It is that time of year again, Back to School. We recently had our 6th grade orientation night. While there we were introduced to the staff, classrooms, and the lockers..... With combination locks.. That is a whole other story for another day lol.
What I wanted to talk about is how the schools run now. Almost all the schools do not have textbooks anymore. When I was in school I had a book for each subject. As soon as my 2 hit school I have yet to see a textbook!!!!
So how do the kids learn? They have what look like weekly readers in the classroom. These are what they use to learn whatever it is at that time. The catch, the school only receives 30 copies of this so it has to stay in the classroom, but the kids use the Chromebooks and can pull them up online. Ok, this is the scary part to me. This is how our school runs and we are a small community. I would consider a high poverty area. I know lots of other schools run this way as well. What do the kids do that do not have phones, computers, or internet at home do? How do they do their homework if they need those? I have heard some classes have a check out policy so they can take it home, which is great! Only issue I see is there are over 100 kids that go through that classroom and I guarantee more than 30 probably do not have access to internet.
I know some classrooms do have a book, but it stays in the classroom since they only have enough for one class. Math..... Math is still engaged NY for our school. This means still just worksheets. I am not sure what other schools use for math but would love to know!!!! Our school went to Engaged NY when everything went to common core because this was a free platform if I remember correctly.
I know for one I did not learn math this way. Pretty sure most of us did not. So when our kids bring this home it is like a foreign language to us. To top it off no textbook to refer to in order to help them. Where do we get help..... You guessed it, hop online to look it up. Now I happen to be one of the parents that bought a set of books to help us out, but these books were around $300!! I paid $300 to relearn math I already learned!!! These books will get us all the way through college, but still not everyone in this area can drop that kind of money for books on math.
Now, I am a mom who is very active in their kids schooling and I personally know alot of the teachers. This helps in a big way. I know what is going on and if I need to I contact that teacher. Our school does have a great way to stay connected with the teacher and classroom activities, but once again that is all online. I get we are in a digital age, but I think it is a very high poverty rate as well. I have a feeling this year will make or break a lot of kids.
I would be interested to hear how other schools are ran and what kind of curriculum that you do.
I really do love our school system. This is in no way a bash at our school, because I know we are not the only school that does this. I have had retired teachers come to me and ask me things about school and when I tell them they are floored at how the school system is ran. It use to be a teacher would spend there summer making lesson plans and getting ready for the year. Now the lesson plans are pre made for the teachers and they all teach the same thing. It is good in a way because I can call another mom if need be and ask them something, but also bad because the teachers do not get to personalize their way of teaching. Now our teachers still try to keep some personal touches in the classroom and I love it!! I know other schools that they do not.
