I just went back to teaching this year after a break to raise a baby, and it’s not like I had very much experience before other than subbing, but our big topic right now is the new educational “decree” we are experiencing. We all get a letter from the principal that says we haven’t been implementing “Writing Across the Curriculum” correctly. From now on we have to TURN IN student essays every week. This is supposed to be something that is done in every class by every student. It has to be in paragraph form, and implement good spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc. I teach Algebra I and this week we wrote about “Honesty” (next week I think we will do “Responsibility”).
What are some, um, interesting educational fads going through your school system right now?
Well, I don’t know if it’s a “fad”, but they just totally changed the grading system at my daughter’s elementary school, and with her last report card, I couldn’t figure out if she’d made honor roll or not! When she was in Pre-K and Kindergarten, she had S for satisfactory, P for progressing, and N for needs improvement. I could understand not using A-F for the little kids. Then, in first grade, she had A-F. Ah, finally a system I could really grok! But this year, second grade, it’s O for outstanding, S for satisfactory, N for needs improvement, and U for unsatisfactory! She had all O’s and S’s, but I couldn’t figure out the honor roll thing to save my soul!
I had asked about it at parent-teacher conference, and was assured that a note would be sent home from the school a week or two before report cards, but, nope. No note. Sigh.
This happened three years ago…but it was really annoying.
The whole idea was that every school had to have 90 minutes of physical activity each day. The kids had gym each day for 60 minutes…so to pick up the remaining 30 it was the job of each teacher to exercise their kids in every class. That meant 4 minutes of each class to jump up and down or run out in the cold…
It really disrupted my band class…so much that I quit doing it…and no one cared…
Not to hijack too far, but I think the idea that literacy transcends subject areas is an eminently sensible one. Implementation is an entirely different kettle of fish, though. I’ve heard some really bone-headed schemes.
I’ve seen this: teachers are given thick binders of overheads with math problems on them, and they are suppossed to spend the first five minutes or so of each class having the students do that dayt’s problem. It’s a disaster, usually, because at least by high school the kids are all over the place in math ability: in one English or History class you will have kids in regular Algebra II and kids in BC Calculus, and kids in everything in between. So how do you have questions that will being meaningful review for them all?
I thought the writing across the curriculum aspect of my undergraduate program was one of its strengths. Obviously that’s college, and not exactly the same thing. That said, this seems like a completely different interpretation from what we did. It shouldn’t just be writing in other classes, it should be writing in other disciplines. So to incorporate writing into math you would write something math related. Maybe something like doubling or halving a recipe? Or a bio of a famous mathematician? Or write about a new invention that uses math in some way? Or how math is used in a career field?
The logic is a little clearer in college, because the students are ostensibly learning how to write for their field of interest.
I could get behind incorporating math across the curriculum, too. It is so easy for kids to say “I don’t do math” or “I don’t like math,” but it is really hard to avoid math no matter what you do for a living. As a result, much work done in the real world is based on bad math.
But just springing ethics essays on kids in random classes? :dubious:
We did something similar to what Harriet is describing in high school ('99-'03), except math classes were exempt. So we’d have lots of writing in science, social studies, phy ed and English (of course!), but wouldn’t have to do it for Algebra or Calc.
There was a kind of nutty initiative to expand vocabulary for a couple years, where we had five new words in each class, and we had to write sentences for three of them at the beginning of class. We had eight periods in the day, and one of them was usually a study hall, so that was 35 new words every day, of which only 21 were used. So we’d spend ten minutes of band or gym talking about penultimate gorgons and their misdeeds in the equatorial countries. Yeah, that was a good use of class time.
I guess when vocab scores on standardized testing didn’t go up, they junked it.
Yeah, what **Harriet **describes makes sense, are you sure you got adequately briefed on how it’s supposed to work, RachelChristine? “Honesty” doesn’t have a lick to do with math, unless we’re talking about the moral failings of imaginary numbers.
Heck, even having the kids write out the steps to solving an equation, or finding the area of a circle, would be immensely valuable, both for their writing skills and their math understanding. “How-to” papers are some of the hardest to write well, yet some of the most common types of writing in this day and age. Don’t you think our manuals and instructions could have benefited from the writers beginning their craft at age 12?
Or maybe turn around the old “Why do we have to learn this stuff?” whine and have the students answer that. “Three Real Life Applications of Functions” or “How I Used Determining the Area of a Rectangle to Paint My Bedroom”.
I think this “fad” sounds like it could be really useful. (Of course, right now, I am grading 50 research papers by college undergrads, and they’re all badly written.) It can serve to reinforce both English skills and skills in whatever course you’re teaching.
Which is why I don’t understand why you aren’t having them write on math topics. Things like “explain the transitive property,” “describe one everyday use for algebra in your life,” etc. I think you’re squandering an opportunity.
