulted. They get offended. Then they get angry. And eventually, things just turn aggressive 😬.
The phrase I keep repeating might sound a bit "political," but I am convinced it is a fundamental truth: we won't see any luck with our schools or our reforms until the heads of this triangle (along with the broader "community" at the top) start viewing one another as stakeholders—you know, people all rowing in the same boat. We need the "community" to actually, consistently, and most importantly sincerely promote competence and knowledge as a core societal value.
BTW, saying "more than half" is—well, it's actually a very low bar, regardless of which part of the triangle you're looking at. We need significantly more than just a simple majority of decent teachers, decent parents, and decent students. More than that, we need a clear, functional mechanism to actually increase the number of those "decent" people in the mix.
I agree completely. As far as I'm concerned, we should feel free to tighten the criteria for disciplinary warnings and even terminations. So many people work as long-term substitutes for years, and frankly, they often prove to be much higher quality than those holding permanent positions.
Sarah Hall53 said:Wait, are you saying 3 to 4 hours every single week of unpaid labor throughout the school year?
If I could actually bill for it, I absolutely would. Right now, they compensate me for twenty minutes of prep work for every hour of class, but what happens when my prep session stretches to ninety minutes? It’s the exact same story with being a homeroom teacher. Last week, I had a parent-teacher conference that dragged on for an hour and a half, not to mention the phone calls I spent catching up with three different parents—none of which accounted for a single minute of my official school hours. There isn't a single line item in my contract that covers that. It’s all incredibly easy to dismiss everything else as just "other duties," but in reality, those "duties" are just a collection of mindless, unpaid tasks that fall outside the scope of my actual job.