What Do They Do??? *Editedbeejayzgang | September 5th, 2008 @ 10:59 am
Up front I will put this disclaimer for any and all public schoolers: this is not a slight against you and your choice to public school. This is just me attempting to understand.
I was making up a more in-depth schedule for a few of Cole’s subjects yesterday. Doing an average number of pages for his language arts, and only two math lessons per week (we’re technically one level “behind”), we’ll be half-way through fourth “grade” in language arts if we work til the end of June (our public school schedule, which we tend to follow as that’s the schedule my husband works), and finished third “grade” in math by the 22nd of May. For a little clarification, we started on Tuesday, Sept. 2. We’ll be breaking Thanksgiving Monday (the second Monday of October here in Canuck-land), Rememberance Day, ALL of December to do crafty, fun, Christmas-y stuff, starting back on Jan. 5, and go through til Feb. 13, when we will then have a three-week break (we are planning a trip away - I say it’s for therapeutic purposes!
), start back Mar. 9, and have Good Friday, Easter Monday, and Victoria Day off. We had talked about doing a four-day week, but Cole voted to do school on Fridays as well (surprised me, actually!). If we only did four days, plus had all these holidays, we would still be finished the third level in language arts by the 13th of May. And *if* we did three lessons per week in Math (last year we did five lessons - one each day from Mar-June, and it was no hardship for Cole at all), we’d be done level three by March 13th, and done level four by the 22nd of May.
What gives??? I haven’t even done any figuring yet for the other subjects. These three at this point might, *MIGHT*, take an hour to complete. So what do they do in school all day??? If they don’t cover all the subjects every day, which is my understanding, aren’t the poor kids having their time wasted in a major way???
Someone, please explain. *scratching my head*
*Why do they have homework in elementary school, too? I can see it for high school, for sure, and yes, even middle school. But elementary??? Please understand this is coming from someone who has never attended a public school, and homeschooled my last year of high school.
Uncategorized
said,
September 5, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Addison said they wasted a HECK of a lot of time.
See, at the first fo the class you have to settle everyone down. then you have to instruct them .And instruct again for those who weren’t listening / didn’t understand/ were picking their noses. Now settle everyone again.
Go over the first part. Go over it again. help a couple people who still don;t get it. Settle down those who not only got it the first time, but knew it already. By now class is half over.
Ron
said,
September 5, 2008 at 2:55 pm
The only reason school takes all day is that the teacher(s) are dealing with a room full of kids (many of whom have no interest in whatever subject is going on at the time).
Jacqueline
said,
September 5, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Yep, Andrea and Ron got it right. As former public school teacher I can tell you that a good portion of class time is spent keeping everyone on task. That is hard to do when you have a class full. Not so hard when you only have one or even a few children to supervise, so homeschooler can cover a lot more material in a lot less time.
Elaine
said,
September 7, 2008 at 2:45 am
I have talked with teachers in the public sector and they do tell me that much time is spent dealing w/behavior issues and the whole problem of having kids at varying levels of ability.
Some kids do well in the environment, I did and my son would probably have as well, but others cannot handle it, I don’t think my daughter would have though she might in a year or two.