Results 1 to 10 of 10

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #1
    Senior Member legalatina's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    2,359

    dumbing down schools..teacher says let kids teach each other

    This is so maddening...an obviously communist/socialist teacher wanting to make the students teach themselves because most of them are Hispanic from "agrarian" cultures and are used to "collectivism" (i.e. socialism/communism)...so forget using the methods that are employed and successful for better educated families....let's dumb down and make the third-graders teach themselves...yes this is in California. This teacher should be fired.....can it get any worse?

    http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2 ... _headlines

  2. #2
    Senior Member Richard's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Boston
    Posts
    5,262
    Bell Lancaster Monitorial System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell-Lancaster_method
    I support enforcement and see its lack as bad for the 3rd World as well. Remittances are now mostly spent on consumption not production assets. Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  3. #3
    Roxas's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Posts
    73
    I took an education class last semester and the first thing that came to mind was what PhredE posted above. Actually, some students learn better when their peers explain something to them. Others, like myself, need the guidance of a teacher and when that fails (the teacher is incompetent, or whatever) I teach myself. Many students at that age don't have the capacity to do so. Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with students teaching one another as long as appropriate moderating is there....

  4. #4
    Senior Member bigtex's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    3,362
    We have this same system here in Texas, it is called inclusion. They dump special ed and those who do not speak English into regular ed classes and expect them to be educated. Teachers end up having to make several different lesson plans and assignments dumbing down the class while totally losing the kids who are average or above average. The idea is the smarter kids will teach the others and bring them up to their level. Doesn't work.
    Certified Member
    The Sons of the Republic of Texas

  5. #5
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Mexifornia
    Posts
    2,174
    Why not just put all the kids (collectively) in the sandbox and let them play! Maybe they can 'collectively' come up with some great architectural ideas while they're building sand castles! What a waste of taxpayer money!

    No need to hire accredited educators...just baby sitters to monitor the classrooms; and the class sizes could be expanded to 100 or more...just add more tables for them to 'share'.

    Maybe "collectivism" has something to do with the fact that the illegals (collectively) march in the streets; slither over the border (collectively); travel in packs (gangs) collectively; and make their vocal demands (collectively) via LaRaza and the Mexican consuls.

    Our marxist government must be overjoyed at the fact that we are creating a nation of sheeple.

  6. #6
    Senior Member azwreath's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Posts
    6,621
    Here is the article in it's entirety for those who may not be able to access it, for whatever reason, through the link:



    Classroom competition among kids downplayed


    By Kim Lamb Gregory (Contact)
    Sunday, May 11, 2008



    Rather than have the students sit at their desks and compose and read stories alone, the Will Rogers School teacher was using "think, pair, share," a group teaching method that allows them to help one another through the reading and writing lesson.

    "It's their time to connect," Werth said. "Then they write their own pieces."

    To the children it was a simple reading lesson, but by letting them share before asking them to write independently, Werth was employing a "collective" approach to teaching, a counterbalance to the "individualistic" approach most common in U.S. schools. It's an approach local educators are looking at, but it is drawing criticism from at least one local political activist.

    Werth began styling her lessons into more collective models after reading "Managing Diverse Classrooms: How to Build on Students' Cultural Strengths," a book co-written by Ventura education specialist Carrie Rothstein-Fisch, an associate professor of educational psychology and counseling at CSU Northridge. The book's co-author is Elise Trumbull, an Oakland educational consultant who specializes in sociocultural influences on learning.

    Basic differences

    The goal in any teaching situation is to create well-functioning, educated human beings, but the means to that end differs by culture.

    In individualistic societies such as the United States, Australia and Great Britain, children learn to learn alone, the book says.

    In the 70 percent of the world with collectivistic cultures — such as Africa, Asia and Latin America — the goal is to sculpt individuals who can be team players and take responsibility within their social groups and families.

    In collectivistic settings, "when it comes to learning, there is a tacit belief that people learn together and share and construct knowledge, rather than having each person specializing in everything," Trumbull said.

    Contrast that with an individualistic learning environment, where children are taught to stand on their own two feet, do their own work and, often, compete with classmates for gold stars.

    Those gold stars later translate to money and status in corporate America.

    "We assume everybody's going to work hard for money and status," Rothstein-Fisch said. "We can't make those assumptions."

    Who learns how

    According to a five-year study detailed in the book, collectivistic teaching methods are more effective with students whose cultures are based more on cooperation and sharing than on competition and individual achievement.

    "More agrarian societies tend to be more collectivistic," Trumbull said. "More urban people and those with more formal education tend to move more in the direction of individualism."

