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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3224 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 10, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Does school suck now? Why does it suck? Has it always sucked? Is it like this everywhere?

In 4th grade in the '80's at a public school in Sacramento, CA we had a divided start, homework 4 days a week, tilt top desks with integrated swivel chairs in rows. Good posture was encouraged by being mandatory. In classroom work was handwritten, questions were copied from the book. Math was half the problems in class half at home, any incorrect answers were expected to be corrected and resubmitted. In class there were many opportunities for reading aloud. We're were expected to have memorized multiplication tables to 12 x 12. We read 'Brighty of the Grand Canyon', I had reading in the afternoon, I don't know what the kids in the morning read. Lynne Reid Banks came to the school for Author Day, there was an assembly in the MP room.

I had poor penmenship and failed to apply myself, but there seemed to be more rigor. I wouldn't have guessed 4th grade was so different now. 4th grade was also the year you could work in the cafeteria, I liked working milk sales.

I've found with my children I have to demand they supply more effort and often apply considerable pressure to see improvement in the production of their work, especially in a non-preferred subject. Many of the traditional pressures of written corrections, writing lines, poor grades, deficiency notices, summer school, repeating the year have been eschewed in favor of what? The expected standard seems low, the quality of work produced by my recent 4th grader is below the quality of 4th grade @AvocadoPanic, but the school isn't really demanding excellence.

I've 5th, 3rd, 1st and pre-k. Our district is in the top 10% in Massachusetts.

Are there any old teachers here, did you complain in the 80's about children in the 40's having better penmenship?

I think there might be more variation now by school, though I can't really support that with data.

I graduated from a dirt poor Rustbelt school system near Cleveland in '96. There wasn't too much pressure on the kids even then but they also still held kids back and discipline for conduct issues was certain and fairly severe. In school suspension was very common as the offending kids would be loose on the streets if they were fully expelled/suspended and send "home" and the cops weren't having it. As far as academic rigor, as long as you reached a baseline that was all they asked. There was no advanced material for the smarter/faster kids. I heard the term "AP Class" for the first time as a freshman in college in '97. Starting in 10th grade the smarter kids could test to attend some classes at the local Kent State branch with all the advanced kids from the entire county.

We had very little homework as kids couldn't take the textbooks home; there weren't enough to go around so we had to put them back on the shelf when we were done with them in the class room. The district couldn't risk the kids losing/destroying them. I remember having to double up with the kids beside me for science as there were only about 20 books for a class of 40 kids. No money for art or shop class at all. In HS the kids could at least go to the vocational school at the county level which had some budget. Our HS had a shop class area but it had been shuttered around '91 for no budget. There was a band, but much like the textbooks kids had to share instruments. Very few parents could afford to actually buy their kids a personal instrument. HS chemistry had "labs" but they were largely theoretical unless the supplies could be scrounged from household goods. We had to wear our coats during class in the winter.

Compared to that, the same district is doing much better now. The state changed funding schemes and some clever local politician trickery secured some new buildings, money for more staff, and a baseline budget pulling it up to about average for the state. Shop and art are back etc. For me the 80's and early 90's were a distinctly terrible time to be in my school at least. I graduated #2 in my class and was moderately unprepared for college though I pulled it out eventually.

This might be the first time I’ve heard writing lines described as “pressure to see improvement.” I always thought it was strictly disciplinary.

Going down your list, in the 2000s, I…

  • used such swivel/fixed desks, sometimes in rows, sometimes clustered into 4s.
  • was not particularly aware of posture.
  • did all class work handwritten. Most homework, too, though reports and essays were typeset as I got older.
  • had plenty of math homework, copying from the book. Class was usually lecture and worked examples.
  • read aloud for prose, poetry, and plays.
  • definitely, vividly, memorized and was (timed!) tested for multiplication tables.
  • had no idea who Brighty was; the earliest assigned book I can recall was about Sitting Bull.
  • was not visited by any famous authors. Though Charles Townes did stop by, once…
  • did not, as far as I recall, have work-like activities such as the cafeteria.

In addition, I…

  • had to learn the recorder starting in 3rd grade, and a real instrument in 4th or 5th, continuing through high school. Actually, in 2nd grade there were melodicas, but I’m not sure I wasn’t just hallucinating. I’ve never seen one since.
  • was taught extensive state history/geography from a textbook which contained the legendary barbecue regions map.
  • was required to participate in the elementary school production of Macbeth.
  • experienced various introductions to sports and “presidential” fitness testing.
  • learned Spanish starting in 5th or 6th grade.
  • was disciplined mostly by being kept in during recess, or occasionally assigned extra work.
  • had a battery of standardized tests once or twice a year.

Make of this what you will. I do think there has been a transition away from strict line-writing and penmanship; this is probably appropriate, judging by the amount of handwriting I’ve had to do since leaving grad school. Reading and ‘rithmetic don’t seem to have changed as much.

There may also be reduced discipline. Or, at least, it’s shifted away from repetitive punishments and more towards “make up work” or additional projects. The higher disciplinary system of detention/suspension/expulsion is still, I am told, in full force; it was most famously applied as Zero Tolerance, but I think that’s been dialed back.

Of course, I went to some weird schools, but I don’t think my experience is too unfamiliar to yours. Or to your kids. The parts we remember, years down the road, are skewed and blurry. I have a feeling that your kids will be left with similar impressions once they’re out in the world.

Schools do not appear to suck, relative to the 1980s

there are a considerable number of variables that need to be accounted for

Which is why I said, "do not appear" to suck, relative to the 1980s.

Are you sure the standards by which math and reading ability were judged remained constant over these decades?

Well, it is the same, very well known, test, the NAEP. it is easy enough to do some research on its history. Feel free to do so.

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