posted
I don't think teaching language is a bad thing. I think it's a very, very good thing. I plan to teach my own children two languages from the cradle.
But it's not easy to do in a classroom setting. And French is nothing compared to Latin.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: blacwolve, I've taught some brilliant ninth graders in Honors Algebra II, who would pretty much have had to take Algebra I in seventh grade in order to be there. But I would say that, out of a hundred and fifty kids I teach honors level courses to each year, I probably see less than a dozen a year who are that advanced. It certainly does happen, though. But, for instance, one of our feeder schools is moving toward having all their seventh graders take Algebra I. I think this is ridiculous, and will result in ill-prepared students down the line. But the middle school can pat themselves on the back and brag about how advanced they are, and, hey, everyone likes that, right?
I don't think I'm brilliant. There were over 20 people in my middle school class, and I was the worst of the bunch. The only time I got an A+ on a test, the teacher asked the class to guess who got the highest grade, and the last person guessed was me. Actually, looking back on that, it's sort of insulting, although at the time I was too proud to care. We all went on to do very well in high school math and many of us went into some math intensive major in college. So my experience with math at the middle school level is obviously somewhat skewed. What I'm trying to say is that it wouldn't have occured to me to consider that brilliant. Advanced, yes, brilliant, not really. However, you're a math teacher and are far more qualified to say than I am.
Again, at no point have I intended to disagree with you at all, just to share my own story with you. I respect you very much, and am saddened that I might have given the impression that I don't.
To sum up what I've been trying (badly) to say.
Algebra 1 for all 7th graders= bad Algebra 1 available for qualified (in the school's opinion) 7th graders= good
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
blacwolve, I'm not offended, and not intending to argue with you, and I'm sorry that you think otherwise. Contrary to what has been asserted on this thread, I don't feel disrespected when someone discusses a point with me. I'm ruder to Pel because he seems not to take anyone else's thoughts and knowledge seriously at all unless they call him a jackass a couple of times. I have interacted--positively, no?--with you many times in the past, and I hope you don't think that I would be mean to you. Please, go back and reread my posts. I really don't think I have been vehement with you. I also did not say that no seventh graders should take Algebra. I will, however, stand by my off-the-cuff assessment of 10%, more or less, being ready for it. I can't speak to the specifics of your school. Within a school, different grades and different classes have their own personalities and strengths. I think any teacher will back me up on that. So maybe you were part of an exceptionally strong bunch, for you to be so strong and still perceive yourself as the weakest of the group. Maybe two years later they had a class where nobody seemed ready. Who knows?
I think you may be selling yourself short, given the success you went on to have. Then again, maybe you were one of those diamonds in the rough, not yet blooming in seventh grade, but blooming later. But imagine that you are a kid who is genuinely talented in math, but you don't experience success in that seventh grade Algebra class . . . can you see how that can lead in a very different direction from what your life took? I'm glad that's not what happened in your case. I have, however, taught a lot of kids who thought they were stupid, or not talented in math, who were in fact quite bright and talented.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
"I'm ruder to Pel because he seems not to take anyone else's thoughts and knowledge seriously at all unless they call him a jackass a couple of times." Actualy, this makes me much less likely to take one seriously.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Actualy, this makes me much less likely to take one seriously.
Though it makes you much more likely to respond.
quote:So maybe you were part of an exceptionally strong bunch, for you to be so strong and still perceive yourself as the weakest of the group. Maybe two years later they had a class where nobody seemed ready. Who knows?
This was the case (thankfully) in my year during school. We had 30 students who went through all the honors level math classes my school offered, and 18 of them scored 4s or 5s on the AP Calculus exam (with another 6 scoring 3s). The following year, they had to have two AP Calc classes of 20 each, with a similar success rate.
After that year, though, the ability level fell off dramatically. While the class continued to have 30+ students enrolled (because of population increases, all classes had inflated size), only 4-5 got 4's or better on the AP each year, and the teachers (who I kept in touch with) tell me I was in the middle of a three year batch of very high performing students that they hadn't seen before or since.
I'm glad I benefited from the higher level instruction that was possible with a better than average bunch. But my point is that such groups are not the norm.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
That's crazy. Even little children can learn English. It's all those other languages that are hard.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
FC, It took me like 5 years to learn Spanish and it's really still pretty basic. It just doesn't seem fair to me to make the poor little children in Spain have to go to classes for such a long time, just to learn to speak to other people, when all along, if they just switched to English, they could pick it up with ease.
And that's for Spanish. Could you imagine what foreign children would have to go through to learn a language that doesn't share word roots or even basic sounds as English? For example, little Chinese boys and girls have to deal with the same word meaning different things depending on the tone. And a lot of these languages have words you can't even translate directly into English.
