Is our children learning? Nope: Albuquerque Journal prints unedited middle-school letters

[Newsjock]

Source: Albuquerque Journal

Jefferson Middle School Principal Mike McNamara thought it was a good idea.

Teacher David Wahler would have his social studies students write letters to the Journal in response to a story and editorial that appeared earlier this month. Both were about the district's plan to mandate remedial classes for high school students not proficient in math or reading.

... Since appearing in the Journal on Wednesday, however, those error-riddled letters have divided many on what, if anything, they say about education at Albuquerque's public schools. Even district officials can't agree.

APS board member Berna Facio sounded appalled that such poorly written letters were coming from one of the district's middle schools, and from one of its more reputable middle schools at that.

Read more: http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/287658metro02-23-08.htm
Nonsubscribers can view the story after watching a Salon-like ad.

The newspaper page containing the students' letters is here:
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/pdf/1oped02-20-08.pdf

THE ARTICLE was called “All work, no play.” Are teacher read this article on Monday and I and other kids in are class wasn’t very happy about it. We heard that we had to pass the ABS in eEighth grade or that we had to get a extra class and they toke out are elective.

ABOUT THE “All Work, No Play” article, I disagree with the run artical on how if the students do poorly on the standard based test then they cant have an elective. I feel bad that you feeled on the test.

lots more

[patrice]

1. I've never heard of a Middle School that was functionally successful. nt

[reformedrethug]

4. your kidding right??

If I had turned something in that looked like that when I was in the 8th grade I would have received it back so full of red marks it would BE red. Schools today are failing big time, when I was in college I was a math tutor and I had kids right out of HS that could not do basic algebra. That is pathetic and we really need to do something about the failing of our educational system in this country or we are screwed.

[patrice]

17. Good!

though, perhaps, somewhat unusual.

I've sat in too many public education staffings listening to some VP tell me how important it is that ______________, a Senior in one of my English classes, succeeds. Fortunately, I always kept highly detailed grades on spreadsheets, so I could always tell them precisely what _____________ would need to do to succeed. Funny, how often it didn't matter.

When you teach writing to HS Seniors, you find out how little anyone actually understands about what they are doing when they are writing, i.e. grammar = logic, no grammar = no logic - for many (NOT all) the cumulative effect of 11 years of public education.

And when you write for others professionally you find out how generalized this problem is.

Most of the professional educators I know consider middle-schools (on the average) to have been a miserable experimental Fad, just like some sloppy approaches to "whole language" and "learning" to "read" without phonics, by simply recognizing words.

[tomreedtoon]

29. I thought middle schools were about sexual development.

I thought the whole thing was designed because, beginning with Grade 7, kids started developing sexually. They needed to be separated from grades 1-6 because their increased interest in sex was a danger to the younger kids.

Oh, and "professional educators" is like "military intelligence" or "compassionate conservative." It's an oxymoron.

[patrice]

37. I am a professional educator. nt

[El Pinko]

23. Physician, heal thyself.

Before you deplore the state of middle school students who don't know the difference between "are" and "our", you might re-read your first sentence.

It's "You're kidding, right?"

not "your kidding right??"


For better or worse, this kind of informal, high-volume discourse online has convinced a lot of people that proper grammar and spelling aren't important, so long as they get their points across.

I generally bite my lip when I see "you're" instead of "your" or "alot" instead of "a lot", but if you're going to talk about grammar and spelling in this vein, I think it's fair to say that checking your own grammar and spelling would help your credibility.

[loser_user]

26. Oh who the hell needs algebra when

you're a history major like myself? :D

[lynnertic]

6. middle school is where i conditioned my parents to think a 'C' was ok

Boy did I do horribly in middle school. For one thing, it took me both years to acclimate myself to traveling to different rooms for classes. That alone completely blew my concentration out of the water.

[DJ13]

2. Oh

ITHINK thats not fair to the
kids that are chalened in
those euents because what if
they dont get a good score?
What if you were that kid
would you wont to have your
eletive tooken away. I know I
wont wont my eletive tooken
away. wht about the sped kibs?
Hae you thought about that!
R.O.
Albuquerque

THE “ALL WORK, NO
PLAY” artical was a pice of
crap. What is your problem? As
a high school students we
deserve to have your elictives
we do not deserve to have them
taken away from us. I dissagree
with your oppion. If students
dont have there electives
we will have no reason to come
to school. And if kids start not
coming to school it will be your
fault.
T.P.
Albuquerque

ABOUT THE “All Work, No
Play” article, I disagree
with the run artical on how if
the students do poorly on the
standard based test then they
cant have an elective. I feel
bad that you feeled on the test.
A.P.
Albuquerque


Thats really sad, but at the same time I cannot stop :rofl:

[Warpy]

3. I saw stuff like this as a college tutor. Face it,

the human race is not a smart one. NCLB has undoubtedly made things worse since teachers have to teach to a TEST and not concentrate on writing skills.