Is there something about Education that makes the administrators particularly boneheaded? I’ve known lots of great teachers, but the administrators seem to constantly dream up complete nonsese like zero-tolerance for drugs that expell kids for sharing Midol.
Well I will say, in my defense, that everyone is doing essays based on the wording in our memo. I already have been making the kids write out in words how to solve equations. Sometimes in homework and sometimes on quizzes, but we’ve done it several times in each class. That, in my opinion, is writing across the curriculum in a math class. Anyway, this first week of our official “turn it in”, one of my team teachers came up with the idea because I was out a few days with a sick child. On Thursday when I came back, I said to her that I need to come up with something and she suggested it.
I think that the way we are being asked to do this is part of what is silly about it. Formal essays weekly in every class? How many mathematician bios and math inventions and all the other ideas that have been mentioned here and are being bandied about at school can we come up with? I’ve given those types of assignments in the past, but doing it weekly? On top of actually learning algebra?
Of course, the purpose of my OP was that I wanted to see what other quirky little things have gone through you school systems. I may be a fairly young, mostly inexperienced teacher, but I know enough to know that this will either go away or calm down to where it makes more sense before too long. I’d like to hear other stories. I was subbing when our school system did the above-mentioned few minutes of math in every class with the problems written by the math department. I cracked up at the story of the school doing the few minutes of exercise in every class, because one of my kids has been joking that he’s going to start doing push-ups in all of his classes.
Yes. As I understand it, education is one of the only fields where a prospective manager need not have any actual ability for management or leadership.
In my state, all you have to do is take the required courses for certification as an administrator. Bango - you’re in management!
Convincing a district to hire you isn’t too hard, and most newbies come on as assistant principals. Assuming you aren’t caught actually murdering a child, you can usually continue as an administrator and eventually become a principal.
I’ve seen a number of principals who were good at say, curriculum planning, but had no ability (or even interest) in running the day-to-day operations of a school. Others were good at dealing with kids, but not staff members. And a few were good at… nothing.
The good ones would be good managers anywhere, I think. Leadership is a skill, and I think my main strength is realizing I don’t have it and not attempting it. I’m thankful for those that are good leaders, but they’re few and far between. Probably the same elsewhere, I would think.
Actually, yes, writing is generally considered to be part and parcel of literacy. Even if it were not, my point would still stand–being able to write appropriately for and about any subject area is critical to communicating effectively about it. This can require very different skills, depending on the subject; writing as an area of study can’t always be isolated.
I’m not saying I think this is a necessary feature of the curriculum, just that it has its definite upsides. The problems come when it’s picked up as a fad, as in the OP’s case, without actually being integrated properly into the subject area.
Yeah, normally Writing Across the Curriculum would involve things like learning how to write a lab report in a science class, or a business proposal in a business class, etc. You know, the sort of writing that professionals in those disciplines actually do. It sounds like someone in your school system is VERY unclear on the concept.
Reading and writing are intimately connected. Writing skills cannot develop without reading skills. Literacy skills are the foundation for all learning. I agree that math and science are lagging in the U.S. but without critical literacy skills, students can’t read and comprehend the science content. Students not reading or writing at grade level tend to fall behind, get frustrated, feel inadequate, and eventually give up.
Education is a trendy field. Writing across the curriculum isn’t really cutting edge new. Anything to improve writing skills is beneficial for students. The SAT now has a composition component.
Technology in the classroom is another requirement in my local district. All teachers have to incorporate a technology unit into the curriculum. Most kids today have no problem using technology and enjoy it.
And I say this as someone who tested out of a large portion of her English requirements. Do these poor kids really need to be wasting valuable class time on inane topics? I’m a big believer in developing strong writing skills, but why not do it in, say, a mandatory writing class?
The premise is sound, but when a student learns this method and isn’t taught to transition to a more traditional manner–it takes them forever to solve problems as simple as 12 x 12.
Another “fad” I’ve noticed is complete contempt for memorization of any facts. Math facts, important dates, phonics rules? These aren’t important to know, because anyone can look them up using technology. The majority of students in my middle school math classes do not know thier basic addition and multiplication facts, and can’t spell simple words correctly–like “label” or “percent”.
I like to give simple bonus questions on my tests that aren’t math related. One of my favorites is “Name two countries in North America.” I would estimate that only about 30% of my students get this correct from year to year.
Are they better problem solvers than “we” were? Possibly. Do you want to rely on them to get the correct answer? Doubtful. If the calculator “says” it’s right, then it is. If the spell check doesn’t find a mistake–then it’s fine.
My son was taught lattice multiplication, and I never quite grokked it. He’s *much *faster than I am with the old method, and the more digits, the greater the difference.
