English Should not be Compulsory in High School

[Minoosh]

I am not a teacher, but I think one major problem with US education is too much catering to the students whims.
I don't see what is so bad about tellling them flat out You don't pass this class, you don't graduate. Yeah, I am a reactionary when it comes to education. I think Progressive Education has been very damaging. TO learn something requires Work, and you cannot sugar coat it.
I also think there are too many electives and not enough mandatory courses. I would require Math , History and English EVERY YEAR through High school.

Kids don't have to be told. It's been this way for a hundred years.

In each state, there are a specified number of credits needed to graduate high school (or, as you prefer, High school). If students don't pass, they don't get that credit. They can make it up in summer school, or night school. They can drop out to have a baby, or recover from addiction, then come back, but they need the mandated number of credits to graduate high school. And, fun fact, the state has to continue trying to teach them FOR FREE (during the regular academic day/year) until they are 22.

Or, they can drop out at 16. Or get a GED.

As a teacher, how much weight do I put on petty errors with punctuation and capitalization? Not much. It's far more important that I can tell what you're saying, and how sound your reasoning is.

How much "catering to the students [sic] whims" is too much? Can we agree that every child is different? Some will thrive under the strictest regimen. Some will give up. Some would rather learn to cook or cut hair or fix toilets. A few will be world-class athletes, musicians or ballerinas.

In my state, four years of math and four years of English are required. The four years of math is a recent innovation - "Progressive Education," if you will. My lawyer dad did fine with two. He also did fine with two years of college - a BA was not required for law school. A good thing, too, as he was off fighting some war in the '40s. Forget which one, something to do with fashionistas. (He ended up licensed to argue before the Supreme Court.)

I don't disagree on a solid education. But it's not one-size-fits-all. To be honest, I don't KNOW what these kids are going to need. I don't know what industries will exist in five years.

Please, whatever you do, don't conflate "Progressive Education" - which means nothing - with special education, which means something very specific, and legally binding.

 

[arthwollipot]

It's a lot smarter to let kids learn something they're interested in.

Kids aren't interested in anything except Pokemon or whatever the current equivalent is.

Why do you think school is compulsory in the first place? Adults know better than kids do what they will need to know as adults. We have to make them learn the things that they will need because we know that they won't do it on their own.

And hopefully, by making them learn some things, they will discover an interest that they didn't know about before.

 

[The Atheist]

Kids aren't interested in anything except Pokemon or whatever the current equivalent is.

Do you actually know any kids? I've got one in year 13 and he and his mates want subjects that mean something: coding, engineering, welding, you know, actual skills. I'd put financial literacy several million places in front of English.

Why do you think school is compulsory in the first place? Adults know better than kids do what they will need to know as adults.

I can't agree on that. There is not a single thing I learned in high school that has been useful in the 40 years since then.

No job I've done, no course I've taken, has been aided by anything I did at school. And I was in the top class, so it wasn't lack of interest or effort.

And hopefully, by making them learn some things, they will discover an interest that they didn't know about before.

Now, that part bears some truth.

I didn't know I liked French women until we had a very young relieving teacher who was a French exchange student.

 

[arthwollipot]

I can't agree on that. There is not a single thing I learned in high school that has been useful in the 40 years since then.

No job I've done, no course I've taken, has been aided by anything I did at school. And I was in the top class, so it wasn't lack of interest or effort.

I don't believe that for a single moment.

 

[The Atheist]

I don't believe that for a single moment.

My last 2 years at school, I took maths (with calculus), English, Chemistry, Biology, Physics and French.

I have needed calculus on zero occasions, never used any of the sciences - being involved in finance and recruiting - and the French has remained unused. English was a joke in terms of subject, although, as I mentioned at the start, I still enjoyed it, because my teacher was hot af. I definitely haven't required any of what we learned.

 

[arthwollipot]

I have needed calculus on zero occasions, never used any of the sciences - being involved in finance and recruiting - and the French has remained unused. English was a joke in terms of subject, although, as I mentioned at the start, I still enjoyed it, because my teacher was hot af. I definitely haven't required any of what we learned.

I'm going to bet that there's things that you learned in those two years that you don't even realise you're using. Of course, there's no way to confirm it so no way I could ever collect on it, but there it is.

 

[Minoosh]

Kids aren't interested in anything except Pokemon or whatever the current equivalent is.

Why do you think school is compulsory in the first place? Adults know better than kids do what they will need to know as adults. We have to make them learn the things that they will need because we know that they won't do it on their own.

