Comments on: Observations Made While Working at a School

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 22:32:04 +0000

That’s kind of funny. Some of my years in school saw the teachers accused of ‘teaching the test’ because it was a pivotal state testing year, but as a kid I never noticed it much, just did what I was told. Honestly I’m still horrible at geography.

By: Leila

Leila — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:22:04 +0000

I don’t know much about US schools but here in the UK there are several primary (elementary) schools known to drop all subjects other than English, Maths and Science during year six (fifth grade) because that’s the year they do the SAT tests used for comparisons in school league tables and those are the only subjects tested. In fact, some schools barely have normal lessons and just do two weeks of revision work, a week of tests, then another two weeks of revision and so on. It’s pretty bad, but not too common thankfully. It didn’t happen to me, but I have a lot of friends it did happen to. You could tell them apart when they started high school (over here like middle and high combined) because they were weirdly competent in these subjects but had a complete lack of knowledge in history, geography or anything else.

By: Gloria

Gloria — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 21:45:16 +0000

Not teaching science is the most tragic thing I’ve ever heard.

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:01:12 +0000

As far as I’ve seen there is no embedding of other subjects into reading and math. Maybe a little social studies stuff in reading, but kept to a bare minimum. No science at all yet though.

By: Yo momma

Yo momma — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 01:23:30 +0000

It shouldn’t surprise you that reading and mathematics material have not changed too much. Those subjects do not tend to become obsolete. I am surprised to hear about science and social studies. Are you sure that they are not simply imbedding the subject matter into their reading and math curriculium? In years past they did this and called it “whole language.” All subjects were intergrated – not separated. The new national standards are on the horrizon, and they look more like “whole language” of the past. I am still surprised about science in particular, because it is now one of the subjects that is tested on high stakes testing. Any way, I’m glad you are still enjoying your new endevor.