Parents Say Students Forced To Learn Spanish

[Kuciwalker]

Electives are great, though clearly they are only really effective at a HS level. But really, you went to a HS that is better funded and more prestigious than 95% of the other public schools in the country. My HS, for instance, was not able to afford to offer than many electives.

Actually, that figure would be 100%

That's exactly why we should have a nationwide system of schools like it.

[Admiral]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Electives are great, though clearly they are only really effective at a HS level. But really, you went to a HS that is better funded and more prestigious than 95% of the other public schools in the country. My HS, for instance, was not able to afford to offer than many electives.

Actually, that figure would be 100%

That's exactly why we should have a nationwide system of schools like it.

But how do you afford it?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
Students who excel in school (or out of school) usually have a conducive environment. Those who fail in school (or out of school) have a poor environment. Precisely proving my point that most of us learn more outside of school than we do inside of school. The real lessons of life and how to live in society are not taught in school. School is largely irrelevant except to teach people to obey orders, memorize a few facts that may or may not be useful in their lives (and they may or may not remember), create a fear of failure and stamp out creativity.

If kids were taught to obey orders then it would be like real life. But they aren't taught to obey orders. They are allowed to disobey orders, to not do what they are told, and they are allowed to stay in school. What does that teach kids? It teaches them not to obey orders actually.

When kids don't preform in school they should be kicked out, just like in the real world when you get fired for not doing your job.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Admiral
But how do you afford it?

More money to education, obviously (specifically earmarked for this purpose). Long-term, the economic benefits far outweight the costs.

[Krill]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Latin as the official language

I'd like that

[Blake]

Originally posted by Kidicious


If kids were taught to obey orders then it would be like real life. But they aren't taught to obey orders. They are allowed to disobey orders, to not do what they are told, and they are allowed to stay in school. What does that teach kids? It teaches them not to obey orders actually.

When kids don't preform in school they should be kicked out, just like in the real world when you get fired for not doing your job.

School should be a positive and supportive environment where children feel safe to make mistakes and to fail, this encourages creativity and success. We can only succeed when we try, but whenever we try we run the risk of failing. So fear of failure must not be allowed to take root, both success and failure must be greeted with equanimity. This encourages children to try, to strive.

School should be viewed as a place of learning, not a place to put children so they are out of the way. The most important things to teach are, in no particular order:
Literacy
Arithmetic
Social Skills (getting along with others)
Life Skills (not ruining yours)

Classroom sizes and school hours should both be slashed by at least half. Ideal hours would be about 4 hours a day, 4 days a week, that is quite sufficient time spent learning. Obviously the life and social skills can't be taught by rote memorization - so this teaching must be done skillfully, through activity and such. Children should do A LOT of pair, group and class activities, rather than most of it being solitary, this would introduce the badly needed concept of cooperation. Yes, cooperation is difficult, that is why it needs to be taught! Cooperation being difficult is no reason to shun it, as happens currently in the schooling system.

[Krill]

Er...where do you get the extra teachers? How long would it take to train them? How can you make them remain teachers for more than 5 years?

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Latin as the official language

equine fecalis.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Krill
Er...where do you get the extra teachers? How long would it take to train them? How can you make them remain teachers for more than 5 years?

Offer more than $35,000 a year to be a teacher. If we want the brightest folks teaching our kids, we need to offer competitive salaries ($60,000+ for even moderately experienced folks), and probably encourage professionals to teach a class college-style (one three hour class a week or something like that) so that folks who would like to teach but don't want to only teach have an opportunity to make a difference...

[Krill]

Great, more money for me

[Blake]

Originally posted by Krill
Er...where do you get the extra teachers? How long would it take to train them? How can you make them remain teachers for more than 5 years?

Remarkably, when you slash both the classroom size, and hours by half, you don't need any more teachers. See if you can figure that one out .

[Krill]

So...Parents work 9-5, and the kids have only half the hours in school...


...who looks after them for the extra time?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Alexander I
Perfect solution to the problem elaborated in the OP: make all the students, whether English- or Spanish-speaking, learn Latin as a common tongue.

That way all the students are bilingual, everyone can communicate with everyone else, and no one is happy.

This is a fine solution. When my daughter was in elementary school in Pittsburgh, different elementary schools had different language classes, annd one school's language was Latin; it was, by all accounts, a very successful program. Other schools offered Spanish, French, etc. My daughter's school offered German, which was a mixed blessing; on the one hand, it nurtured a love of the German language she still has; on the other hand, German's not a commonly-offered language anymore (for example it was phased out of my school curriculum when I was in high school, 30 years ago), so it's been hard for her to pursue. She may go back to it next year when she gets to college.

But the point is: any language learning does some good, elementary schools generally don't have the resources to offer more than one. The reason why a Texas elementary school would offer Spanish shuld be obvious, especially given howo little they spend on their schools -- Spanish, unlike French or German or Latin or Mandarin -- is already spoken by lots of teachers on the payroll.

[snoopy369]

Blake... you're a very smart guy, and a hard worker, but what you just described would work not at all for 95% of locales and 75% of students regardless of locale. There's no way you could do something like that in Chicago, not to mention NYC or LA. It might work in New Zealand, but that's a rather special case, and I bet it wouldn't work for most people there, either.

I'm all for alternative teaching methods, but 4 hours a day is not enough if parents aren't able to substantially supplement the teaching, which most urban parents can't. You also need to teach more than simply literacy and arithmetic (plus the social stuff, which should be an element of all education). Whether you agree or not, it is unreasonable to suggest that kids not be taught basic history, science, geography, literature skills, and a society that failed to teach these things would collapse quite quickly. Like it or not, there are certain things that you should know, and the State should teach you (unless your parents are going to...).

I'd love to hear your, and Ozzy's, realistic scenario for how education should go - and by realistic, I mean something that not only could be implemented, but would be implemented, if presented appropriately. Something that Obama, for example, could stump with (not necessarily that he would, but something that realistic).

[snoopy369]

German's quite commonly offered where I've seen ... Spanish 1, French 2, German 2.1 ; only schools that offer only 2 languages (most reasonably funded schools offer at least 3) would not teach German.