My daughter has entered Middle School (6th grade) and it was 'Back to School Night' for parents tonight. We went to the school and followed her schedule, going to each of her classes for 10 minutes and meeting the teachers. The school she is going to is the best in the DPS system (I think) and ranks amongst the highest in the state. My daughter had briefly commented in the last 2 weeks that she hasn't liked Social Studies or Science.
When we went into the Social Studies classroom, there were no posters of countries, or historical events, but lists of rules, written by the kids, about how to work in groups. The teacher told us her main goal was to get students to work in groups. She said she used to teach Western Civ in 6th and Eastern Civ in 7th grade but she's realized that 'Connections' are more important. So now the's focusing on the connections between the 2 continents! She even mentioned to us that her 7th grade students were complaining that they had to do the whole 'group thing' all over again another year but this was ok because they needed to spend two years learning how to work in groups.
In science class, the teacher explained to us how she was grading the kids. They had two grades so far. One for copying down the rules correctly and another for taking a piece of paper home for parents to sign. She said, the couldn't really tell us about the curriculum because she had gotten new texts and would be reading the book with the kids and didn't yet know what it was about. She then explained an exercise she had them do in which they had to balance as many nails as possible on the head of a single nail. The point of this was to show that in an ecological system things have to stay in balance and since the new book was about 'Water' this was an important lesson to learn.

It was pretty clear that neither teacher was a scientist or social scientist and had no clue as to how to communicate a field of study to children because they knew nothing about their field. I was appalled. Her other teachers were very good, but the thought of having teachers this bad at one of the best schools in the state makes me cringe.

I think the only solution is to abolish education degrees and make teachers actually learn a discipline.

I'm sure lots of you have gone thru this same thing with your kids, but it brought back terrible memories for me of sitting thru endless wasted hours in high school classes taught by brain dead teachers.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Middle school started in 7th and ended in 8th grade for us. Can't you get your kid a different teacher?

Speaking of crap teachers, I remember in my junior year of HS we had a hippy kinda guy teaching our Physics class. I think he had a BS from Berkeley. While we could tell he had a good amount of knowledge on this subject, he sometimes couldn't communicate it well. He was a really nice guy though. The next year his class got a lot worse and he got pretty *****y to everybody. We always theorized that his wife made him stop smoking pot...

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1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi

I've read that the lowest GPA's and GRE's (GMAT's ?) of any post graduate degree are held by M.Ed students.

You'd be surprised how many schools are like this. Ask any kid today questions about history. "Columbus was a bad man and killed the innocent people"

Later,
David

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2000 Honda Accord V6 137k miles

1972 300SEL 4.5 98k miles

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In my experience, your experience is fairly typical. Just wait until high school. It will break your heart. Had I the means, I would have sent my kids to private school.

Bot

Ever run into those Ph.D Ed people who insist on being called Doctor?

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

If you want to give em a tap, "So what kind of doctor are you?"

I went to several of those as well as open houses and one female English teacher in particular was constantly degrading and mocking men. They were mostly subtle litte quips, like a passage in a book might read "he was the strong silent type" , and she would throw in " haha yeah sure". It pissed me off but I never complained about. Guess I'm the strong silent type.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

EVERY day.

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1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

The irony is that we were taught a little geography by the social studies teacher. There's an East continent and a West continent and there are connections between them
I don't think I can find other teachers because these are the only two social studies and science teachers for the 6th grade.
It is a public school, but a highly competitive school. It's a School of the Arts which holds auditions for students and only accepts about 15% of applicants. Ths students do extremely well on standardized tests and the school is held up as a model of excellence in the public system. So, in some ways it's better than a private school since private schools will typically take anyone with the money to pay.
It's ironic that my wife taught for the last 3 yrs in one of the worst public middle schools in Denver. But her school did not have teachers as bad as these at the best school yet the students at her school routinely scored at the lowest end of standardized tests.
Denver Public Schools has a policy whereby, if a poorly performing school does not increase its scores over a few years by a certain percentage, all teachers are fired and the school is privatized. The policy was applied to a school last year.
In Freakenomics, Levitt has a chapter on education. He argues that the two reliable predictors of academic success are age and education of the child's mother when the child was born. This experience seems to confirm his claim. These two teachers have been teaching at this school for years, yet they haven't been able to undermine the schools success. The students are still successful on standardized tests despite their teachers. The converse is probably also true.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Kerry,
I'll be blunt: If it isn't passing the sniff test at back to school night, nothing will be any better at the end of the semester. Do what ever it takes to get your kid out of those classes. PRONTO!

