Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Jenn: Go Out and VOTE
Posted by
Cara 
Our state and federal government are failing our children. Cutting school aid is like rationing food and water. Education is what makes the world-go-round. We need our children to grow-up with some kind of background knowledge. With skills that can make them valuable assets to the work force. School was different when I was a kid. We didn't have hours of homework every day or monumental projects. We focused more broad knowledge and less on geometry. I could name the capital of every state and draw a map of the US in 4th grade - I remember I hated that project - but I still remember most of capitals which impresses my kids when they ask. So much of the work my kids bring home now, I know they won't use. It is great my daughter knows everything there is to know about ancient Greece and Rome? Sure. Will she use this knowledge later in life? Unless she becomes a historian, I don't think so. What she does need to know are her times tables - something we use everyday in life - and something which is no longer taught the way we learned. In third or fourth grade, I remember spending time every day in the classroom repeating the times tables. We did this until everyone in the classroom knew them by heart. Now we get a letter home in third grade asking us to practice at home with our child. Penmanship is no longer taught - another life skill out the window. My kids spent three weeks on script in fourth grade. My eighth grader prints faster than he writes script. My sixth grader has to look at a letter chart to remember how to form her letters in script. I am working with my second grader on my own. Spelling is another thing we have lost to this generation. Spelling doesn't count! It is no longer a graded curriculum. It's not on the report card! Are you kidding me? I think the only reason I spell as well as I do is all the weekly spelling bees at school and all the hours of writing our words ten times each - until 8th grade I can remember doing this. But times change and needs change. I hope our educators know what they are doing.
I am going to step off my soapbox now - I didn't know I had all that in me - and go and vote.
Cara's two cents: I voted this morning. I am hoping the rain keeps the seniors home, with their coach bus. I never want to smack an elderly person until this day. They don't get it. They want to be able to sell their homes in the near future, the ones that they paid $35,000 for in the year of the flood for $600G or better then they need to get a clue. A town without a good school district brings down the property value. I will be back again tonight to let Mike vote for school spirit day and hear my Diva sing. A great idea our town does to get the parents out to vote. Keeping my fingers crossed. Austerity is a drag.
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