Raising Readers, Writers, and Spellers

AS i have posted before its the American education system and parents faults. The reason japan does so well because they only teach to tests,And only the important stuff. Their text books are half the size of ours, and if japanese kids want to learn more they are encouraged to by joining academic clubs but its not forced on them. Next japanese parents in general care more about their childs education then do american parents. If a japanese parent can not be there to help their child with homework japanese schools provide tutors and parents do take advantage of it.Japanese parents invest in their children where here in america its almost like a wing it mentality in parenting. Finally, if japanese kids dont do well in school ect, in their society the blame is usually on the parents. Here we blame the kids for being kids and parents dont want to take responsibility.

America thinks forcing people to get a well rounded education is key, I think the past 20 years is proving them wrong. I just think if i didnt have to take the art, history, music electives in college that wont help me in my major and that most asain countries dont make you take id be done with college by now.

My kids are now 27 and 23. My daughter has a masters in education and my son has ADD. Here’s what I feel about public schools after having lived through the experience: The student and the teacher are there, together in the classroom. My wife and I are at work doing our jobs. We can’t be there. Let me repeat that. WE CAN’T BE THERE! I need the teacher to do his or her job, and not call me every time things get a little bit difficult. If I could be there, there wouldn’t be any problems, but then I wouldn’t really need the teacher. If the teacher needs my help to do his/her job, then I’d like the teacher to come to my work place in the evening and help me do mine. All the school system does is cry that they need our help. Well, what makes them think that we don’t need help doing our jobs also? When I run into problems at my job, I have to solve them; there is nobody to help me. Why do teachers need help to do theirs? You’ll tell me how difficult teaching is, but you know nothing about how difficult my job is. My boss tells me, “Work with what I give you” I tell the teachers the same thing: work with what I give you. If it’s too hard, get a different job. I obviously found the staff at public schools to be a bunch of crybabies.

It's not the early education that is the issue. Anybody can teach addition and subtraction. The problem starts at the math and science from 4th grade up. It is language art and social science from 3rd grade up.

If I could, I would change the teacher certification programs. Instead of classes focused on "teaching methods" or "child psychology", the programs should focus on the actual materials that kids learn and see if the teacher candidates know well enough to teach. Really. Let's teach teacher candidates what makes wind blow and what fraction multiplication means.

For a better education result we need a more specialized approach to teaching, especially from 4th grade and up. It is hard to watch kids suffer under incompetent teachers.

But that will not happen in my children's generation. So I want school hours to be shorter so that I can be more involved with my kids' education. Every time I drop my kids off at school, I pray that they don't completely waste their day. A lot of my friends agree that we send kids to school for their social lives, rather than academic improvement.

And stupid tinkering with "new technology" must stop. Do not experiment somebody's great idea to make fortune on my children.

Despite heavy parental involvement from my parents, I still had a terrible experience with public schooling. I was extremely gifted but even in all honors and AP courses encountered teachers that were truly horrible and could not be fired as they were tenured-- they just didn't care at all about the well being of the students. Many were elitist and so obsessed with flouting their power over the students grades... it was embarrassing to see people who wanted to be treated as "professionals" acting in such a manner. I was called racial slurs, teased by teachers, and had inappropriate advances made. I was also mocked when I asked questions that they couldn't answer ( rather than just saying, "I'll get back to you on that." or "I don't know... we should find out.")and was marked wrong consistently when I used different methodologies. I had a few teachers that were true gems and I have gone out of my way to thank them for making it bearable, but overall it was disappointing.

What on earth is the reason for teachers, who want to be treated as professionals, to have a union? There should be no protections for bad teachers.

As a follow up to my previous remarks... Dr. Gentry, if we follow your advice, how can one put their child into a public school system? My daughter turned 3 in March and was writing/spelling before age 3. She writes both caps and lowercase and is now trying cursive as well. She reads phonetically. She already knows basic math and all her shapes ( I mean the difference between a rectangle, parallelogram, rhombus, pentagon, hexagon, etc. ) She sews with amazing precision and is getting pretty good at chess, too.

She has 2 more years before she even enters kindergarten. So, as most kids in kindergarten are just learning to read, how in good conscience can I put her in a public school where all kids are taught at basically the same pace?

I understand how it is challenging for teachers to deal with behavioral problems, but the truth is that schools are failing ( or not dealing with ) even the best and brightest students that come through the doors. I am an involved parent but I don't think any level of my involvement is going to rectify this. Even when she comes home from her preschool she thirsts for more knowledge and begs me to take her to science museums, etc. Gifted education/programs aren't even mandated in our state and when and where they are offered they don't start until mid-elementary school.

So, is it the parents' fault that children like this aren't thriving in public schools?

Juliette, it often is the parent’s fault because we don’t have enough parents like you. Here’s how it works: You seem to be an outstanding parent who is engaged in your child’s education. So when your child enters kindergarten, she will not be in 43% who can’t read or write her name when they enter kindergarten. We already know that when she is eight years old, she is not likely to be among the four out of ten who can’t read and write proficiently, even if you choose a school with lousy teachers. Your own involvement is likely to instill in her a thirst for learning, motivation, and self-discipline. Parents who blame their child’s failure on teachers and aren’t involved with the child’s schooling do just the opposite. Don’t you see how your own involvement has contributed to daughter’s likelihood of success? The point of my post is don’t just blame the teachers, get involved as a parent.
You said: “ the truth is that schools are failing ( or not dealing with ) even the best and brightest students that come through the doors.” That may be your experience, but it doesn’t represent what I see when I visit schools all across America. There are many outstanding public schools and children are thriving in them. They tend to attract outstanding teachers and they are usually in affluent communities. These schools generally have parents who are more involved. They don’t fit the pattern represented in the regrettable statistics reported in my post. We should all be advocating for parent involvement in their child’s education and I think we should be more supportive of teachers.

