Quote:
Originally Posted by gomoho
Can only speak from my own experience with my children in elementary school in the late 80's early 90's. They did not spend 1st grade on arithmetic, 2nd on subtraction, 3rd memorizing their multiplication tables and 4th on division. That is a sound basis and pretty much everyone got it during that year. They were busy introducing new math and algebra. Daughter was taught phonics and is an avid reader. Son was taught site reading and struggles to this day.
I have a great nephew and great niece currently in Florida schools and they are definitely not being taught cursive. We are teaching them when we see them. 4th grade this year.
We new how to make change and read and write and learned keyboarding when the time was appropriate and we learned the basics and "hold on to your hats" were probably better educated.
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I don't know what my kids did when, but I do remember that neither one of them stood up with their class and recited the multiplication tables over and over, and neither one has the grasp of them today that I have. I don't care why 5 x 8 = 40; I want to have the fact that it does right at my fingertips, and that for me came from rote learning. I'm not against teaching kids to reason or new math, but some of the schools in the '80s and '90s failed our kids by abandoning the old.
But I don't have a disdain for teachers, police, firefighters, etc. They all deserve a decent salary and benefits.