posted
oh, I think for the CTBS test, the scores really don't depend on the school district. Maybe I am oversimplifying, but it occurs to me that at that age, the ability to do well on those tests is not imparted by the school, but by the parents and the general level of precociousness of the child. If a child is already smart, the school might help a little, but at the age of ten, what you can do and what the kid next to you can do is probably more a matter of natural ability than schooling. I could be wrong, but I think this is a genuine flaw in giving standardized tests at that age- its testing the ability to be tested (as tired as that point is, I know), is even more true at that age than at the highschool level, where teachers have had a shot at engaging students in some advanced levels of analysis and depth of knowledge.
I seem to recall that in my elementary school years, I spent one day every two weeks learning something new, and the rest of the time doing nothing. Half the class would sit abjectly bored, listening to the teacher explain something to the half that didn't get it. I seem to recall quite a bit of gazing out the window (we did have a good view), and reading under my desk in the 2nd-4th grades. It wasn't that half the class knew more than the other half, its just that everybody learned at one speed, and we didn't know better than to simply accept boredom as a part of school.
I was thinking of Liz's conversation with that other teacher- and it occured to me that he may be right, with the wrong attitude. If the schools are commited to teaching the slower kids, why not stop all this business of social promotion and holding the other kids back in a slower curriculum? My highschool offered 7 periods a day of classes, and a large variety of possible schedules. There were honors classes in every subject, and remedial classes in every subject, as well as regular classes. I started off my HS career in all regular classes, and by the time I was a junior I had "jumped up" to honors in every subject by getting A's in regular classes. This made perfect sense. It requires a more complex system, but it makes good sense. I didn't ever get that chance in elementary school, and I realize more and more that the experience did nothing but hold me back and mire me in the system that was designed for people (at least where I grew up) who are now in gangs, dealing drugs, or working at gas stations and as menial laborers. Nothing wrong with that, but out of all the people I was in the 6th grade with, I am one of 5 to go to college, that I know of, out of around 60.
quote:One describes the person that you are and makes a judgment on your inherent being (Bob's Bobness). The other describes how you said something, which may or may not have anything to do with your inherent being.
To me, that sounds like describing the difference between looking blue and being blue.
If you look blue, you're blue. There's no innate "blueness" distinguishable from appearing blue.
Well, maybe you're just blue on the surface. Or maybe only one of your fingers is blue, and it just so happens that your blue finger was the one that was showing at that particular moment. We can't extrapolate from that one finger that you're entirely blue.
Also, there's a world of complexity to human beings that descriptions of color simply don't cover. Blue, while visual, isn't really a matter of individual perception. Unless I have an odd form of colorblindness, when you see blue, I'll see blue. The same cannot be said of abrasiveness. Now, we might see different shades of blue, depending on the acuity of our eyesight or the name we think of for colors (I may see robin's egg blue, while you see sky blue). I think that scale is more along the lines of the comparison I was trying to make than the blue/not-blue dichotomy in your analogy.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
In regards to abrasiveness on Hatrack, I would prefer a "no excuses" attitude. If I was abrasive, I will apologize, eventually. I always do. I wish that others who (I feel) truly are destructive of Hatrack would realize it every once in awhile and change their behavior, or at least apologize for it occassionally. I'm not yet ready to apologize more than I already have, but I will get there if it turns out I've actually stomped on someone's feelings. I know I was not my gentle nudging Bob-self in this thread, but there are times I won't be. Blanket statements about teachers are one of the issues that bring out my more direct-speaking self. If I apologize about it this time, it will be with the proviso that it'll happen the next time too. I absolutely HATE that kind of thing. There are other topics that will bring this out in me and I won't apologize for them either. But if I do misunderstand someone and hurt their feelings in the process, I will ALWAYS apologize for it, and I will try to be more careful next time. It's still a learning process for me -- how to be precise and direct online. If you were in front of me, you would've just gotten "the look" and this whole discussion would've ended a long time ago, I suspect.
