School Reform: Thoughts?

I honestly just feel a deep sense of regret that people are only just now starting to grasp what a complete mess this whole situation actually is.
It feels like, I don't know, maybe it's already too late at this point. From here on out, I fear we're just heading straight toward a future where everything becomes increasingly mindless.

feralmoose32 said:But honestly, it really comes down to the teacher—I mean, I was showing my friend some of my old school notebooks once, and she just lost it laughing because her teacher's class (they’re in second grade now) used to go absolutely wild with their note-taking for every single subject... like, for one English assignment, they had already filled half a page just practicing the letter A, whereas my notebook had four full pages dedicated to it

Well, yours was practically a survival guide for life.
Hers definitely wasn't.
🙄

urbantinker8 said:Back in the day, the lower elementary grades were always a chaotic whirlwind of coloring and drawing.🙄
But at least they were actually learning how to write.
Honestly, stripping written letters out of the first-grade curriculum feels like a total crime against education.☕

I mean, kids just don't get that sense of tangible progress anymore—so many of them have been stuck writing in block letters for a year or two now—and they end up incredibly bored, or worse, it’s just fundamentally bad for their fine motor skill development.

And that's not all. Kids just don't have the patience to sit at a desk and actually write or read anymore. They'll only focus if something is incredibly, mind-blowingly engaging. Anything else? They're squirming after thirty minutes tops.

urbantinker8 said:I honestly just feel a deep sense of regret that people are only just now starting to grasp what a complete mess this whole situation actually is.
It feels like, I don't know, maybe it's already too late at this point. From here on out, I fear we're just heading straight toward a future where everything becomes increasingly mindless.

It’s not even the general public that knows—it's mostly just those who actually deal with students every day...

urbantinker8 said:Well, yours was practically a survival guide for life.
Hers definitely wasn't.
🙄

And regarding what you mentioned... 🤣

feralmoose32 said:It’s not even the general public that knows—it's mostly just those who actually deal with students every day...

And regarding what you mentioned... 🤣

well, I suppose that's an important distinction to make, isn't it?
though I guess for the grandparents out there, it probably all feels pretty much the same regardless.

It wasn't overcrowded at all; kids have been mastering writing skills for years without any issues 😁 if they struggle with something, it's usually reading, but that doesn't mean we should scrap writing altogether 😂
I’d much rather they skip relearning the number four during spring than get rid of writing 😁

rowdypanther12 said:It wasn't overcrowded at all; kids have been mastering writing skills for years without any issues 😁 if they struggle with something, it's usually reading, but that doesn't mean we should scrap writing altogether 😂
I’d much rather they skip relearning the number four during spring than get rid of writing 😁

Or just nature—life in the fall. 🙄

feralmoose32 said:My little one just started first grade, and they actually gave us a presentation about how the curriculum is pivoting heavily toward reading—apparently, they realized kids were struggling to actually comprehend what they were looking at on the page
That’s even why they decided to pull back on teaching formal handwriting during the first-grade year itself...
Right now, the only real writing they’re doing is in their English class; for everything else, it seems like they're just frantically coloring and doodling away 🤣

I remember my mom used to nag me about all the coloring we did in first grade, and she wasn't exactly the patient type!
I can't even imagine what the classrooms look like nowadays. 🙂

I saw a little kid's math homework the other day—just basic shapes like rectangles, triangles, and circles 🤣(honestly, we were doing that kind of stuff in preschool without even needing worksheets!)

Anyway, how exactly is reading comprehension now being developed 🥳 🕺
if they weren't really focusing on it before? 🤔
Do parents still need to buy those standard workbooks and NATO guides 🤔 or have they moved entirely to tablets where everything is digital?

rowdypanther12 said:It wasn't overcrowded at all; kids have been mastering writing skills for years without any issues 😁 if they struggle with something, it's usually reading, but that doesn't mean we should scrap writing altogether 😂
I’d much rather they skip relearning the number four during spring than get rid of writing 😁

Carol Johnson4 said:Or just nature—life in the fall. 🙄

Exactly.
The fall weather is totally messed up anyway; I'm still wearing sandals while my parents saw cherry blossoms blooming in their garden yesterday.
So, the timing of the curriculum is off regardless.

Wait, didn't I hear somewhere yesterday that there's more trouble with the tablets because apparently some paperwork wasn't filed correctly?

Since it's just first grade, not everyone is even getting one yet—and honestly, we all kind of agreed that they shouldn't be using them anyway, including those four little ones who were actually supposed to receive them... 😬

I honestly can't find any tablets anywhere, no matter where I look.
it’s just thick fog again.

Susan James said:Exactly.
The fall weather is totally messed up anyway; I'm still wearing sandals while my parents saw cherry blossoms blooming in their garden yesterday.
So, the timing of the curriculum is off regardless.

And it’s the same thing every single year—teaching from outdated nature books. It feels pretty pointless.
Local geography and the seasons😁

And then, back in fifth grade during geography class, they make you study the United States just to get the basics down 🤣
...

