Coughing up the night...

Well, it's 4:24 am and here I am, sitting at my computer because I've been coughing all night and finally gave up on sleep.

I decided to check my email and found several more papers to grade from students who I'll see tomorrow in class at co-op.

This was not a banner week for essay writing, apparently.

These are great students and really great people.  I like them a lot and look forward each week to seeing them in class and discussing the material they are learning.

I teach writing.  Grades 5-12.  Whew!

I love it.  I mean...I LOVE it.

That said, I worry a lot.  We use a great program.  It's so great I decided to sell it myself through my business where I also sell curricula that I've written.  You can visit my website here.

So we have this great program we're using, but the older kids really struggle sometimes.  I know essay writing is not all sugar plums and sweet dreams, but it's not all that hard either if the proper foundation has been laid.  Therein lies the rub.

I've been reading lately about the state of education in America because I'm giving a presentation in three weeks and I'm beefing up on my facts.  Well, if you want to get really depressed Google 'the failures of education in America' and read what comes up.  Ugh.

We're currently ranked 23rd in the world in terms of being well educated.  23rd.  How many world powers are there?  Us, China, Russia, Europe...how can you be a world power if you're not well educated?  23rd?  Bear with me...

During WWII the thing that set us apart was that we were smart and we made exceptional decisions that won the war for us in the end.  Using the Cherokee language as code because it couldn't be broken, stealing German technology and scientists out from under the enemy, and other less well known strategies that defeated the enemy due to pure unadulterated intelligence.

I have to say, I hope our military men are better educated than the kids of the same age working at jobs where they can't even count back change with my receipt.  Does anyone else find this frustrating?  Do you notice when your child writes a run on sentence or uses a sentence fragment to express an idea on paper?

I read that many teachers in high schools today are not even trained in the area they are teaching.  Yep, you read that right, a math teacher was teaching high school and he had never taken college level math.  Think about it, a teaching degree is all about psychology and classroom management these days.  It has to be, no discipline allowed.  What a nightmare.

Remember one room schoolhouses?  No, not personally or in your own experience, but the things we read about them in Little Women and Little House on the Prairie and Anne of Green Gables.  What about self educated men like Abraham Lincoln and Ben Franklin?  Is that legacy lost forever?  Learning for the sake of learning; the ideal of being well spoken and a critical thinker, of being knowledgeable in all things - a renaissance person.

I have to go to class tomorrow and tell my students that their essays were poorly done this week.  They smack of "I did it last night" or "I only had an hour" or some other feeble excuse.  I know kids are busy these days; that's part of the problem.  Since we cut back on activities my kids' schoolwork has greatly improved.

Don't get me wrong, we still have times when things don't get done for one reason or another.  But they do have the benefit of a lighter schedule these days.

Just do me a favor as a fellow teacher and home school mom; raise the bar a little everyday.  My favorite boss said, "Inch by inch, it's a cinch!"  She was so right.  23rd?  That just won't do.

We may never displace China because their methods are corrupt and appalling, but we should set our sights on Belgium.  Google that and see what you think.

As for laying a better foundation, the problem lies in the curricula.  School is not about memorizing a set of facts to take a test on later.  Fact memory work only involves the short-term memory in the brain and the retention probabilities for that information is sketchy at best.  Can you name all the presidents?  Can you name all the capitals of all 50 states?  Probably some, but not all.  Yet I bet all of you can do your multiplication tables ( I won't ask about long division - is that a lost art too?)

You can do the multiplication tables because you used them repeatedly to do other things.  You didn't just memorize them and leave them alone.  A good foundation teaches skills that are used repeatedly from grade to grade and on into life. 

In English, grammar skills are no longer taught comprehensively.  Students don't learn phonics they learn sight words.  Tangent:  This is why we started homeschooling.  My daughter's Kindergarten teacher gave me a list of 150 words that she needed to memorize the spellings for.  I said, "When will she learn the phonics rules that apply to these spellings?"  They said that I should let them do their job and I should do mine.  I not so nicely replied that I had time time teach the phonics rules if they didn't and we came home to school.

Phonics are key.  They lay the foundation for understanding our language, and it's not an easy language to learn.  English spelling is a combination of Greek, Latin, French, and German words.  What a conglomeration.  Learn the phonics rules; make your life simpler (and theirs). 

Schools wouldn't dream of doing copywork - they'd probably call it plagiarism.  Yet when students actually commit plagiarism, or businessmen or women commit fraud, they get a light slap on the wrist.  What has the world come to?

I realize this is long and that I'm ranting some.  But it's a valid rant and I hope it finds an audience who will embrace it and rant with me.  Let's rant until our politicians rant and demand better schools and teachers and a better test score.  After all, a 23 is an "F" in anyone's book.

Good night, or...well, good morning!