Finding Out What the Words Mean

Yesterday I helped out in a program I heard about from Katharine Beals (of Out in Left Field.) It's an after-school tutoring project founded by a man from the Ivory Coast, who aims to help other French-speaking African immigrants educate their children.

At the end of the 2 hours, there's some time to help the kids with their homework. I sat with one 6th-grader who pulled out a vocabulary list. Each teacher (math, science, social studies, reading) assigns five words; every Friday the kids take a test where they're given the definitions and have to write the appropriate words.

It was clear to me that the definitions given were way over the head of an average sixth grader. For instance, the definition for "sequence" was something like "a list of elements corresponding to the natural numbers with predetermined order" (I don't remember it exactly -- I'm just trying to reproduce the level of difficulty.)

Me: "Do you know what a sequence is? Have you ever seen one?"

Kid: "No."

I wrote the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, and asked her what the next number would be. She said "9".

Me: "That's an example of a sequence."

Kid (brightly): "Maybe if I find out what the words mean, I could get extra credit!"

Learning to Take Tests

Two recent articles in the NYTimes caught my eye:

After Number of Gifted Soars, a Fight for Kindergarten Slots

and A New Kind of Tutoring Aims to Make Students Smarter.

The first article reports that nearly 5,000 children qualified as "gifted" in New York City this fall, more than double the number only 4 years ago.  It is now routine to prep 4-year-olds for the tests that bring this coveted label.

The second article reports on a booming new tutoring scheme, that aims to raise kids' performance on IQ tests. 

This is what education has become in our country.  It's all test prep, all the time.  It's not about inquiry or experiment or developing real interests or even about learning any particular subject matter.  It's about getting a good score on the test.  What the test measures is hardly even discussed; once a test is out there, the race is on for a good score.  

Education has become a kind of sport.  It's all about competition; sorting winners from losers.

Anyone who truly cares about learning is out of luck. 

Forgetting to Die

From the NYTimes, The Island Where People Forget to Die.  The article profiles the Greek island of Ikaria, where people routinely live in good health into their 90's.

The usual suspects of diet (olive oil, veggies, wine) and exercise (constant walking up and down hills) are mentioned, but the one that interests me is the low stress level.  The Ikarians get plenty of sleep and have strong social networks.  Nobody is rich but everyone has enough.

The contrast couldn't be much plainer to our own society.  We have reached toxic levels of stress, and increasingly, we download our stress onto our children.  School is one of the biggest stressors of all.

Crossbones

[This is part of a series about a catechism (PREP) class that I'm co-teaching.]

Last Sunday, one of the boys showed up wearing a shirt with a big skull and crossbones on the front.

Me:  "That's a Catholic symbol!"

Kid:  "What?  ... no, it isn't!"

I figured this was what they call in the trade a "teachable moment", so at the beginning of class I called him up to show everyone his shirt.  I drew a crucifix on the board with a traditional skull and crossbones at the base, and asked the kids, "Whose skull is it?"  Legend has it that it's Adam's skull (because Christ was called "the new Adam").

Me:  "What did Adam do?"

Kid:  "He died!"

I was about to say, "Hey, you're right!" when I realized that this particular kid always gives this answer, no matter the question.  It's remarkable how many times he's been right.

Then I did some review about Α and Ω, after discovering that the kids didn't remember what I thought I had taught them about it last week; a good reminder to me about the possible gulf between teaching and learning.

Moving along, the big focus was "the Liturgical Year", for which my co-teacher organized the kids into a parade, holding banners of their own making, representing the different segments of the year.  I thought this went quite well.

Next week, my co-teacher will be out of town, so I'm dragging Sainted Husband in to co-teach.  We'll introduce the Ten Commandments, with a focus on iconoclasm, which is a particular interest of mine.  I figure if I'm interested in a subject, I might be able to get the kids interested, whereas if I'm not interested, there's no way I can get the kids interested. 

A Frog

The other day Younger Daughter was watching an old Downton Abbey episode.  (Yes, I've gotten her into it.)  She said:

YD:  "I like this scene, where Sybil walks down the stairs wearing her new frog."

Me (thinking hard):  "What?  ... It's not a frog, honey, it's a frock.  It's just another word for a dress."

YD:  "Oh, frock, OK ... actually, I was wondering why she would wear a new frog."

Second Chances and Extra Credit

In both of my kids' schools, teachers make an effort to allow extra credit and retakes so kids can build back up from a disappointing grade. This sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice, it doesn't work out, at least for my kids.

Last year, Older Daughter had a science teacher at Friends Omphalos who was proud of all the opportunities he gives his students to amass extra credit.  For Older Daughter, it just looked like more work when she was already overwhelmed by the workload.  She isn't that motivated by grades and credit in any case.  She never did any extra credit work, much to the teacher's surprise.

Younger Daughter had a geography test at the beginning of this year (3d grade) that she flunked.  Looking at it, I was actually surprised that she had the patience to complete the test -- it was quite long.  You could see that at a certain point she just gave up and started writing anything at all so she could say it was done.  Surely she doesn't actually believe that the direction between North and West is called "eastSouth"?

The teacher tried to give YD a chance to re-take the test, on the grounds that it would boost her confidence to do better, but YD refused.  She also refused to study geography more at home.  She'd rather just forget it ever happened.

Parents and Kids

From the late, great George Carlin.  CAUTION -- adult language!