And hopefully, by making them learn some things, they will discover an interest that they didn't know about before.

tl:dr When you work with small groups you can do things that would be impossible with 30-35 kids. I have multiple examples of how this works. I'm trying to minimize the wall of text by breaking this into several posts.

arthwollipot: Pokémon is still around, but fading by the age I work with. Here's a video about a man with dyscalculia who used Pokemon to teach himself math. You don't have to watch a 10-minute video, but I probably should.

Though I do use generalizations here, it's critical to understand that children are individuals with very specific needs.

Kids are mostly interested in each other. And their phones. And, believe it or not, critical thinking. Gaming is huge with boys. Games (I don't mean sports) snag their attention - quiz review done in Jeopardy! format can be very effective.

Framing getting through school as one giant "escape room" might help everyone cope.

They're interested in hair (across genders), makeup (mostly girls) and finding out who they are. How to express themselves. Present themselves. I tutored small groups. One all-girl group wanted to play "spa." We had chairs, lava lamps, a digital whiteboard, regular whiteboards. We could project soothing video, play soft music. A girl had a spray bottle of water - "hairspray," to an 11-year-old. They had lip balm, maybe some clear mascara. We had cups to offer filtered water. Could have gotten a cucumber but no one thought of it.

For about 15 minutes I just watched them rearrange my room. Then I started giving mild prompts: Create a price list. Fun with colored markers and calligraphy. "How about packages?" I asked. They created some. I asked, How many haircuts will earn you $54? What letter or symbol do you want to use to represent that number in an algebraic equation? They chose x, probably a good thing.

They role-played. Client, hostess, stylist. They proved the packages were a better deal. What about tipping? How do you figure out 10, 20 and 15 percent? (Drag that decimal to the left. Double the result. What's halfway between those numbers? What if you multiplied the total by 0.15?

I didn't make them learn anything. But I had the luxury of working with small groups, pulled from electives until their math grade improved.

Being a lead classroom math teacher would probably kill me.

Google AI tells me: Empirical research demonstrates that learning through play is a highly effective educational strategy.

So is this the dreaded "progressive education"?

 

[Minoosh]

What I learned while trying to qualify as a math teacher:

In high school, I absorbed most of the math immediately. Didn't take notes. Got bored as hell at the repetition.

Thirty-five years later, it didn't all come back to me. At 50, my brain had changed. All my classes were in the familiar format: Single-file rows where students silently watched the teacher write out examples on the board the whole period. I'd understand, but then struggle with the homework, making silly arithmetic mistakes. Conceptually I was fine but I'd almost hold my breath while working long problems. I also took a medication at night that, I found, induced amnesia: I could solve problems but what I learned didn't stick. I started working out before doing homework, postponed the meds, finally got a B in calculus, and passed the test to teach secondary math by the skin of my teeth. It was a test designed for recent math majors. I wasn't even sure what some of the problems were asking but I could often narrow down the most likely choices (it was multiple choice, but very tricky multiple choice).

I'd given myself a year to qualify after getting laid off at the newspaper. (I was already certified as an English teacher, but they were being laid off too!) I took all the math classes I could, then passed the test to teach secondary math by the skin of my teeth.

In high school, I'd absorbed most of the math immediately. Didn't take notes. Got bored as hell at the repetition.

So I know what it's like to pick it up right away, but I also know what it's like to struggle. The next post will be getting my first job and finding out that the format for teaching kids has changed radically since I was in school. And then, a couple of examples of how it sometimes it takes small-group work or tutoring to drill down to the kid's level and really understand what is holding them up. Sometimes it's something relatively simple that can be fixed. But in a class of 35 students, the lead teacher may realize a kid is struggling, but not the exact nature of their misunderstanding. It's not the teacher's fault. Small groups can work wonders. Sometimes the kids teach each other and it's *awesome*.

 

[Minoosh]

After qualifying, I got hired right away - about 3 weeks afters school had started. The assistant principal wanted me to "come in and meet the kids." So I did, and I stayed. But it took 3 weeks for the district to onboard me. Several substitutes had already cycled through, and I had a sub with me for those next 3 weeks. The subs were in charge, not me, though some stayed out of the way.

I didn't know the normal flunk rate for freshman algebra at this school was 50 percent until I resigned. And that my evaluator, the assistant principal, was *despised* at her old school.

I did so many things wrong. It turns out single-file rows with the teacher in front is often a really bad way to arrange students, especially in today's environment. It's what I walked in to, but I learned, you need to be able to move around, cut diagonally across the room quickly. It nips a lot of bad behavior in the bud. It helps to be able to observe them from behind sometimes. Your physical proximity is a cue they respond to.

I had too many desk in my room but was forbidden to have any taken out. Apparently, in that district, you never get them back.

The room itself was awful. No windows, no decor. That was my job, something teachers are usually given time to do before school starts. To make the room less dreary I bought posters, prepared bulletin boards for student work. I rearranged the furniture as best as I could. All as a volunteer who didn't have a key to the room.