I really have mixed feelings about this article. I agree that learning should mainly be the parents' responsibility and they should prepare their children to be successful in school. I am a big believer in early learning in the home. However, many kids pay a heavy price for early learning when they go to even many good public schools. They end up bored and unchallenged.

I know parents who spent a lot of time teaching a first child, only to see them be bored and frustrated at school. They decided not to bother teaching much to their younger kids because they felt they would be happier in school if they didn't know too much. It's unfortunate but that is the way it is in too many of our good schools. I have engaged in a huge amount of early learning, including reading by age two but I feel like I must homeschool, so my children can continue to progress at a steady pace.

There is a great deal of truth in the article. I have taught for 30 years and each year parent input decreases. Something happens when the students enter middle school. They walk in the door with no materials, not even a pencil. I have provided all of their materials including binders, notebooks, folders etc. for those who do not have supplies. I call the parents and even make home visits because many of the phone numbers do not work. Parents do not want to go over the spelling words or check over the homework before it is returned. They will not support what I am trying to do to help their child. I know that there are many good parents and many good teachers. The problem is that I can not follow the students home to make sure they are doing their homework. I can not turn off the Wii game,control the cell phone and constant texting or make them go to bed at night. These kids are staying up until 2:00 A.M. and are too tired to perform. Also, if you have a child that does not behave, remember that that teacher has 25 or more students to be responsible for so stop blaming her and work with her to find a way to get YOUR child under control.

I find it interesting that the people that most agree with the issues that Dr Gentry has mentioned are teachers who are dealing with the ins and outs of the parental involvement struggle.
I have many teacher friends and they say that dealing with apathy, not just from students but also their parents, is the hardest thing about being a teacher.
Times have changed, and students are less disciplined. Some schools are banning cell phones at schools because students are using them while in class texting back and forth. Parents on the other hand still allow and encourage their students to have their cell phones on them at all times.
Though I don't condone corporal punishment in schools many generations passed had the threat of the cuts or the cane to keep students inline. I know that when I was in school it scared many of the kids to behave, and he naughtier children weren't disrupting the class. When my sister started school the cuts and cane were not allowed and in her class year there were students hanging off the ceiling fans, sitting on the desks, turning their chairs away from the teachers and ignoring them. All that the teacher could do was to tell them to stop and pay attention. Then they would be sent to the principal's office with a 'pink slip'. Those same children would be back in the class the next day. Who suffers? The children that were there to learn.
What would help? Those children should be raised with discipline and be raised to respect their teachers and to know that it is NOT acceptable to misbehave in class. Who teaches them this? Their parents.

This is what I face as a teacher...
- Children who come to school hungry because the parents are too rushed to get a good breakfast (or as one parent put it, I can't get him out of bed so we don't have time to eat).
- Children who come to school and say "I couldn't sleep last night, Mommy and Daddy were fighting and the police came."
- Children who pick up computer monitors and fling them at me a week after Daddy was arrested for punching the child's grandmother.
- Children who eat ONLY junk food and tell me they don't ever eat fruits or vegetables and don't like water... only Soda.
- Children who come to school sick and sit in the nurses office all day long because no parent can be found.
- Children whose parents never read to them because the parent can't read themselves.
- Children who don't return needed papers and notes because "Mommy said she didn't have time because American Idol was on..."
- Children who outright refused to follow basic classroom rules after their parent told them (in front of the teacher) that the teacher is an idiot and he never has to listen at school.

I could go on and on. All of this and so much more is pretty typical at the elementary level in the affluent suburb I teach in. I can't imagine what the inner city is like. Not a one of these things can I control as the teacher. Every one of these impacts how my students performed at school. I can only do so much in 30-35 hours I have in week. The other 130+ hours are up to the parents and community.

There is a lot of truth to this article. I too work in a school and can count on one hand on how many parents are involved in their childs education. It's a three way street. If neither the parent , child or teacher are on board together , it is going to be hard to make it work. There has to be communication on all parts to make it work.

There bad teachers out there, but they make up a small percentage and unfortunatley set a bad example for the good teachers out there that really care about teaching and about their students. Instead of just blaming the parents and the teachers, how about we start pointing at the system that makes teaching hard to do. Trying to teach 40 kids in a classroom, whose needs are different is impossible. It's even more difficutlt when you have kids that have behavioral problems and there are no consequences for them because the parent isn't on board. I have heard from some of my friends that are teachers that some of these parents came up to the school to fight them because of a phone call home about their child misbehaving or a bad grade.

@Runtime Al- Your saying that it's a teachers job to teach and handle the discipline in school, because you can't be there. Your right , it is a teachers job to teach her students but it also is a parents job to teach their kids to respect everyone and the discipline they need to go out in the real world. I am not saying that you haven't but not all parents are great role models for their kids. I can teach my students as best as i can but without parent support it is hard. You said we don't know how difficult your job is, and your right we don't. However if you gave your boss a hard time on something and was not professonal, he would fire you. A kid can curse you out , threaten you or other kids and there is no consequence that is going to matter if his/her parent doesn't care enough to get involved and try to help with the problem. Come into my world for a week and come teach in a inner city school to see how hard it is. I can bet you wouldn't last a day.