It just really seems cruel to me for parents and teachers to put kids through that.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
We don't stand a chance. Kids in the Far East are speaking Chinese at the age of two! How can we compete with that?!?
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote: For English, you list some very complicated epics. Now, what you have to take into mind is that most people of this age do not read. This does not mean they cannot read, it means that when they go home they watch tv or play computer games and find books more complicated than Harry Potter rather dauting.
Is Harry Potter really so much less challenging or intellegent than Lord of the Rings of T.H. White? Both were aimed at children of about Middle School age.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I'm about to shut down my machine and leave work but I just wanted to say
quote: Is Harry Potter really so much less challenging or intellegent than Lord of the Rings of T.H. White? Both were aimed at children of about Middle School age
quote:Is Harry Potter really so much less challenging or intellegent than Lord of the Rings of T.H. White? Both were aimed at children of about Middle School age.
Less intelligent? No. Less challenging? Yes. Less daunting? Definately.
You don't want your middle schoolers, most of whom don't read very often, to struggle through a book miles and miles long- as both Lord of the Rings and The Sword in the Stone are.
You want them to automatically recognise the language used by the author- both 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Sword in the Stone' use somewhat archaic language and include years of description, much of it irrelevent.
You want them to be surprised and excited and gripped by what they are reading. You don't want them to read the first couple of pages and track down the cliff notes or ask their more able readers, thus skipping the all important reading process altogether. You want your kids to actually read.
You have to remember that the average reader is slow. They do not hit the exciting bits in a long, slow book very quickly, as a very good reader might. They may not even get passed the first few pages in The Sword in the Stone or Lord of the Rings before giving up. They may read so slowly it would be like stopping a tv show every five minutes, then waiting a day in-between sections. The plot, the arc of the story, it becomes absolutely meaningless. What are your children learning from these long, slow, descriptive, archaic books but that reading is boring?
'Harry Potter' is very exciting- things happen quickly. 'Maus' is a comic book (which might make it more palatable to people who rarely read anything), is historical and incredibly gripping. 'The Outsiders', 'I am David', 'The Giver', 'Day of the Triffids', all are written in familar language, are not complicated or particularly slow reads and yet they are still intelligently written, giving the reader many things to think about (and discuss in class) along the way.
And they may actually finish the book. Were I an English teacher at this age group I would not care whether my children were reading 'Tintin' for a project, as long as they were reading and enjoying it.
EDIT: You addressed a specific part of my ideas, Pelegius, but not the general concept: that education should be more fun and wide-ranging than your curriculum seems to provide for. I wonder if you could let me know if (a) you consider your curriculum fun and exciting, or (b) if you don't think fun and exciting should be a part of a middle school curriculum, or (c) you don't think it's really an issue at all.
To me, you seem to be focusing on how much intellectual depth you can put into a brain, rather than producing happy, interested, bright, smart children who have the tools to go forth and discover more depth on their own.
The curriculum makes me think of a British Private School; is that your intent? Although I agree that Private School Graduates are often very intellectual and know a lot more than I did about Latin and Gilgamesh, I do not think that such a curriculum could be applied to the public school systems that contains students of all backgrounds and intelligences, and does not cater to a sole group of kids (or rather, two: Kids with well-off parents and kids with intellectual smarts).
The kids who attend public school are various. This is especially true in Middle School where little or no streaming occurs. Classes are a jumble of people: boys and girls, intellectual and really not, smart and dumb, silly and serious. At this age, the teacher is lucky if the class is fairly quiet.
I must also say that I do not believe in dumbing classes down to mediocrity, which seems to be your major worry. I'm am not a teacher of any real sort, but in my experience, things can be easy to understand for those who are less advanced as well as offering a challenge to those who are more so. If the topics that are taught are new and exciting to everyone, no one is going to feel like they are wasting their time by coming to school, and no one is going to be (I cringe) "left behind."
I do rather strongly believe that your curriculum is the wrong kind of curriculum for the average school.
Although it would give me much pleasure to respond with just that, I shall go on.
The Sword in the Stone takes some time to read, however, I believe that its humor and episodic (almost television-like) action more than make up for this in terms of student interest. Humor is important, and should be under-rated in a curriculum, and T.H. White, while a great writer and philosopher, is very funny.
As for the Lord of the Rings, it is very popular in Middle Schools as it is, thanks in no small part to Peter Jackson.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Actually, I think The Once and Future King is as readable as Harry Potter. I think that's a wonderful choice for kids to read.