We didn't get textbooks until a few weeks in. Another useful tool: small white boards, essentially slates. Some kids more readily do math on white boards than paper. You can use them in competitive games where kids hold up their answers. They're expensive at teacher supply stores. A lot of teachers buy material at Home Depot and saw them into slates. Where I work now, some desks themselves are whiteboards. Some walls are virtual whiteboards, where students work out problems in groups. They all have to take a turn with the marker. I never did organize a set for my room. I don't own a buzz saw.

You need props - have them constantly take things out, put things away, psychologically you're just more in command that way. You're supposed to take a week to train them in class expectations: How to enter, how to leave, how to line up if you're going out to do things like measure the slope of the stairs.

This applies to virtually all secondary school lead teachers: You have 150 students, sometimes more. You practically need a black belt in time management to survive. When you're not with kids you're grading, making copies, making assessments, communicating with parents. It gets better, but the first-year experience can be harrowing.

I was at a dead run every waking hour trying to arrange things. Sometimes I felt I was doing more harm than good. Half my students were failing. Nobody told me that was *normal*. Eventually they make up the credit, or they drop out, or get a GED.

My 86-year-old mom was sliding quickly into full-blown dementia. Not Alzheimer's, thankfully. She could be left alone but she needed a lot of support.

My next job was as a paraprofessional at a charter school. Hourly wage. Working with small groups. Monitoring lunch and recess. Opening the playground in the morning, helping at parent pickup. I got away to see Mom every weekend. I have a similar job now. It's not easy. Sometimes I'm out in 110F heat, 43C, retrieving some kid's backpack from the field after they fall sick. But I rarely take work home. The pay is not great but the benefits are solid.

 

[Ranb]

.... There is not a single thing I learned in high school that has been useful in the 40 years since then.

No job I've done, no course I've taken, has been aided by anything I did at school. And I was in the top class, so it wasn't lack of interest or effort.

I find that hard to believe. Did you learn to read and write in some place other than school? The basic reading, writing and math skills I learned in school are the foundation of nearly every other skill I have learned since then.

 

[novaphile]

I find that hard to believe. Did you learn to read and write in some place other than school? The basic reading, writing and math skills I learned in school are the foundation of nearly every other skill I have learned since then.

Some one who works in finance that doesn't use the maths they learned at school, sounds rather unlikely.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

There is not a single thing I learned in high school that has been useful in the 40 years since then.

No job I've done, no course I've taken, has been aided by anything I did at school. And I was in the top class, so it wasn't lack of interest or effort.

I had a similar experience, though I wouldn't go so far as to say that not a single thing I learned in high school was useful - because that wouldn't be entirely true.

I didn't learn anything in class about physics, chemistry and biology because I had previously been given some old textbooks on those subjects by one of the teachers, which I read at home. So I already knew everything. Sadly I learned nothing about electronics either even though one of the teachers was right into it, because the school had no classes in that subject for me. I did learn about complex numbers, but had no idea what use they might be until studying electrical engineering at polytech. So math classes weren't totally useless, but would have been a lot better if we had been introduced to practical uses for context.

I also learned nothing about metalwork because I only had 2 periods a week in the 3rd form and the teacher was an alcoholic who didn't want to teach us. What I did learn was that other kids will steal the project you spent a third of the year on and break the lathes before it's your turn to use them. I really wanted to learn how to use a lathe, and got nothing.

In art class I learned about lettering, which was of some help later when doing computer artwork. In French I learned that English isn't such a bad language. Shockingly I also learned something in English (even though the teacher was old and not attractive), when we studied advertising and propaganda. The penny dropped then as I finally understood what writing is all about - using particular words to manipulate the reader into believing your narrative. But why did we have to wait until the 6th form to learn that?

That is why I say English should be compulsory in schools, but it needs to be properly taught.

 

[The Atheist]

I find that hard to believe. Did you learn to read and write in some place other than school? The basic reading, writing and math skills I learned in school are the foundation of nearly every other skill I have learned since then.

I'd learned to read and write and do arithmetic long before I even got to high school.

Did you not notice I specifically said the last two years of high school?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I find that hard to believe. Did you learn to read and write in some place other than school? The basic reading, writing and math skills I learned in school are the foundation of nearly every other skill I have learned since then.

I did. I started school at 5 years old but wasn't getting anywhere so my parents home-schooled me until the next year. I that short time I got so far ahead that they kept moving me up a class. Once you can read school isn't needed for 'book learning'.