In the meantime, I felt like there were several people on this thread who were NOT expressing a personal opinion (contrary to what Libbie said) about what they thought of the exercise, but were instead making unwarranted categorical statements about its value as a pedagogical technique and what it would do to the minds of children exposed to it. One person has tried to lump this technique in with artificial reward systems and one author's thesis (I won't yet say "research") on that topic, and then accuse me of not being aware of the "latest findings" on how bad our education system is for children.
If I'm wrong on any of this, please go ahead and let me know, but here's some evidence of what this thread looks like (in general) from my perspective:
The threads title, for example, claims that this technique is responsible for people in general hating to read. I know the person starting the thread didn't intend to make such a sweeping generalization, so I made a comment.
Secondly, when I read the initial post and several that followed it -- not stating so much how THEY PERSONALLY would've viewed this assignment, but how the assignment (and by extension the teacher) was just plain wrong, it hit one of my hot buttons.
And, clearly, the people doing so were making statements that they couldn't back up with anything like real knowledge of the situation. Not even the original poster has given us full details, so we can't even judge from the incident.
Look...if this was "clearly venting" then fine, I was MUCH too strong in my response. But if people would care to go back and retract all statements about teachers, the educational system, this teacher in particular, and the effect of this assignment on the general populace, I will gladly retract my one or two statements that are probably over the top.
I have not once commented negatively on someone's personal opinion about this technique and what they would've felt about it. I think people may have misinterpreted there, if they think I was attacking their personal revulsion to it. But, hey, I also expressed MY personal opinion that this technique wouldn't be my choice of how to read anything.
I also note that some people have assumed the reading assignments are all novels. Does it actually say that anywhere, or is Elizabeth's post a more accurate description -- short assignments of non-fiction given in a "reading excercise" context and not in language arts?
By the way, Elizabeth, I was appreciative of your posts in this thread. I was hoping one of the teachers with some background here would share their experiences with us. Thank you!
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I've always been amazed that the person who first posts an opinion gets a free ride. If person X posts an opinion, "This is stupid/a waste of time/whatever," he has made a bald statement asserting that opinion.
When person Y posts "This is not stupid" in response, person y is often held to a higher standard of discourse. Demands are made for the reasons - when no reasons for the opposite opinion have been posted. Or someone claims that person Y is just telling someone they are wrong.
in this thread, a lot of people posted a lot of opinions. Many of those opinions clashed. Had many of the negative opinions been told to the person who designed the program, many would consider them abrasive. Yet, when someone doesn't even state the opposite opinion, but rather simply says "You all need to know more to form a proper opinion about this," he's labeled abrasive.
I truly don't get this attitude. Again, it seems like the first person to post on a topic gets a free pass from a lot of social rules people attempt to impose on others.
I think that's an oversimplification.
The originator of the topic presents a particular set of facts on a particular situation and their judgement on the situation. It goes without saying- or it ought to- that those who agree with that judgement do so on the basis of the information presented, and recognizing that perhaps not all information available about the situation has been given, nor is it necessarily possible that all information on the situation has been given.
When someone else refutes that statement based on their own assumptions, without further information on the specific situation, it is entirely reasonable that their point not be given equal weight.
It goes without saying- or it ought to- that those who disagree with that judgement do so on the basis of the information presented - both in the original post and any additional information in the response.
When someone else refutes that statement based on their own assumptions, without further information on the specific situation, it is entirely reasonable to assume that their opinion is based on the information presented.
quote:Now, I don't think Bob's point is unreasonable, and he certainly has every right to broach the possibility that there might be more to the given situation than meets the eye. However, he does so on the basis of his own perspective, which apparently includes a greater faith in the good intentions of the academic bureaucracy in question, and not based on the information given.
Assuming for the sake of argument that your characterization is accurate, this puts that opinion on the exact same basis as the opinion to which it was a response.
quote:Further, the originator of the topic clearly created it in a desire to vent about the unfairness and unreasonableness of the situation. Thus it behooves the polite to broach their alternate views of the situation with some tact, as being seen to dismiss an unfairness out of hand and to contradict the originator's story based solely on personal opinion can easily be seen as merely being contrary and rude.
The idea that merely posting a contrary opinion lacks tact is exactly what I don't get.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Is it that people are more likely to take offense at "you are a fool" than "your opinion is foolish"?
