School costs and parent involvement

[julieisafemme]

Originally Posted by Martina

This stuff was going on long before NCLB. It wasn't that way when i was in school, but i remember friends who had their kids in Ann Arbor schools who were supposed to pony up for things all the time. i recall a minor example -- students were supposed to buy green t-shirts for a field trip so that the kids could be kept track of. My co-worker was poor and had no time to go out shopping on the spur of the moment etc.

i don't teach elementary, but we sure don't assume that there is support at home for projects. i am not sure how this got started. A friend of mine whose kids are in Ann Arbor schools is constantly working on projects. She has the money and the time, but is it even good for her sons?

Another friend, her son calls from COLLEGE for help, sometimes on deadline. The kid is a junior. It's mind-boggling to me.

Another friend is a dean of a small college, and she says for some years colleges -- and professors -- have had many more parents calling to intervene when their kids are failing a class etc. Amazing.

So i think parents are a part of the problem. i think they are afraid to allow their kids to fail or flounder. And it keeps upping the ante.

i also think this doesn't have anything to do with high stakes testing. If we were concentrating only on high stakes testing, there wouldn't be any projects at all. Project-based learning is great. It needs good curriculum, cooperation among staff and administration, and hard work on everyone's part. It should not require much parental involvement.

Parental pareticipation should be be about helping kids review and, if necessary, stay organized. The point of homework is building toward mastery. Sitting down with their kids, checking homework, helping kids with their planners, checking planners, staying up on what's happening in the classroom, and perhaps volunteering -- that's what parents should be doing. But they should not be going back to school themselves.

***begin rant***

i may sound a bit irritable here. But all the armchair folks who talk about what's wrong with the system, 90 percent of them don't have a clue. They read about it or listen to pundits on the radio, but they are not professionals. i understand that all of us are stakeholders. The students are our kids and future leaders. We all should care.

It's fine to read and research and have opinions. But i hear all the time, well i subbed fifteen years ago, and . . . Or my daughter teaches in San Jose, and she says. . . . i just want to say, get back to me when you are a fully credentialed experienced teacher, counselor or admin, when you have had real responsibility for children's educations.

It's not just the notion that teachers are the problem and that somehow "fixing" us would solve all the world's problems that i abhore. i think most of us here would object to that and object to the teacher-hating legislation that has been going on.

But the idea that every retired old fart at the donut shop feels qualified to tell you what is wrong -- at length -- with public schools is part of the problem -- the problem that is not respecting teachers and the mission of public school education.

Man, it makes me tired.

****end rant*****

Oh no! I think I am part of the problem! But I am okay with that. I work full time and do not have the opportunity to volunteer in the classroom or much at all.

We just finished a super fun project on birds. This was the culmination of a year of study for my daughter's third grade class. We had to make a nest for a Northern Pygmy Owl. My daughter came up with the concept and picked out the supplies at the store. I did help and so did Grandma because my daughter loves when we all do crafts together. It was so fun!! A hot glue gun was involved and so my Mom and I did that and burned ourselves! We made homemade clay eggs and got twigs by walking on the street and collecting them. My daughter came up with the construction of the tree we had to make and then told me how to assemble it.

I don't know. I don't think this was necessarily too difficult for her age. I really appreciate the projects where I get to help. It lets me see what she is doing and learning and it is an opportunity for us to do something together. I dropped her off really early and actually came in to school and looked at the other nests kids had made and talked to her teacher and it was good.

I think there is a happy medium between doing the project for your child and doing it together. I am grateful for the opportunity. I am also lucky and privileged to have the time to help her I know.