-- CarolynJohnston - 15 Mar 2006

It's just possible that office is worse than mine. Of course, I just moved four dead computers, a 19" CRT, and a 24-pin dot-matrix printer (!) out of that office, so I'll not comment about last month.

-- DougSundseth - 15 Mar 2006

I LOVE IT!!!!

LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!

One of these days I'll find my photographs of what my office looked like after the Northridge earthquake.

It looked like that, only everything was on the floor.

-- CatherineJohnson - 16 Mar 2006

And you could see daylight through my wall.

-- CatherineJohnson - 16 Mar 2006

ok, now you've got me Googling messy desks.....

-- CatherineJohnson - 25 Mar 2006

i need help

-- CatherineJohnson - 25 Mar 2006

At this point, I have given up (for now) on teaching him organizational skills in favor of teaching him the intellectual skills that he is ready to learn. This puts my thinking at odds with that of the entire educational establishment, who want to teach my kid to be responsible for himself.

So as I look through these old postings... wow. This one really hit home, Carolyn. It seems to me that teachers have abandoned the intellectual field in favor of grading children on an element of academic performance that is not intellectual, and perhaps not developmentally appropriate: the ability to manage work on a complex project according to a schedule set by the teacher.

Looking at a small scale example, consider a teacher (purely hypothetical! no real teachers were harmed in the composition of this comment!) who spends a lot of class time teaching authentic Voice and colorful Word Choice in student writing using the 6-Trait Writing rubric. Then this same teacher applies the rubric to my child's writing and all she can muster is vague suggestions like "Needs More Ideas" and "Poor Organization". And she finds time to circle all of the mispelled words.

Conventions and Presentation just weren't important during these last several years of elementary school instruction, until it's time to grade papers and show everybody that teachers are really on top of it all.

"Needs More Ideas" is teaching Ideas?

"Poor organization" is teaching Organization?

Looking at a large scale example, consider a teacher (purely hypothetical! I only imagine this!) who assigns a complex multi-media project in social studies. She creates a schedule for work to be done on the project, and she's done. She sees the schedule as her most important contribution to instruction, along with daily reminders in class for children to start working (on their own) on whatever is the next scheduled task, regardless of whether the previous task is done. Teachers have reduced their role to supporting learning rather than teaching. Somehow I don't feel like cheering.

-- BeckyC - 30 May 2006

Teachers have reduced their role to supporting learning rather than teaching. Somehow I don't feel like cheering.

What bugs me more than anything is watching my kid flounder in this setting. And yet, he does need opportunities to learn organization -- and I think he could start doing it if it were explicitly taught.

But it's going to be many, many years before he has it mastered. If ever.

-- CarolynJohnston - 31 May 2006

"What bugs me more than anything is watching my kid flounder in this setting."

I'll second that--I think I'm more excited than Megan that 4th grade is over!

I saw lots more group work and lots more presentations this year, with Megan losing points for "no eye contact" during her presentation and for "not working well with her group." Of course, whether the group worked well with her wasn't ever mentioned. And I think Megan didn't learn a thing with all these projects, except to either be excluded from the group, or to have Mom and Dad organize the project and try to at least get a few facts into her head about what she is supposed to be learning.

-- KathyIggy - 31 May 2006

Kathy, my son has lost group points too, for not contributing enough to the group discussions this year. To draw an analogy from tennis, he doesn't return serves very well. So then I think to myself, hmm... I need to teach him the component skill of returning a social serve, because he is being graded on it. I could do that this summer. Add it to the list.

Perhaps I am just slow on the uptake, but I would say, having lived through my child's 4th grade, that the teachers at our school are trying to teach the process of project management by assigning projects in a content area. Content is incidental. Project management skills are their Holy Grail. It is as though middle school teachers got together and told the elementary school teachers that middle school kids can't manage projects well enough to turn them in on time, so the elementary school teachers have taken it upon themselves to start teaching project management skills earlier and earlier. Notice I said "management" skills. Not the explicit skills a child needs to do quality work for each of the parts of a project. So opportunities to research, write, revise, and draw illustrations are explicitly scheduled, but these skills are not explicitly taught. The scheduling of projects has taken precedence over finding developmentally appropriate ways to teach content. Because content is incidental. The priority of our middle school teachers is kids coming to middle school already knowing how to turn in the parts for a project on time. That's it -- just get the parts turned in no matter what the quality of the representation of content that was supposed to be learned.

They assign the whole, but they won't teach the parts. Parents are left to try to get a few crucial facts and figures into a child's head.

And there will be even more of these projects in fifth grade. Projects gone wild. Are you ready for next year??? I'm not.

-- BeckyC - 31 May 2006

Becky-I am hoping the move to an instructional setting next year means less emphasis on projects. From talking to next year's teacher, it appears there is much more teaching of actual content. She mentioned that though Megan will go to the reg ed class (with support) for Science and Social Studies, the special ed team will pre-teach and "post-teach" on "what the kids really need to know."

Now, what will eventually happen in 6th grade, the start of middle school, is unknown.

I sound like an old fogy when reminiscing about my education, but the only projects I did were maybe one science project per year, a couple book reports, and social studies projects which were always strong on actual content. The time that is wasted on projects now amazes me. My husband and I have picked up on calling these projects FWOT, with instructions to Meg to not repeat that word in case the teachers figure out what it means. And absolutely no one in our family has any artistic talent at all, so there are usually points lost for neatness. At least the project looks like a 4th grader (or younger) did it, though.

-- KathyIggy - 31 May 2006

Project management skills are their Holy Grail.

Lol! We should start seeing books out there for all of us to buy to help our kids succeed.

I must say we're very glad to be ending 5th grade around here. Having done a boatload of projects that took hours upon hours (with only about 50% of them ever being collected) I wish I could say I was glad we were finally going to the junior high, but unfortunately, I hear there's more of the same going on there.

The after-schooling continues....

-- SusanS - 31 May 2006

Project management skills are their Holy Grail.

So, I'm guessing that Powerpoint is involved here. Mad Powerpoint skillz are the very definition of effective management after all.

-- DougSundseth - 31 May 2006

the special ed team will pre-teach and "post-teach" on "what the kids really need to know."

Kathy, I am going to remember that one.

Susan, you were the one who gave this all a name months ago: whole to parts and mission creep, but only now do I understand it fully and how it affects our family life.

Doug, you need to go back to elementary school, you'd find out you wasted time spelling skilz with two L's when one L will do, so that your comment came in late and you earned a Needs Improvement.

-- BeckyC - 01 Jun 2006

What is it about Powerpoint in the schools?

Ben learned Powerpoint this year. Now he thinks it is really important. I suppose it is, if you're budding management, but I've strived for years to avoid having to give lots of powerpoint presentations.

Seems I've failed, though.

-- CarolynJohnston - 01 Jun 2006

... with Megan losing points for "no eye contact" during her presentation and for "not working well with her group."

Argh!

-- CarolynJohnston - 01 Jun 2006