The school system's failures

I really do love teaching but there are times when I wonder why.  This month, I've been teaching an English Fundamentals class.  There are times when teaching this class totally eradicates my belief in the public school system. 

In Fundamentals, I teach the very basics, like nouns, verbs, and how to create a complete sentence.  As I go over these things, many of them talk about how they know they should have learned this in school.  It isn't just their fault though.  I can't help but wonder how our society has gotten to a point where we have let people escape from schooling with no concept of how to properly communication. 

I hold the bureaucracy of the system to a large part of the fault.  The other part of the fault should rest on the shoulders of the parents.  Parents need to support and encourage their kids to do better.  Parents see it as a free babysitting service to use while they are working.  How can we get our kids to acheive more when the expectations given them are so low? 

It seems to me that our school system has faltered.  Teachers should not be forced to socially promote students who haven't learned the material.  They are forced to teach to the lowest common denominator and to teach to tests that ONLY hold the students back  In Indiana, schools are required to have a certain percentage of their students pass the ISTEP or risk losing funding.  Because of this, a total of six weeks of school are devoted to the preparation and taking of this test.  Reading between the lines, we spend a total of 240 school hours teaching kids stuff they've already learned.  And we do this to take a test that supposedly measures how much they know. 

Every day I deal with the failing of the school system, people who cannot construct a proper sentence or recognize what the subject of a sentence is.  When did we abandon our children to an uncertain future?  And why do we, as parents, continue to let the system fail us and our children?

Waking sleep

Getting back into writing is difficult, particularly when you haven't made it important for a while.  I know it's necessary and I need to at least flex my writing muscles or, like any other muscle, it will atrophy and waste away. 

There are just so many other things I would rather do than work.  Though, the winter is probably the best time to get back into the process of writing.  When Spring and summer come, there will be many things I know I would rather do, like gardening and playing outside. 

But the winter is here right now and that limits the outdoor stuff we can do. Plus, Little Guy and I are more interested in finding ways to stay warm while we have the heat turned down.  Getting out of bed in the mornings is difficult.  No one likes getting out of a nice, warm nest to face the day, but it is necessary. 

Today, I had the roughest time breaking free of that nest.  I kept drifting off and dreaming that I had gotten up.  Then something would happen in the dream to make me realize that it was a dream and I would wake up again.  That happened about three or four times before I was able break that cycle. 

Not that Little Guy even noticed that I was later than usual today.  He was still sleeping at 10 am.  Around 11 am, I heard soft giggling coming from his room.  Not long after that, he came wandering into the family room. 

I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that Little Guy is a night own like his parents.  It makes it easier on us right now, but how is this going to affect him later on?  If we follow Big Guy's line of reasoning and DON'T homeschool him, we need to get him on a regular, normal schedule.  I'm still holding out for homeschooling though. 

Embracing the nerd within.

I've been burning through A Game of Thrones and actually finished it last night, curled up in bed with Big Guy.  I imagine by the time the weekend comes, I'll have finished the second book.  I just need to prepare myself not to complain or else Big Guy will mock me. 

As it is, he's very insistent that I am a nerd like him.  He uses my reading against me.  Of course he also uses the fact that he dragged me into the gaming world against me.  He tried to use my video gaming against me, but I was able to point out that gaming is actually a pretty cool thing to do.  He then had to point out that most of the video games I enjoyed were pretty nerdy. 

He said even my movies were nerdy.  This is not true.  He tried to say that since many of the movies I greatly enjoy are based on books, it made me a nerd.  I disagree.  I think it means I know what I like going in.  Yes, I have watched more than one movie based on Shakespeare.  And I have done so of my own volition. Yes, I enjoy movies based on Jane Austin novels.  That is not nerdy.   He then tried to use my love for the English language against me. 

He said the simple fact that I teach courses in Lit and writing makes me a nerd.  He said no one but a nerd would harbor the deep emotions I hold for literature and grammar.  When I protested that English was cool, he said my arguments to the contrary (and my correction of his word choice) only served to enhance my nerdiness.  I'm sorry, but you can't use odorous when you mean onerous. 

I disagree most strongly with his views.  English and the study of grammar and literature is not nerdy but "muy awesome".  We even watch the TV show Castle where the main character (played by the sexy and also awesome Nathan Fillion) tends to make me squeal like the grammar fan girl I am.  If discussion on proper word usage and how to properly define "irony" are so nerdy, then why are they discussed by such an awesome character?  And if loving English is wrong, then I don't wanna be right. 

Of course, in a world where the average American reads at a sixth-grade level, maybe being an English nerd is not such a bad thing.  In the long run, it doesn't matter how nerdy others think I am, I know I'm cool and I know what I enjoy.  And, besides, I will never be as nerdy as Big Guy.

OK, maybe I'm wrong.

To the beat of a different drum

So, my mother in law sent over a bag of goodies for Little Guy.  Footie pajamas, which he loves and refuses to take off until we make him, an adorable "Kiss me I'm Irish" shirt, a pair of snow pants, and a set of "Hit Stix".

These are drumsticks that make noise no matter what you beat them on.  He has tried them out on the wall, the floor, the doors, a car, a box, his bed, and anything alse he can find.  In fact, our house is chock full of taps and beats and other wonderful drum-type of stuff.  I must remember to thank her.

For Christmas, I bought Big Guy a set of books: The Temraire series by Naomi Novik.  We both burned through those books at record speed, though I finished the series first.  According to Big Guythis is due to the fact that I read "freakishly fast".  I disagree.  It may be speedy, but I read everything.  Because I managed to finish the books in record time, we discussed what series we were going to purchase next to read and have decided on George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice.  That was why we went to Barnes and Noble yesterday.

While we were there we purchased the first two books of the series and a couple workbooks for Little Guy to practice his writing skills with.  For, while I have no concerns about his potential writing ability, I do have concerns about his ability to write.  So, we're going to take pencil in hand and practice starting tomorrow.  This ought to be interesting, especially when you consider that he doesn't like following directions.  (He gets that from Big Guy.

As far as the new series, I'm reading the first book, A Game of Thrones, and made it to page 124 last night.  I told Big Guy that it may be true that I devour books.  His response was to say no.  Devouring would imply I stopped to chew.  I simply suck them in like spaghetti.  I know I read fast, but I do read everything.  That's something most people don't understand. I'm not just skimming, I am actually reading.  I do love reading though.