I seem to be failing the fifth grade.
Important distinction: Fifth Grader is doing swimmingly, as evidenced by her first progress report, which featured such comments as "extremely organized" and "working hard on her math facts." I believe I have made it clear that math is not my forte, so Brava! to Fifth Grader for persevering with my limited usefulness.
Having said that, I am actually good for something. Namely, I'm good at instilling reading habits. I have so thoroughly convinced the Tornadoes that reading is an authentic and worthwhile choice of how to spend your leisure time, in fact, that they are both a little bit obsessed with it. On any given day, they are each reading two books at a time. This is in addition to the fact that we are engrossed in a book together as part of our bedtime ritual, alternating readers nightly. Then I retreat to my own room and pick up my own book.
So, yes. We are a big bunch of nerdy bookworms. But you'd think this kind of behavior would be looked upon favorably by a teacher, wouldn't you? Particularly by a teacher who made it very clear at Open House that READING is the epicenter of the fifth grade curriculum? Who went so far as to proclaim that she does not assign homework because she expects her students to spend that time READING?
Mais non.
For starters, that "no homework" thing is a crock. Or maybe I wasn't supposed to notice that. For another thing, there seems to be this whole new microscopic way of reading - or at least of monitoring said reading - which should be working in our favor, quite frankly, but is not. This new method includes the "Thinkmark" upon which Fifth Grader is required to jot down any astounding passages, words, or ideas that she discovers. Then there is the "reading log" upon which she is required to record how many minutes and pages she reads each day and which I am required to initial. Finally, there is the "book log" upon which she will list all the books she completes this year. My guess is that this system replaces the antiquated book report of yesteryear - more importantly, though, to a family of readers? It is a veritable loaded crack pipe. We are so going to excel at this. Except we're not.
Yesterday I received my third chastising note of the year from Ms. Teacher imploring that Fifth Grader must read one book at a time. Additionally, she must bring that one book to school every day to demonstrate that it is her one book. Furthermore, it is imperative that Fifth Grader refer ONLY to this one book on her "Thinkmark" and reading log. Please sign and return so that Ms. Teacher knows that I understand.
But I don't understand. So...she should not excel?
I know there are some teachers out there reading this post. I ask you, what is up with this? Is mediocrity the new black?
5 comments:
Are you serious?? They actually told you she can only read one book, and then said you had to *sign* the paper showing that you, the parent, understood the direction? That would be funny if it weren't so absurd.
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wow! that is some astoundingly bad teaching. I would never ever ever discourage a child from reading as many books as he/she wanted. This goes against the entire point of learning. Good for you, for instilling in your kids a love of books- and shame on that teacher for trying to curb their enthusiasm!
Omg. That’s coming with me to the School Board meeting tonight, where our entire city has made the news with media coverage of the absurdity of turning school into an admin check list of superfluous snackerels of data…
In our case, they’re using our district (and kids!) as guinea pigs to shift to a “1-2-3-4” grading “standards-based” grading system that will do away with A-F traditions in pursuit of the almighty ‘3’ which covers a core competence of benchmarks ranging in the 80-100% realm. (yah, that’s right a ‘B is as good as an A’ whether kids are in the lower or higher end of the learning rubric they achieve the same score)
Um…hello? In real life 80 is not 100. And ‘good enough’ in a lump sum game is how you create bulk processing, not exquisite morsels. (pardon the food reference but I’ve got the Two Angry Moms documentary to get junk crud out of school lunches and we’re hosting filmmaker Amy Kalafa on Monday)
Teachers are livid that they have to have another absurd rubric to follow, and wonder how it will translate to college apps and transfer schools…sheesh.
Time for a Howard Beale moment, dear parents…
--Amy J.
Oh, crud! I forgot to comment on the reading issue itself!
The reading policy you describe imho, is merely a snapshot in a much greater problem with our institutional learning!
When you eliminate the fluidity and joy of devouring well-written reading (we’ve all had those ‘can’t put it down’ experiences, kids deserve them too!) and carve reading into sound bites and to-do lists in check off chore-mode, you’ve essentially taken the richness of telling a story and chopped it into a post-it note passage.
Gee, we wonder why we have this attention span deficit and channel surfing of the mind going on with kids where constructing a coherent, well-formed thought is squished into a text SMS.
p.s. Ironically, I had your blog up in my Firefox tabs on my to-contact list today, as I realize I forgot to answer your comment from an old post I came across when I was writing a fresh one yesterday! In fact, I’d even clicked on your avatar to enlarge the image as it looked like someone had drawn an eyeglasses and beard on your face in graffiti mode from afar, ah, aging eyeballs…what fun. ;-)
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