I'm starting to feel, too late, like maybe Home Schooling is the best way to go.
My son will not be attending school today because they rearranged the entire school's class schedule in order to accomodate the State mandated standardized testing. This testing is required for all students to pass with a "B" grade minimum prior to graduating. Beginning in the 8th grade, they are taught a curriculum designed to help them memorize the information they need for this test. They get to take it over and over again, in 8th grade, in 10th grade, in 11th, 12th. If they pass it in 11th, they need not take it again, but the curriculum does not change.
My son has aced this exam each time he has taken it.
The week prior to the test being offered, they clamp down on activities in order to focus on cramming for the test. The day of the test, they squeeze all of the classes into 19 minute sessions. Every student gets to go, sit down for 19 minutes, and move on to the next class, then those who need to take the exam go take the exam. The others go home.
None of my son's teachers are planning to actually teach anything on test day, because 19 minutes is not long for anything meaningful and, besides, their entire curriculum is focused on that test. They're pretty much done by now.
As well, the school year is chopped up with half-days and days off so that teachers can attend "in service" training that amounts to workshops helping them deal with this testing.
Why is this testing so important? Well, because the schools themselves may lose funding if they don't have a sufficient percentage of passing students.
So _all_ students learn to memorize a _core_ set of knowledge that the _state_ has, in its bureaucratic committee-driven wisdom decided is a good kind of knowledge to have, and teachers learn how to force feed this core set of knowledge and everything is geared to this one goal.
Somewhere, though, the concepts of creativity, thirst for knowledge, critical thinking, logic, life lessons, objective observation ... somewhere all that is given short shrift. The slow learners don't get the attention they need to help them overcome what nature shorted them on. The much faster learners who grow so quickly bored don't get the challenges they need to give them what they need. The average learners learn to stay average.
The challenge is "how do I memorize this basic set of information?"
The challenge is not "how can I become the best I can possibly be, and what are the tools I need to do that?"
This is what our nation mandates, now. Thou Shalt Be Mediocre.
When it comes to public schooling, may God have mercy on our minds.
I'm pretty happy with HBHS--my eldest seems to be learning tons o'stuff, including how to learn and all the Good Things you mentioned. They do have the standardized tests, of course, but these don't seem to wreck the regular curriculum.
Have they let him out for spontaneous demonstrations? That's when I'd go for home-schooling.
http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2006/04/2369-photos-of-illegals-demonstrating.html
Norma
I hear you, and I've been known to wail about this from time to time myself. It's ironic, you know ... the schools spend so much time teaching kids how to memorize and cram for the damned tests, and that time *could* and *should* be spent expanding their knowledge.
This week, notes are coming home daily to remind the parents of 1st graders that the CRCTs will be held for three days next week.
On the one hand, that's a lot of pressure for six- and seven-year-olds to deal with. On the other, one of the activities Dal has enjoyed the most this week is the "test-taking strategies bingo" game they've been playing.
Sigh.
In Colorado, the standardized testing is called the CSAP which, if you'll notice, is just one letter from being crap.
Everything you wrote is identical here in CO. Both of our kids are in the highly gifted program (your immediate proof that they are my step-children, not biological). One's in grade school, one's in middle school. So far, grade school is much worse as far as "teaching for the test" goes, but all over the state the lead-up to CSAP is tense as hell. Get this: Our kids start school in the middle of August now. Like, August 15th. Why? To give them more time to prepare for the CSAP.
It's CRAP.
When it comes to public schooling, may God have mercy on our minds.
When it comes to public schooling, may God have mercy on our minds.
When it comes to public schooling, may God have mercy on our minds.
Amen is what I meant to say.