I’m sitting here in high school again, staring at this map, and I honestly can’t seem to locate Columbus, Ohio, on the first try.
And don't even get me started on trying to find the islands out in the Pacific.
🤣

Susan James said:Exactly.
The fall weather is totally messed up anyway; I'm still wearing sandals while my parents saw cherry blossoms blooming in their garden yesterday.
So, the timing of the curriculum is off regardless.

rowdypanther12 said:And it’s the same thing every single year—teaching from outdated nature books. It feels pretty pointless.
Local geography and the seasons😁

That would be a total waste of time. Who actually needs an agricultural calendar in elementary school these days? When to plant this, when that ripens? Or testing kids on what clothes to wear in summer versus winter? If I’m cold, I put on a hat and a scarf, even if it’s spring.

Carol Johnson4 said:It felt totally overkill to have kids learning all those print uppercase and lowercase letters in the first semester, only to switch to cursive in the second. When I heard they were cutting some of it, I honestly hoped they’d just scrap the print stuff and jump straight to cursive. But nope. :rolayz: What’s even the point of practicing lowercase print? And why spend an entire year drilling those letters just to ditch them completely by next year?

This would actually be perfect for this upcoming school year, the final year before kindergarten.

Exactly. Kids should probably start at age five and a half in a preparatory program, gently learning print letters and numbers up to 20, then move into the standard curriculum once they hit six and a half.

Honestly, I don't see much of a crisis regarding messy handwriting. Let's face it—about 99% of our adult lives involve typing on a laptop rather than using a pen. Some people will always fight that reality and try to downplay how little handwriting matters these days... but soon enough, we'll likely see college exams being taken entirely on computers (or just selecting A/B/C/D options), which solves the whole issue of professors not being able to decipher a student's scrawl. Of course, there will be plenty of complaining and hand-wringing about how "this is all sooo bad" and how everything needs to be done exactly the way it was back in our day.

Michelle Nelson4 said:Exactly. Kids should probably start at age five and a half in a preparatory program, gently learning print letters and numbers up to 20, then move into the standard curriculum once they hit six and a half.

Honestly, I don't see much of a crisis regarding messy handwriting. Let's face it—about 99% of our adult lives involve typing on a laptop rather than using a pen. Some people will always fight that reality and try to downplay how little handwriting matters these days... but soon enough, we'll likely see college exams being taken entirely on computers (or just selecting A/B/C/D options), which solves the whole issue of professors not being able to decipher a student's scrawl. Of course, there will be plenty of complaining and hand-wringing about how "this is all sooo bad" and how everything needs to be done exactly the way it was back in our day.

Where on earth did this grand conclusion come from?

I suppose IT professionals probably won't need much handwriting, that seems clear enough.
But for everyone else, you know, the "regular" folks, it might actually matter.

Michelle Nelson4 said:Exactly. Kids should probably start at age five and a half in a preparatory program, gently learning print letters and numbers up to 20, then move into the standard curriculum once they hit six and a half.

Honestly, I don't see much of a crisis regarding messy handwriting. Let's face it—about 99% of our adult lives involve typing on a laptop rather than using a pen. Some people will always fight that reality and try to downplay how little handwriting matters these days... but soon enough, we'll likely see college exams being taken entirely on computers (or just selecting A/B/C/D options), which solves the whole issue of professors not being able to decipher a student's scrawl. Of course, there will be plenty of complaining and hand-wringing about how "this is all sooo bad" and how everything needs to be done exactly the way it was back in our day.

I honestly think they should just start with 5 or maybe 5.5. It would make things so much smoother from the get-go!
It’s about more than just keeping seven-year-olds from getting bored in class—though let's be honest, once they hit that age, school can start feeling a bit like a repetitive grind if there isn't enough stimulation. It also tackles the massive shortage of early childhood educators and the fact that so many neighborhoods in the US don't have any preschools or even pre-K programs available at all.

I honestly feel a little bit of regret about the whole situation. Looking back, I really think my kid got more out of preschool this year than they will from three years of elementary school—and that’s not even touching on the language development side of things.

Honestly, *Idiocracy* is such a fantastic movie. It’s especially spot-on for people who seem to crave spending 99% of their waking hours staring at a screen.

It’s like *Idiocracy* was actually a script written by Nostradamus 😂

Michelle Nelson4 said:Exactly. Kids should probably start at age five and a half in a preparatory program, gently learning print letters and numbers up to 20, then move into the standard curriculum once they hit six and a half.

Honestly, I don't see much of a crisis regarding messy handwriting. Let's face it—about 99% of our adult lives involve typing on a laptop rather than using a pen. Some people will always fight that reality and try to downplay how little handwriting matters these days... but soon enough, we'll likely see college exams being taken entirely on computers (or just selecting A/B/C/D options), which solves the whole issue of professors not being able to decipher a student's scrawl. Of course, there will be plenty of complaining and hand-wringing about how "this is all sooo bad" and how everything needs to be done exactly the way it was back in our day.

This kid claims he’s going to be a programmer, so why bother learning to write? He also thinks mastering English is enough since he’ll be working with foreigners, so why worry about his native American language? 😁

Setting aside the fact that nobody knows what skills will actually matter to him in 25 years... there's also the issue of how much handwriting development affects overall cognitive growth.

Isn't it a problem when a seventh grader takes an exam and the teacher can't even read the answers?