The best predictor of whether or not a kid will be completely literate is whether or not s/he is an avid reader, not how well s/he does on a multiple guess test at the end of the year.

Anthony Trollope was one of my teaching tools. If a student was motivated enough to kick and claw his/her way through the political novels, s/he would see a vast improvement in spelling and writing by the end of them.

[renate]

9. I'd love to hear from a middle-school teacher about this

Is it the teaching-to-the-test they have to do for NCLB that causes this, or is it the video games at home that distract kids from doing their homework, or...?

[MedleyMisty]

13. Why the need to blame everything on video games?

I've played video games since elementary school. My spelling bee record in school was 4-1 (and the year I lost I was the runner-up) and my verbal score on the SAT in 7th grade qualified me for Duke's Talent Identification Program.

Video games are a hobby and a fun way to use free time. Plus, at least back when I was a kid, they were a lot more challenging and intellectually stimulating than anything we were doing in school.

Blaming everything that goes wrong on video games is the intellectual equivalent of explaining everything you don't understand by saying that God did it.

[Warpy]

16. You are correct about that, but the key is moderation

and some kids are obsessed with those things and never read. That's the problem. Avid readers will generally turn out to be the best writers. Non readers will generally turn out to be the worst.

The best thing to come along for kids in the past 20 years has been the Harry Potter series.

[halobeam]

25. I'm not a mid-school teacher, but I would think it could be both.

I'm sure the yearly state exam our kids are exposed to, is hindering the opportunity for them to comprehend the content of what they are being taught. I believe this is because of the sheer volume of material that is being covered; demanding more memorization than understanding. If they made careful selection, logically prioritizing a few topics in a given subject, the students would have a greater chance to succeed in learning the material instead of memorizing it.

How kids spend their free time matters a great deal. If a child is so into video games that it distracts them from doing their homework, then it can be used as an incentive to do their homework WELL. I personally feel it's important to limit the time on video but that isn't easy with some kids, so a battle ensues at times and it's worth it.

[YvonneCa]

30. It's both...

...the NCLB focus that makes kids HATE learning, and the fact that many parents 'leave education to the schools' and don't fulfill their role (too busy working, don't care, lots of reasons). Sixth grade teacher here. :)

It is a very complex problem, and it's going to take a very complex set of solutions to fix it. In my opinion, what is lacking is the national will to get it right...and clear understanding of the fact that ALL players have a job to do. We need parents to be informed and involved. We need students to get motivated and recognize that we adults care about their futures and we PUSH them to do well because we are on their side. And we need to listen to teachers...who are not all perfect, but who know a little about what has worked and what has failed in schools.

The job of teaching is a very difficult one and it is completely misunderstood by the general public. Teachers are not 'terrorists' (as former Ed. Secretary Rod Paige once said) or the enemy to good education. Most teachers work very hard, are very competent in a dysfunctional system, and care greatly about kids and the future of this country. We need to be seen as part of a team to get this right.

[patrice]

18. Describing, at a high level, what the Grade Inflation of the last 20+ years in public education

looks like was part of the hypothesis for my MS Ed.

[patrice]

21. I'll second that motion; if you can get them to enjoy reading, to read regularly, and to read a

variety of things, they have a much better chance of surviving a dysfunctional system.

Beginning with the newspapers and popular publications on a variety of topics is a good way to sustain and share reading with middle-school-aged persons.

[Captain Angry]

5. I'm around college students all day.

Many of the kids in 400 level business classes still can't write well. When working on team projects, it's almost inevitable that I will have to rewrite their sections entirely.

[lynnertic]

7. Is that part of the reason you're "Captain Angry"?

Just wondering. Living your experience would certainly make me wonder about the planet's future.

[Captain Angry]

10. I can be intense some times, that's where I picked up that nickname.

But, I wonder if this level of literacy will actually create jobs for English majors as they are brought in to fix corporate communications from executives.

