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Originally Posted by PammyJ
Just curious what your source is that proves we don't teach these things...?
It is not a reliable one. I do not know what we are doing each and everyday then.....hmmm!
My message is we are going beyond the basics, and teaching for understanding, not just memorization. All students can learn in their own way. Have you ever heard of Multiple Intelligences? Not all can learn from memorizing facts!
It is statements such as these that makes people believe that we don't teach reading, writing and arithmetic!
Not only do we have to teach handwriting, but now keyboarding skills for our students to make it in this world.
If we aren't teaching, are they learning to read by Osmosis?
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Thank you, PammyJ, for your insights and for your willingness to share what is going on in your classroom TODAY, in spite of the fact that some posters seem to imply that you are being less than honest when you say that reading, writing, and arithmetic ARE being taught. It's almost like a "Don't confuse me with the facts when my mind is already made up!"
How I wish I could have studied arithmetic and mathematics in general the way you describe it. As you say, everyone learns differently, and to this point I add that any one individual learns different subject matters differently. I had no problem with reading and language arts; to this day I cannot get away from cringing when I see the misspellings, the usage errors, the poor grammar of my (age) contemporaries. However, my arithmetic learning consisted of memorization of, say (as pointed out earlier), 8 x 5 = 40 and 7/8 = 87.5%. However, I was totally confused when I got to higher levels of math, because I had never been taught math in an enlightened setting involving UNDERSTANDING and not just memorization. In college I had to revise completely my educational and professional goals because of my inability to grasp higher mathematics with the memorization tools I learned by—the ONLY tools used in my elementary classrooms for teaching these skills.
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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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Originally Posted by gomoho
Gracie - I think you hit on an interesting point about the unions. They have tremendous power so why didn't they fight to keep reading, writing and arithmetic in the classrooms to give these kids a good basis to build upon. And whose crazy idea was it to not teach cursive anymore???
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I've been told by teachers from many states that their unions, if existing at all nowadays, have little power. Remember, unions came about to fight against the "If you don't come in Sunday, don't come in Monday" attitude that demanded workers work seven days a week as needed; and to facilitate improvements in wages and benefits. They did NOT exist to create educational policies, as another poster pointed out in reference to a New York and subsequently national union president.
Rest assured that if reading, writing, and arithmetic were truly NOT being taught, or cursive writing, for that matter, it was NOT the decision of the teachers themselves or any union, but rather a superintendent of schools implementing the guidelines established by a school board, consisting of lay people, often with zero background in education, who sometimes run for the position for their own reasons that have nothing to do with education.
I am not saying that this is true for all school board members, but I have seen it to be true for enough, to the point that people who genuinely want to serve their communities on the school board often give up after a term or two, simply unable or unwilling to put up with the (gasp!) politics of those other members....