    The research showed that those from lower economic levels, with lower levels of formal education and from rural backgrounds tend toward collectivism. Children of Latino immigrants often fit into all three of those categories.

    When they are immersed in a classroom built on the individualist U.S. model of "do your own work" and "don't help her or she'll never learn," it can be confusing, the authors said.

    "All features of individualism and collectivism are present in all people," Rothstein-Fisch said. "It's just what's going to work in a specific environment."

    Cultural influences in the classroom had always interested Rothstein-Fisch, but it wasn't until she read a book co-written by her former mentor, UCLA psychology professor Patricia Greenfield, that the topic really took hold; the 1994 book was "Cross Cultural Roots of Minority Child Development," published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    "It was the epiphany of my life," said Rothstein-Fisch, the mother of two. "I thought everybody would want children to learn to become independent. This has transformed my thinking about everything."

    She, Trumbull and three other educators received grants to conduct a five-year research study called Bridging Cultures. The results of the study are detailed in the book.

    Since the book was published in January by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Rothstein-Fisch has been contacted by departments of education from several states and by the archdiocese of Cleveland, which oversees 186 schools.

    All are curious to learn more, and many have issued her invitations to come out and speak.

    "People seem to find that there is something of value in understanding the role of culture in organizing classrooms," Rothstein-Fisch said.

    The needs of the many

    After they read aloud as a group, teacher Werth instructed her students to work with their partners and illustrate their fictional narrative about dragons attacking Will Rogers School.

    The children scattered to desks arranged in groups of four or six.

    Uriel Nuñez, 8, worried aloud that he didn't have a particular color crayon.

    "Don't worry, I got one. I got two of them," classmate Ruben Ramirez, 9, told him.

    The two then sat together and began drawing a vegetable garden about to be charred by dragons. As they bent their heads in concentration over the squash they were filling in with orange crayon, they were asked whether they would rather work alone or together.

    "Together!" they said in unison.

    "We're friends," Ruben said, when asked why.

    Cousins Jeanette Hernandez, 8, and Araceli Hernandez, 9, live close together near Ventura Avenue. Their crayons busily moved over dragon fangs.

    "We help each other," Jeanette said.

    When Araceli was asked why they like to help each other, she began, softly: "Because " She hesitated and looked down. "Because of our moms and dads," Jeanette supplied. "They taught us. They also tell us to learn and to try our best and listen to the teacher."

    Jeanette and Araceli's parents are immigrants, as are Ruben and Uriel's.

    On the other hand, 9-year-old Hunter Raney's parents were born in the United States.

    "I like to work by myself," Hunter said. "I kinda go really fast. Like in math. I'm really good."

    Children of immigrants

    Will Rogers Principal Patricia Short said cooperative learning has always been a part of elementary education, but she likes how well the book specifically targets Latino children of immigrant parents. She plans to hold a book study after school with teachers.

    "If everybody's implementing these strategies, it's going to close the achievement gap significantly," Short said.

    Simi Valley political activist Steve Frank has only read a review of the book but on a blog on his Web site, http://www.capoliticalnews.com, he opposed the concept of teaching some Latino students differently.

    "You're talking about a racist operation in our schools," said Frank, who campaigned for the passage of Proposition 227 requiring that all students be immersed in English when they enter school.

    He believes that implementing collectivistic learning practices hobbles more capable students.

    "You hold the best back so you don't emotionally harm those slower than others," Frank said. "You're not helping the slow or those who could reach a higher potential. It harms both."

    He believes that children should not be treated as a "herd," he said, but as individuals. There's a lot to be said for individualism, he said.

    "That points out why we're the best economy in the world. The best research in the world is done here," Frank said. "Maybe her statistics prove why the rest of the world is following us."

    Modesty and respect

    Kids with collectivistic backgrounds may be reluctant to compete with friends for fear of harming a social relationship, which they view as more important.

    According to the book, modesty and blending into a group are important collectivistic values.

    Fitting in with a group is certainly important to kids raised in individualistic homes, too, but that value is not expected to clash with the child's charge to excel academically.

    "The individualistic parent will be: Raise your hand. Make sure the teacher sees you,'" Rothstein-Fisch explained. "Collectivistic families, it's more: Don't bother the teacher. She knows what she's doing.'"

    Moral support

    Kids from collectivistic families are often not comfortable tooting their own horns. It may be agonizing for them to get up in class and give a math equation or spell. To help them, Amada Irma Pérez developed "math buddies" in her classroom at Mar Vista School in Oxnard.

    Essentially, kids were split into groups and asked to help each other learn multiplication tables.