These kids are so technologically advanced from when I was a freshman. They get the internet, cell phones, text messaging, cable/satellite TV with a billion channels, etc. Yet it's all magic to them. They don't care how it works, just that it does work. So when even the slightest hiccup happens with the technology, they're frozen. I spend more time talking people off of the proverbial ledge about a technical issue than I do fixing them.

If I was dealing with people working on their thesis, that would be one thing. But when I have to listen to somebody get vulgar about how they have to click 6 things to get a particular function to work, I get worried.

All I can hope is that somebody forces them to become proficient when they get their first job. They'll try to turn in crap, and it will be shoved back. In school it's for grades. At work, it's for money. There are students in Poland that communicate in English better than the average college grad in the USA. They're hungry and they want to work. The sense of entitlement over here is going to get a good shake, and soon.

[knitter4democracy]

19. I was offered a business job in college because I was an English major.

I was shocked. I was just temping on break to help pay for my books and meal plan, and one of the higher-up bosses took me aside and told me he wanted to hire me. I explained that I was still in college, and he told me to transfer. Since I was in education, that wasn't possible without pretty much starting over, so I asked him why he wanted to hire me since I was just an English major. He said that he could teach me the business but that he had found he couldn't teach people how to read critically and write carefully. I turned him down, but I never forgot that.

He wasn't the only one, either. If you are articulate, can proofread letters and annual reports, write clearly and correctly, and are willing to work hard, well, then, there are low-level jobs available. I was never offered much above assistant, but I guess that makes sense, given I wasn't done with college at the time.

[Iris]

34. I'm sure you would have gone beyond assistant had you pursued it.

Really - why would they pay two people to do one job when the one "cleaning up" is obviously smarter than the one who made the mess in the first place.

[knitter4democracy]

38. Great point. Why pay when you don't have to.

Ugh. One of these days, work will be properly compensated. When the revolution comes, right?

[Iris]

33. Jobs don't have to be created for English majors.

There are plenty of jobs they can do already. Some are even likely to be corporate executives, not their editors.

[Captain Angry]

36. English majors can do anything.

The sharpest tech person that I've ever met had an entomology degree.

I didn't mean that English majors were useless and languishing in obscurity, just waiting for somebody to give them a job. Just that it's a potential growth industry thanks to the ability of some of the students graduating these days.

[Iris]

39. I figured that's what you meant!

It could be an interesting cottage industry!

[Warpy]

14. It would do it to me if I had to face it full time!

I got high praise as well as income as a tutor even though they found my methods unorthodox.

If I'd had to do it full time I'd have gone bonkers pretty quickly, though.

[msongs]

8. you rewrite them? why not make the authors rewrite them? nt

[Captain Angry]

11. I want an A.

Therefore, I'm not going to wait around for them to fix it under the deadline. Since the professors aren't going to grade a team project in pieces, I'm not going to take a hit on my GPA just because they didn't think it was worth the effort.

Every class, I sit back and try to get the "normal" students to take the lead so they can have that experience. And in almost every case, I need to take charge because they won't do it.

[alarimer]

12. That's why I always hated group projects

It wasn't fair for MY grade to be dependent on a bunch of slackers when I did all the work I was supposed to. Or I ended up doing most of the work on the project and they coasted. Either way, group efforts ALWAYS suck, whether they are in school or at work. People never grow up and do the stuff they are supposed to do. There is always some loser who cannot be bothered to do anything.

[distantearlywarning]

27. This was my experience too.

At least when I was an undergrad. The other people didn't give a damn about their GPA. I did, so if I wanted an A, I had to do all their work for them. And beyond that I always felt like I had to walk on eggshells with regard to their sensitive little feelings and pretend that their completely substandard work was ok, even though I had to basically re-do it every time because it wasn't ok. It was a constant nightmare. It got to the point where I started dropping classes after the first day if the syllabus indicated that I would have to participate in some kind of group project.

The straw that broke the camel's back was a group project in a Sociology class where I had to work with 4 other people on a 10 page paper and an in-class presentation about the paper. I figured that I'd just volunteer to write the paper and get it over with - that would be easier than having to tiptoe around figuring out how to fix their wretched mess if they wrote it. The other four worked on the presentation together. I just told them to let me know what my part would be, and I'd show up the day of class to do it. Well, we got an "A" on the paper, and the presentation was dreadful and received a (kind) "C". What a surprise, right? I just shrugged and let it go. Just the typical group project BS. But then the professor said he wanted to see me after class. I went to his office, and he told me that the paper was one of the best he'd ever seen from an undergrad on the topic and he wanted my permission to distribute parts of it to future classes as an example of what to do right. I was flattered and pleased, right up until the moment he said, "But why didn't you make sure that the other group members did a good job on the presentation? You should have been more responsible than that!". I was floored for a second, and then I told him that I wasn't my fucking brother's keeper, and it wasn't my fucking responsibility to drag my fellow students kicking and screaming into responsibility and giving a shit about their own damn work. And then I stood up and walked out. And that's when I started refusing to take classes with group projects.