At a couple of points in when my two were in grade school, I went through similar issues (they're 21 & 24 now). At the time, I took a wait-and-see approach before attempting to excoriate the teachers. But, by the time I realized that the various teachers were basically worthless for anything more than being greeters at Wally World, it was far enough into the school year that administration and bureaucracy was firmly entrenched and changing teachers was impossible.

Partly because of the piss-poor quality of the teachers and various other reasons (both at home and school - yes, I'll take some responsibility for this too) my son developed some serious behaviorial problems in a couple of these classes that continued to trouble him for years. I cannot help but think that the school side of that whole equation (no to mention the other issues) might have been somwhat lessened if I had been more firm about getting him moved out of classes that had totally bogus curriculum and away from teachers that were quite obviously clueless from the outset.

My daughter never caused trouble, but some valuable early education time was wasted when she wound up in an 'expirimental' spelling class that placed inhumane pressure on 2nd and 3rd graders to regurgitate by rote, huge lists of spelling words and based their final grades only on how fast this could be done accurately. In 2nd grade she would literally be in tears trying her hardest to perform and make the grade yet up to just a few years ago (she's an engineering senior at TU) her spelling was atrocious.

Don't be afraid to question these issues and the capabilities of the teachers. Act now, don't wait. Your kid's education is at risk.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

When public education is working well, it is an awesome thing. I always get a thrill picking up my kid at middle school. A sea of ethnic faces all chattering and getting along as only kids can do. Unfortunately by high school the kids have racially segregated themselves. My sons high school is like this. The school system in Los Angeles has a "Magnet" system, little islands in the middle of regular schools, where higher achieving kids can attend. These kids are ethnically diverse and are as color blind as you can get. They have mostly one goal in mind, "GPA".

Do your best to get your kid into the better classes with the better teachers, but also DON'T become one of those PITA parents.

Regardless of how good your schools are, you have to stay heavily involved. You'll have to help with math and with projects.

Start getting your ducks in line for high school. This is where you and your kid really want to concentrate your energies.

glenmore

katherine, junior, college
christopher, senior, high school
veronica, middle school

My GF is student teaching 2nd grade right now in a district with a high % of migrant workers. She has a few students who speak no english whatsoever, but manages fine as she knows a little bit of spanish. It slows things down, but they get by. This week, a new girl was dumped in the class; she speaks no english, cannot spell out her first name aloud (only write it down), does not know the alphabet, etc... The principal is aware of these things, but so far she's still in the 2nd grade, in a student teacher's classroom.

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1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

BINGO!

All this "warm-fuzzy" stuff in the educational system makes me sick. I've been fortunate to have attended private schools most of my life. My education was the essentials-- reading, writing, and math, along with social studies and the arts... But you have to be careful everywhere. My mom pulled my sister and I out of private school for two years in the 70's because of similar curriculum problems. And we were attending the local Catholic grade school. I was essentially homeschooled for 7th and 8th grade, then entered private high school.

I cringe when I think of how expensive private education will be when I have kids. But I'll just do whatever I have to for my children to get the education they need-- even if I have to change my lifestyle. Hope I don't have to sell the Benzes!!

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Current:
2014 VW Tiguan SEL 4Motion 43,000 miles.

2016 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (wife's).

Past:
2006 Jetta TDI 135,970 miles. Sold Nov. '13.
1995 E-320 Special Edition. 220,200 miles. Sold Sept. '07.
1987 190-E 16 valve. 153,000 miles. Sold Feb. '06.
1980 300-D 225,000 miles. Donated to the National Kidney Foundation.
1980 240-D manual, 297,500 miles. Totaled by inattentive driver.