    Because they need to master multiplication individually, each child was asked to recite his or her multiplication tables in front of the class, but each was allowed to bring a buddy up for moral support.

    No individual was singled out for a star on Pérez's gold star award chart. Instead, the group that did the best on the oral timed test was awarded the star.

    Pérez was one of seven teachers recruited by the authors for their Bridging Cultures project. Rothstein-Fisch, Trumbull and the others gave the teachers several workshops on the two types of culture, then asked them to use that framework to develop teaching strategies.

    For the next five years, the researchers visited and observed the seven classrooms, which ranged from kindergarten to fifth-grade.

    Trumbull had been studying and writing about collectivistic and individualistic cultures for years, but the research project and the book marked the first time teachers turned the theory into some concrete methods in the classroom.

    Because her family emigrated from Mexico when Pérez was 5, she knew what it was like to feel the disparity between the collectivist rules at home and the individualist rules at school.

    "It was horrible not knowing the language, not knowing the culture," Pérez said of her elementary school years in 1950s Los Angeles. "I was coming from an environment where everybody helps each other, and going to school, it was everybody sink or swim."

    At one point in kindergarten, Pérez felt so desperate, she leaned over and asked a classmate for help.

    "She (the classmate) wanted to help me and the teacher said Shhh!'" Pérez recalled.

    Balance of cultures

    Balancing collectivism with individualism is perhaps the biggest challenge to teachers. Pérez said each teacher has to decide which balance works for his or her classroom.

    "It's not that one is right and the other is wrong," Rothstein-Fisch said. "We're just rebalancing it."

    Helping individualistic and collectivistic children learn the values of the other culture can be as empowering as learning two languages, Trumbull said. "People are very capable of being bilingual and bicultural," she said. "When they're conscious of the demands in each situation, they can make better choices."

    Learning some individualism to help succeed in this highly individualistic culture is important, especially when the child grows up and enters the workplace, Rothstein-Fisch said. "If you're writing your résumé, you need to emphasize your attributes," she said.

    But it's also important, Trumbull said, for this individualistic culture to learn about the values practiced by all but a minority of the Earth's people.

    "I think we need to look at the entire global view," Pérez said. "We're starting to see we're not going to fix the problems of this planet if we don't work together."
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  7. #7
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Mexifornia
    Posts
    9,455
    In individualistic societies such as the United States, Australia and Great Britain, children learn to learn alone, the book says.

    In the 70 percent of the world with collectivistic cultures — such as Africa, Asia and Latin America — the goal is to sculpt individuals who can be team players and take responsibility within their social groups and families.
    Please. LOL Is this the garbage that is being taught in our public schools these days. God help us!
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  8. #8
    Senior Member bigtex's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    3,362
    Quote Originally Posted by AmericanMe

    No need to hire accredited educators...just baby sitters to monitor the classrooms; and the class sizes could be expanded to 100 or more...just add more tables for them to 'share'.
    Exactly what most of us teachers feel we have become.....baby sitters. In fact Houston ISD once tried to shorten the Christmas break because some minority parents needed someone to watch their children during the two weeks kids were out of school.

    Will Rogers Principal Patricia Short said cooperative learning has always been a part of elementary education, but she likes how well the book specifically targets Latino children of immigrant parents. She plans to hold a book study after school with teachers.
    This is a good example what our school have become, politically correct buzz words and research projects/scams from university professors. everyone is out trying to make a buck off school selling johnny come lately ideas that will make all kids equally intelligent.
    Certified Member
    The Sons of the Republic of Texas

  9. #9
    Senior Member AngryTX's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Posts
    844
    We have this same system here in Texas, it is called inclusion. They dump special ed and those who do not speak English into regular ed classes and expect them to be educated. Teachers end up having to make several different lesson plans and assignments dumbing down the class while totally losing the kids who are average or above average. The idea is the smarter kids will teach the others and bring them up to their level. Doesn't work.
    You hit the nail on the head!!!!! One teacher at a local school had to do THREE (Reg, SpEd, ESL)plans every day. Guess what, they are heading to another (suburban) school to teach GT 6th graders. I bet she will have less stress and better kids who are excited about learning

  10. #10
    Senior Member bigtex's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    3,362
    Quote Originally Posted by AngryTX

    You hit the nail on the head!!!!! One teacher at a local school had to do THREE (Reg, SpEd, ESL)plans every day. Guess what, they are heading to another (suburban) school to teach GT 6th graders. I bet she will have less stress and better kids who are excited about learning
    I need to do the same thing but unfortunately as we move to the suburbs, eventually so do the problems.
    Certified Member
    The Sons of the Republic of Texas

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •