Are schools giving kids any basic skills or has technology and safety rules killed the hands on approach ?

Question

Are schools giving kids any basic skills or has technology and safety rules killed the hands on approach ?

Answer 1

You'd be surprised how many students come out illiterate and innumerate. But hey, thats to be expected when you teach to the lowest common denominator. At least they have self confidence!

Answer 2

Schools teach ONLY in ONE way, sitting at the books and practing taking tests for NCLB so the schools can get more money.

The kids are GIVEN the answers and practice taking tests ALL YEAR LONG  so they can pass the tests so schools can get more money.

The kids are like robots who are fed information to memorize.

No more hands on, no more creativity, just an assembly line pumping them out.

Kids don't know how to LEARN anymore.

Teachers are leaving left and right and so are the kids.

It is horrible.

Because of these tests, some schools are starting to do away with all subjects except reading and math.

And the big problem is, parents don't know they are paying these peoples salaries to do this to our own kids.

COMMUNISM

Answer 3

Some schools provide the basic skills, like reading/writing and maths, but as far as practical skills go many schools/teachers are simply too afraid to teach these.

It is almost impossible to take kids on outings because of Health and Safety concerns. i.e. will we be sued if something could, remotely, go wrong.

How many schools do you know that take kids to a farm? If they do, they spend hours and hours on risk assessments etc. Therefore it doesn´t happen. So guess who are the losers.

Answer 4

Teachers are not showing movies or going on nearly as many field trips as 10 years ago.

Log onto your state's standards through the Department of education and it will blow your mind the number of skills listed that teachers are held responsible to teach! The third grade list alone is 5 pages in my state and our lesson plans have to be aligned. Each skill is written in behavioral goals and each skill must have a pre and post test. Each teacher must show one full years growth in each subject she/he teaches.

The legislators do not drive the state standards. Professional educators write them and they are under constant revision to include more and more.

The material is stuff I taught 6th graders ten years ago. For example 1st graders now need to begin division. Second graders learn about character development and author's purpose- some of them... for kids coming into school with no previous learning are at a real disadvantage. It is more or less expected you will be reading and writing in kindergarten. Yet I have parents who can't get their kids to school consistently or on time. They stay home at the slightest headache and the parents complain "too much" homework, do it for them or ask for work so they can take it to Disneyland and then never do a page while they are on vacation. (6 of my students went to Disneyland the month of Sept.!)

The major problem is no one wants to retain kids anymore. Where is full time summer school so the kids can suffer the consequences of their truancy or laziness?

Answer 5

An important question. I have the impression that schools these days feel it is their duty to teach what is necessary to pass exams. The Government decides what is required to be taught, the schools have to comply. What do the Government know about it? Only teaching how to fiddle expenses, promise anything to get elected, then renage. The system is all wrong in my opinion. Kids should be taught the basic three R's, and other basic subjects. For instance why do they have to do French? What use is that? How about Chinese instead.

More appropriate for todays world. We never had goggles when doing chemistry, or hi visibility jackets when walking throgh the woods. None of us got injured, and if somebody tripped and sprained their ankle, nobody sued the school.