I think LOTR is popular in middle school among a select few, not among the masses. Most of the kids who attend my (high) school would not get it or enjoy it. I don't think it would be productive to make every middle schooler read it.
quote:I think LOTR is popular in middle school among a selct few, not among the masses. Most of the kids who attend my school would not get it or enjoy it.
My male friends were reading it in middle school (well, Jr. High), and I tried to read it just to keep up with them (we were all in the advanced classes and I thought I had to Prove something). I enjoyed The Hobbit, but didn't get more than halfway through Fellowship before getting bogged down and losing interest. I never did finish them until just before the movies came out; I'd always meant to read them, so I made it a point to finish them before seeing the movies.
I discovered then that there was just as much history and discussion and description as I remembered, but I was better able to appreciate it. And I also discovered that after the council at Elrond, the pace picked up and I couldn't put them down. Too bad I never got that far in middle school!
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Jenna, the movies were a huge boost (I hadn't read the books when the first film came out, when I was in sixth grade, but read them all quickly afterward.)
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: Actually, I think The Once and Future King is as readable as Harry Potter. I think that's a wonderful choice for kids to read.
Really? I tried reading it not too long ago and gave up after 100 pages or so because it was too boring (at least compared to the other fantasy novels I was reading at the time). Do you think it's better suited for a young audience than adults?
quote:Originally posted by JennaDean: My male friends were reading it in middle school (well, Jr. High), and I tried to read it just to keep up with them (we were all in the advanced classes and I thought I had to Prove something). I enjoyed The Hobbit, but didn't get more than halfway through Fellowship before getting bogged down and losing interest.
That's probably because in the first half of Fellowship hardly anything happens. I read LOTR for the first time in 7th grade, and I very nearly didn't make it past that, either, but after that it really picks up. Maybe if you gave students a summary of the first half and started off in Book 2... Posts: 134 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I dunno what to say. I certainly think it's appropriate for a YA audience. I read it in high school, and, while I enjoyed it thoroughly and was grateful for the break from the likes of Wuthering Heights and Beowulf, I thought it was substantially easier than the other works we read that year.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
We read the Once and Future King in middle school and I was completely turned off of it by the amount of sex in it. It seemed at the time, and I haven't read it since, like the entire third book was, "Lancelot and Guinevere snuck off and had sex. Lancelot and Guinevere snuck off and had more sex. Oh yea, and Arthur was around somewhere." I would have liked the book a lot better if I could have skipped the third book.
*shrugs* Everyone else in my class seemed to like it. I guess I was a particularly repressed seventh grader.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
"We read the Once and Future King in middle school and I was completely turned off of it by the amount of sex in it."
Really? While the book deals with an affair, as all Authorian legends of the French tradition do, I thought it did so quite well for a YA audience, not overly prudish, but decidedly not graphic. (When I was in 8th grade, my teacher gave me the First Man in Rome series, which have semi-pornographic scenes, there is certainly none of that in T.H. White.)
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
It's possible you were reading different versions of the same book?
Also, sometimes although scenes can written appropriately for a YA audience they can tend to go on a bit about affairs, and perhaps that's what bothered blacwolve. I know I would skip chapters dealing with discussion of a love story when I was that age.
I must apologise to Pelegius for assuming he meant "The Sword in the Stone". If "The Once and Future King" is the most appropriate for this age group I will have to read it before passing judgement . Sorry 'bout that. It could be "A Once a Future King" is totally exciting and cool- the perfect introduction to a "different" type of writing.
However, I don't think that the reading set for this age group should be dominated by one kind of writing. There could be this one, a graphic novel, a modern novel, a sci fi/horror novel... etc. Variety is another way of maintaining interest in a curriculum- I have taken one course in which Every. Book. Was. The. Same., and it was so boring, even though alone the books weren't bad.
quote:First Man in Rome series, which have semi-pornographic scenes
Oddly, (or perhaps, totally unsurprisingly), every book I have read set in Rome has been explicit to some degree.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
But isn't the whole Gueneviere/Lancelot relationship the point of the entire story? There's no other way to describe it, be it in The Once and Future King and other novelizations, or even in movies such as Excalibur (great) and First Knight (sucked). It's not like they described how they were doing it, but the fact that they were was crucial to Arthur's mindset and the inevitable breakdown.
I remember reading TOFK in school. Well, let me rephrase that: I remember reading the first part. I guess that only comes to mine simply because of Disney's adaptation to it. The rest of the book is a story I already knew, which has been told any number of different ways through history.
Anyway, sex in books is a touchy subject. It's unavoidable to a certain degree, and up to the teachers on how to handle it. I vividly remember the tact our teacher had when she tried to explain parts from Faust that were confusing to the young students because we didn't know what some things that were described were. I don't recommend reading the Kama Sutra in class, but I don't think books should be avoided because of relatively mild sexual content.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Did a little bit of research, and I see now that The Once and Future King combined parts of White's previously published novels, including The Sword in the Stone.
