hunks in bikinis…

We can’t let her detract from solid arguments for the rule of law and stemming the tide of culture dilution. This story was, after all, a story about left-wing hypocrisy and government indoctrination.

New developments today in the case of a supposed beating of a student from Athens ISD.

13 year old Melanie Bowers is having charges filed against her by Athens ISD today through the Henderson County District Attorney’s office for filing a false report, said Athens ISD officials today.

Is this in fact true that Ms. Bowers has made a false claim? or is it that the school district is trying to make it all better by claiming it never happened?

http://tylerpaper.com/article/20080409/NEWS01/731498537

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/release/taks/2006/grxltaksapril.pdf

Here is the answer key:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/release/taks/2006/gr11takskey.pdf

There’s no “teaching to a test” in my school. My kids do groupwork, document analysis, round-table debates, etc. If you cover the TEKS, which are definitely meaty, your kids will be fine.

The test is not hard. Not at all. A “passing” score on the social studies test is a little more than a 50.

To give you some insight into my opinions of things, I’m currently writing a master’s thesis on illegal immigration and its economic effects in the 20th century. Without going into the details, I’d say it’s in-line with the conservative platform. I wrote a paper this semester on McCarthyism, and I defended much of McCarthy’s stances. I’m as conservative as they come.

#100:
I’m not “defending” the assignment. I was just trying to look at things from her POV. I personally think is was pretty weak. I might do something like that, MAYBE, for example, as a warm-up exercise during a class on the Boston Tea Party or the Dred Scott trial. However, it’s not meaty enough to be a good assessment. My only point was that it’s not completely out in left field, either.

Remember, most school administrators/officials were teachers first. So the old, I’m just a teacher don’t cut it bubba.

Tell me how much of the union dues collected by NEA/teachers, salary actually go into protecting our children from the crap they are indoctrinating into their little minds?

jenmom said:

Teachers are just as indoctrinated as the kids sometimes. You’re fed this BS about the standards and the testings that will prove your worth as a teacher to the point that you start believing it. You have to be politically correct and watch what you say. I can see how teachers start to believe in the BS they are pushing because it is being pushed onto them by admin.

I experienced this as well. Try New York State curriculum standards and their lovely standardized exams called the Regents. In the name of “quality education,” many states, including Texas, give a half-a$$ed, multicultural, revisionist, apologist, pc recounting of both US history and Social Studies. There were some ways that I combated this tendency. I encouraged kids to ask questions. When I taught in NY, we were using texts over 10 YEARS OLD (which is pretty typical of “cash-strapped” school districts), very inaccurate, and very liberally peppered with pcisms. While I had students point out things like inaccuracies, misprints, factual errors, I also got the typical, middle school question,”why do we have to learn this?”

Most of the time I deflected because I just plain felt uncomfortable. Then, one day (as a student teacher) I just spoke the truth, “all this information is test-driven.” I then got a follow-up question: “do you agree with that?” I said no.

Those that don’t will likely not be teaching long. They’ll either leave teaching all together or be forced out.

Public schools have become so test-driven. I blame a lot of this on the state and federal departments of education. I also blame teachers for not raising enough of a stink about this and instead going with the flow. Some teachers claim they support individual learning styles but what I’ve often seen, in my years of teaching, is an acceptance of uniformity of thought.

I spent many years as a sub and I wonder if sunshinerbray fully understands what teaching is becoming. Many qualified teachers start as subs and while they wait for positions to open up, they get their masters degrees. Many schools claim they need teachers but are reluctant to hire from their substitute teacher pool. I experienced this first-hand, along with a lot of other subs with not just bachelor’s but master’s degree backgrounds in education.

What I, and other subs noticed was the following: a) schools would hire mostly bachelor’s recipients that were outsiders or not already subbing for the school system b) schools use a lot of long-term subs to fill teaching positions they say they can’t fill, and c) they won’t hire master’s recipients. For schools who are looking for the best qualified candidates, it looks an awful lot like cost-cutting so that administrators can earn their cushy incomes. Substitute teachers are also the first to blame when educational quality seems to fall when it’s the staffing choices/decisions of a school district that need to be looked at.

When a system becomes so bloated and ineffective that it stops producing a quality product (education) that is competitive with other countries, and breeds chaos, then that system needs to be changed.

God bless you both. Children are hard enough to raise in this day and age without anything else to complicate it. I wish you both the best.

sunshinerbray said #84:

As someone who once taught Social Studies/History to middle school students (mostly unappreciative and unimaginative 8th graders), I really would not have used “protest signs.” There are better and more creative ways to give kids the opportunity to take a pro or con position on any topic and then defend said position. While “protest signs” may seem like they’re fulfilling some curricular purpose, I don’t like the fact that some teachers want to use such a lesson to encourage kids to be “activists.”

As a Social Studies/History educator, I wanted kids to learn about American history, how to become responsible and engaged citizens (unlike many liberal teachers I once knew who looked down on me for not only being a military spouse but a, gasp, conservative). I wanted them to know how to think and communicate effectively and I’m not sure a “protest sign” assignment is quite what I would have in mind as an educator. Sometimes such an assignment can be productive for the less engaged learners in the class but, if it becomes “off-topic,” I won’t use it.

I’m surprised you would defend something like this as a Social Studies teacher yourself. I’ve taught in NY, AL, and CO and always felt time-constrained to take little “jaunts” into areas unrelated to a topic. This assignment may have covered curricular goals, but did it really cover what the children were studying? That’s what I want to know.

If this exercise was part of a larger study of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that’s one thing, but if this was an assignment that took kids on a different tangent, that’s another story. I’ve known many teachers who’ve done this to get through to kids or engage them, but if this is the kind of reaction that a mere “protest sign” will engender, I’ll stick to persuasive essays, speeches, historical character assignments, or cooperative group work instead.

Two quick questions for the Texas Dept of Ed:

1.) Just how does this irrelevant exercise in “arts and crafts” enhance the Texas core content’s prescribed curricula for social studies education in a manner that increases student understanding and interpretation of their roles in U.S. society while remaining both measurable and standards based?

2.) Precisely how is this activity to be measured on the state’s testing system for History Content, when there are no apparent measurable skills taught?

I have no patience for teachers who, rather than actually teach a subject, choose to lead their students in an unconventional art “experiment” and call it education!

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….