Here, I disagree. It is very possible to act foolishly without being a fool. Half the sea lies between those two.
quote:Well, maybe you're just blue on the surface.
Goodness. What a nit to pick.
If you described a car as blue and I objected "It's not a blue car! It's only blue on the outside! If you scrape away the paint, it's not blue at all!", most people would roll their eyes and assume I wasn't being serious. Becaue, afterall, when we say that something is blue, that means is that it looks blue. It still being blue if we cut it open and expose the inside is not required.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Sure, I don't disagree with you on that at all. What I said in the rest of my post, though, was that, unlike the physical appearance of such an either/or quality, abrasiveness is a subjective quality. What seems abrasive to one person might not be objective to another. Also, a person might be abrasive sometimes and not abrasive all the time. So, the criticism might be stated, "You seemed abrasive in that post," or "That post was abrasive." To declare the entire person abrasive from one post, however, seems to me to be akin to declaring an entire car blue just because one its tires was blue.
Now, if the MAJORITY of the car is blue, then sure, call it a blue car. If you look at a car that is mostly red with one blue panel, you would probably call that car a red car. Unless you're being as silly as the "it's only blue on the outside" people, you're not going to say, "That 90% red/10% blue car."
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Once, my roommate was supposed to write a paper on Brothers Karamazov. He read one chapter in the book the night before, wrote a paper on it, and was given an A with the comment "Nice Focus".
By junior year of High School I refused to read our summer reading assignments (for those who didn't have these, they were a list of about ten novels, of which you would choose 4 to 6 to read and write a book report/analysis on). Because they were usually complete tripe. The weekend before school started I would go over to a friends' house and borrow two people's reports on a single book, read them, and then base my report on their reading.
I proofread their papers as I was reading them, so it worked out fine for them.
But I did then, and do now, refuse to read something that someone else insists I need to read. If I'm not interested in the blurb, or the summary, or the first chapter it's not worth my (valuable and limited) spare time to read.
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I wouldn't term Bob's posts in this thread abrasive, but he has been more in-your-face than I've ever seen him be on any topic. Less 'voice of calm and reason' and more 'let's see you prove that'. But I'm glad to see there are things that can get him riled up.
I truly don't get this attitude. Again, it seems like the first person to post on a topic gets a free pass from a lot of social rules people attempt to impose on others.
Well, Dagonee, like I said already, I called Bob abrasive (for which I already apologized, since apparently he is not) based on my reaction to how he was responding to my comments (or my perception of how he replied, at any rate). I can't speak to the entire culture of the internet, only to my own reaction. I perceived him to be reacting in a dismissive, somewhat mean manner, so that's how I reacted to the situation. Not because his opinion differed from mine, which I truly do not care about, but because of the way in which I thought he was presenting his opinion (in a manner suggesting that anybody who didn't agree with him was dead wrong and too dumb to comprehend what they read, end of discussion).
One of my many personality flaws is that I calls 'em like I sees 'em, even if I sees 'em incorrectly.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: On the original topic, I like that this assignment is very open-ended. The connections the kids can draw is automatically tailored to what most interests them. A student who's an advanced reader will hopefully draw much different connections than one who is struggling. In that way it's great, as Elizabeth pointed out, for the teacher to get an idea of the students level. Compare this assignment with a simple response worksheet, for example. Cookie-cutter questions like "where and when does this story take place," will probably elicit identical responses.
But really, every page? I don't think I'd get past page 20. What about every chapter, or every 5 pages?
Yeah, after reading Elizabeth's experiences with NCLB and teaching in general, it makes more sense to me...providing the teacher is tailoring it to suit all levels of learning represented in her classroom. I still think that every single page is overkill (maybe even exaggeration by a frustrated 11-year-old, who knows?). But after reading how Elizabeth would use an assignment like this, it makes somewhat more sense.
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I was thinking of Liz's conversation with that other teacher- and it occured to me that he may be right, with the wrong attitude. If the schools are commited to teaching the slower kids, why not stop all this business of social promotion and holding the other kids back in a slower curriculum?