I guess that explains why some scened were so familiar when I read the book.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
There's apparently a third part, too, about Merlyn, but I picked it up and was bored to tears. Once and Future King I read until the book fell apart.
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: Did a little bit of research, and I see now that The Once and Future King combined parts of White's previously published novels, including The Sword in the Stone.
I guess that explains why some scened were so familiar when I read the book.
The version I read in school (I don't remember what year) had two parts: Sword In the Stone and... er... the other part.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Nighthawk, there are four books "The Sword in the Stone" (still published seperately in adition), "The Queen of Air and Darkness," "The Ill-Made Knight" and "A Candle in the Wind." With the exception of "A Candle in the Wind," all were published individualy and then combined into one epic novel. White also wrote a sequel, "The Book of Meryln," published posthumously, which I have not read.
"But isn't the whole Gueneviere/Lancelot relationship the point of the entire story?" Sic et Non. The relationship is one of the major themes of the book, and Author's reaction to it is an even more major theme, but the most significant theme deals with human greatness and human limitation, how ""The fate of this man or that man was less than a drop, although it was a sparkling one, in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea."
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I am a bit concerned about this: yesterday evening, watching "Billy Eliot" with my twelve-year old sister, she asked why there were no famous films about a girl becoming a dancer. I pointed out "Bend it Like Beckham" and explained how the major theme in moder western literature was the struggle between the individual and the society, and how, in these two films, young people overcome societal expectations in a way in which a girl becoming a ballerina would not. She, thinking as a dancer rather than as a literary critic (although I know they teach literary criticism at her school/ my old school) thought this was strange.
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Although I don't usually admit it, I can think of four or five movies about girls becoming dancers. They were all before she was born, and odds are even before you were born.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
"A twelve year old literary critic?!?" Not professionally, no, but English classes almost always, and rightly so, teach literary criticism, although this focus is particularly pronounced in secondary school, it is certainly present in middle school as well.
My girlfriend did, in fact, write her first freelance critical pieces, for the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express News, when she was a freshman, and has now been hired as a more permanent critic for Y.A. books and film.
And, yes, you are probably right about the films. We have just bought "Turning Pointe" which deals with a ballerina and her friend and ex-ballernia who are in love with a ballerino, played by Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Yeah, so are allot of people. Mind you, there are some things I don't envy, like moving to the strange city of Houston after seventh grade. (Note, people in San Antonio find Houston funny and/or awful, even if many of us do not like our own city. "Not Houston and certainly not Dallas" is our mantra.)
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:She, thinking as a dancer rather than as a literary critic
She should read Ballet Shoes, by Noel Stretfield. And White Boots by the same author. Both are about girls becoming dancers- well, the second is about skating, but same thing. Both were staples of my dreaming-dancing childhood.
There's that recent movie also with Michelle Tractenberg (or however you spell it- is it her?) becoming an ice skater against her mother's wishes.
There's also that movie about all those girls becoming ballet dancers and dealing with injuries and jealousies and such.
There are plenty of movies about girl dancers- far more than about boy dancers.
You should have told your sister that notoriety and fame such as Billy Elliot has is because it points to and highlights a societal problem that goes far beyond the mere story of a boy dancer.
quote: She, thinking as a dancer rather than as a literary critic (although I know they teach literary criticism at her school/ my old school) thought this was strange.
Aw, come on. You take all the fun out of stories when you think like a 60-year-old spectacled person with very little imagination. Of course kids want to see stories about things they want to be. When you dream, you don't dream like a literary critic, you dream of becoming a movie star or a ballet dancer or climbing mount Everest or swimming across the English channel or becoming a Pirate. You want to see movies that reflect that, especially when you're twelve.
Dreams are what movies are made of. Suspense and conflict and such only make the movie more interesting and exciting to watch.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I am fully aware of the fact that a film about a boy becoming a professor of Ancient History would be very boring. That said, I did like both "Goodbye Mr Chips" and "The Emperors' Club," both of which have, as a main character, a classics teacher.
Posts: 1332 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:I am fully aware of the fact that a film about a boy becoming a professor of Ancient History would be very boring.
The "becoming" part, maybe. There's not that much that's exciting and visual about exams and essays.
However, I can think of at least two fictional professors (or, at least doctors, one lectures- the other doesn't) of Ancient History who have very exciting adventures indeed. Of course, their incredibly exciting bits don't happen in the lecture hall or the library- usually.
posted
I can't decode those theme songs (?) at all, but I assume we're talking about Drs. Jones and Jackson?
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