Primary school was a sick joke. I remember not being able to advance in spelling lessons because you were supposed learn 5 words you got wrong before going to the next level. But I didn't get any words wrong, so... I also remember the teacher chastising me for using paragraphs because she hadn't taught us that yet (she never did). This actually affected my self-esteem - I thought I was an idiot. Being constantly bullied by the 'smarter' kids didn't help.

 

[The Atheist]

Primary school was a sick joke.

Still is. Our daughter, now aged 24, could read at year 3 and above level before she got to school.

To challenge her, they put her forward a couple of classes, which completely destroyed her ability to have friends in her class because she was 2 years younger.

I went to a school of about 60 pupils from year 1 to 8, and got so far in front of the others I spent most of years 7 & 8 helping the remedial reading kids, re-organising the school library and doing odd jobs to help the head teacher.

 

[Minoosh]

So to expand (sorry) on what I wrote earlier:

"Making" kids learn isn't always possible. Yes, sometimes they're just slacking. But there may be something different going on in their brains. And with 30-35 kids it can be hard to put your finger on the exact issue.

One day only one student showed up out of my usual 5. I had a lesson on "prime factorization" planned. For whatever reason, this 14-year-old couldn't "see" that 3 and 5 were factors of 15. I gave him poker chips and had him make grids. I never saw, until I got him alone, that he had a specific issue breaking down composite numbers. He needed something to handle - "manipulables." It took him all period but he got through the worksheet. He was occupied and absorbed. With 15 chips, he could make 3 rows of 5. With 11, he could only do 1x11 or 11x1. After that he knew what a prime number was, what a composite number was and what "factoring" meant.

An 11-year-old girl I had alone was working on turning fractions into decimals. She couldn't really multiply. Asked to multiply 3x7, she'd add by 3s until she'd done that 7 times. This was pretty common. I asked her to turn 1/7 into a decimal. It's a repeating decimal, of course, but only after 6 digits. She got there. She had to add 7+7+7 etc. to get to 49. She got to 0.1428571 ... as soon as she got the second "1," she said, "Won't it just be the same after that?" Yes, it would really help her to memorize the multiplication

Earlier I posted a video about a guy who readily saw five fingers when someone held up a hand with outstretched fingers - but the symbol "5" was incomprehensible. In the end, he taught himself - with Pokémon, building on his pre-existing interest. Some "disabilities" are obvious ... you're not going to tell a blind kid, "Just look! Everyone else can learn it that way, why can't you?"

Well, those who see can also have blind spots. I have loads of them.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

One day only one student showed up out of my usual 5. I had a lesson on "prime factorization" planned. For whatever reason, this 14-year-old couldn't "see" that 3 and 5 were factors of 15. I gave him poker chips and had him make grids. I never saw, until I got him alone, that he had a specific issue breaking down composite numbers. He needed something to handle - "manipulables." It took him all period but he got through the worksheet. He was occupied and absorbed. With 15 chips, he could make 3 rows of 5. With 11, he could only do 1x11 or 11x1. After that he knew what a prime number was, what a composite number was and what "factoring" meant.

There were a couple of times in primary school that I remember learning something about math. The first was when we were given different sized containers and allowed to play filling them up with water. Didn't take long to understand how volume worked. The second was when we were given Cuisenaire rods and allowed to play with them. That's when the penny dropped for me on math.

"Making" kids learn isn't always possible. Yes, sometimes they're just slacking.

Kids learn automatically. If they 'slack' it's because they aren't being given the right material to engage with. The problem is that schools have a fixed curriculum that only works (reasonably) well on the 'average' student. I understand why they do that - it's cheaper and easier to teach and standardize - but very wasteful. That doesn't make schooling useless, but kids are mostly learning stuff that isn't explicitly on the curriculum - such as how to please the teacher and how to get through days weeks and years of drudgery - a good primer for adult life in the workforce.

 

[arthwollipot]

Yes, I learned basic arithmetic using rods as well.

 

[novaphile]

There were a couple of times in primary school that I remember learning something about math. The first was when we were given different sized containers and allowed to play filling them up with water. Didn't take long to understand how volume worked. The second was when we were given Cuisenaire rods and allowed to play with them. That's when the penny dropped for me on math.


Kids learn automatically. If they 'slack' it's because they aren't being given the right material to engage with. The problem is that schools have a fixed curriculum that only works (reasonably) well on the 'average' student. I understand why they do that - it's cheaper and easier to teach and standardize - but very wasteful. That doesn't make schooling useless, but kids are mostly learning stuff that isn't explicitly on the curriculum - such as how to please the teacher and how to get through days weeks and years of drudgery - a good primer for adult life in the workforce.

My brother and I had a set of those when we were kids in the 1960's, our set was called: "Colour Factor" and we loved them.

 

[arthwollipot]

I used to make towers.