Yeah, but it's a huge mistake for that guy to believe that all gifted kids' parents can afford private schooling. I know it would have been absolutely out of the question for my family, and my sister and I were as smart as they come in elementary school. For my sister, who is older than I, the school district elected to push her ahead a grade so she could learn at a more advanced level. For me, they stuck me in a part-time gifted program, but there was a two-year waiting list, and it was only twice a week.
I don't even want to know how NCLB would have affected me as a kiddo. Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
JT, I got to be somewhat like you. Except I would start reading the book, and if it couldn't hold my interest by the first half (or the first few chapters if it was exceedingly boring), I wouldn't finish it. Then when it came time to discuss in class, I'd volunteer opinions based on either what I'd read or as a counter to what others were saying. I usually had some idea of what the book was about to start anyway. I am an expert on writing papers with this method:
1. Have an idea of what the book is about. 2. Flip through book to random pages. 3. Pick out passages that seem interesting or fun to analyze. 4. Write paper based on passages and storyline.
I read the books I liked, though. And the books that I liked might've been kind of surprising at the time. I love Jude the Obscure, for example. It's probably my favorite book. Crime and Punishment? Meh.
I truly don't get this attitude. Again, it seems like the first person to post on a topic gets a free pass from a lot of social rules people attempt to impose on others.
Well, Dagonee, like I said already, I called Bob abrasive (for which I already apologized, since apparently he is not) based on my reaction to how he was responding to my comments (or my perception of how he replied, at any rate).
In the post in which you called him abrasive, you quoted his response to someone else, not you, so I'm not quite sure how I was supposed to figure that out.
quote:I can't speak to the entire culture of the internet, only to my own reaction. I perceived him to be reacting in a dismissive, somewhat mean manner, so that's how I reacted to the situation. Not because his opinion differed from mine, which I truly do not care about, but because of the way in which I thought he was presenting his opinion (in a manner suggesting that anybody who didn't agree with him was dead wrong and too dumb to comprehend what they read, end of discussion).
My point is that, on an ongoing basis, I see accusations of this type levied when the posting of the original opinion is just as blunt.
And the negative opinions about this assignment were just as blunt as anything Bob said. So, the question is, why is a person more abrasive for posting an opinion that flat out contradicts someone else than a person who posts the contradictory opinion first?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:posted by Libbie: Yeah, after reading Elizabeth's experiences with NCLB and teaching in general, it makes more sense to me...providing the teacher is tailoring it to suit all levels of learning represented in her classroom. I still think that every single page is overkill (maybe even exaggeration by a frustrated 11-year-old, who knows?). But after reading how Elizabeth would use an assignment like this, it makes somewhat more sense.
And what if, gasp, I'm really really INTO the book? I know my work (and handwriting) would suffer horribly as I try to scratch out a thought in under four seconds because I NEED to know if Samantha is really dead or not.
Hopefully the teacher is willing to make some allowances for climactic portions.
quote:Is it that people are more likely to take offense at "you are a fool" than "your opinion is foolish"?
Well, I certainly would find the first instance more offensive than the second, because I believe it's possible for intelligent people to sometimes hold foolish opinions but it doesn't make them foolish people. In fact, why bother debating or talking if you don't think the people talking with you are intelligent enough to possibly re-evaluate their opinions? If you think they're just stupid fools, why even bother conversing with them?
I prefer to consider us all intelligent, reasonable people who happen to disgree with each other on occasion.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Their reading assignments go like this: for every single page they read in any book that they read have to write a "prediction" or a "connection" or an "observation". Technically, they were supposed to do two of those per page, but the teacher thought that was too difficult. Not too mention the multitude of book reports and analyses and what have you
I would presume this is supposed to help reading comprehension test scores.
Funny, the number one strategy for reading comprehension tests is not to read the text immersively but to read the questions first so you can read the text selectively to find the right answers. That equals zero comprehension of the overall passage. Teaching reading comprehension to reading comprehension tests, in my opinion, destroys the possibility of reading for pleasure. That is a hideous chore of an assignment. I would encourage your sister not to complete it.
Posts: 128 | Registered: Aug 2006
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