Now, people always justify group projects by saying, "Well, you have to learn to get along with other people in the real world, so you might as well start now". But I worked in the real world for 7 years before going back to school, and somehow I never had problems doing group projects in the work place. Perhaps it's because in the real world even Sorority Sally and Fraternity Fred realize that if they don't get off their lazy asses and do something they get fired. And then who will pay for their kegs and new Jimmy Choos and texting minutes?

And interestingly enough, I've worked on group projects in graduate school and had very positive experiences. My fellow group members all show up on time for meetings, their portion of the work is done, and it's typically very good work also. So I haven't had problems "getting along with others" there either.

In other words, it isn't me or my ability to "get along". Or any of the other put-upon smart and motivated undergrads out there pulling their weight along with that of everyone in their group project.

As an instructor now myself, I have vowed never to give a required group project in my class. Ever.

[Captain Angry]

28. A few things.

1: AWESOME login name. Rush fan?

2: When I teach, no group projects. There's enough of them to go around already. Scheduling 5 people at the same time when they all have social lives is impossible. When you're in class and texting the whole time because there is something SO important going on somewhere else that you can't possibly listen to a lecture by a professional, perhaps it's time to stay home.

3: I can't get around group projects in business school. It's required in every class.

But, I graduate in May and won't have to deal with it anymore.

[Cerridwen]

15. Well, that'll teach those kids to participate in anything having to do with

their education. Have them write letters for a class assignment then send the unedited letters to the paper so they can be held up for public ridicule.

Their spelling and grammar is atrocious; yet I was still able to understand their viewpoints. I do the same for some posters here at DU and I'm sure others do the same for me with some of my posts.

This whole exercise reminds me of posts here with wonderful, well thought out ideas which are trashed because the grammar and spelling isn't "acceptable".

David Wahler would have done his students a great service had he taken the time to proof and correct the letters before sending them. In other words, had he taught some spelling and sentence construction; helped the students formulate their viewpoint and present it in a manner easily understood by the reader. He had an opportunity to teach and he chose ridicule. When did ridiculing your students become part of the teachers' handbook? (Don't answer; it's rhetorical)

Before anyone jumps on me and accuses me of not caring about the education these kids are receiving, that's not my point at all. The point is, many of those letters indicate an active and engaged mind. I would think, an active and engaged mind is a good place to begin the process of teaching the mechanics of spelling and grammar and could aid in teaching how to present and defend one's view.

I've read letters and papers written by engineers, scientists, Ph.D.s, and many other "professionals" that aren't as coherent as the letters those children wrote.

"Is our children learning?" Oh yeah, this group of children just learned to disengage their brain and remain passive if they can't say what they want to say in a manner approved by their "betters."

What exactly, was the purpose of David Wahler's little exercise in ridicule, anyway?

[DeSwiss]

31. I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree.

According to the article, the whole point of them writing the letters to the newspaper was to give them an opportunity in "their own voices," to weigh-in with their opinions on the issue of whether or not the school district should require remedial classes for high school students not proficient in math or reading. And I think that the grammar use (or lack thereof), in those letters from middle-school students clearly supports the argument that maybe they should.

I don't agree that they were necessarily being held up to public ridicule either, since none of the letters they wrote was signed beyond the use of their initials. Certainly the students in the class probably know who wrote what. But we can't protect our children from everything distasteful in life. And fortunately or unfortunately (since ones views tend to change over time), it is often the "negative" experiences that happen within ones life that have a more lasting and beneficial impact, when positive feedback, experiences and reinforcements don't.

The ability to express one's self clearly and within the forms of society is a large part of the reason for having an education. But the teacher proofreading and correcting those letters prior to their being sent to the newspaper would not have shown that these students indeed lack the ability to use proper grammar to the very people charged with providing the learning environment and courses designed to prepare them for the real world.

Proofreading and correcting those letters as an in-class assignment, okay fine. Then it becomes another teaching experience. But at some point one must stand or fall on what they've learned in life (and in class), because there won't always be a teacher around to "help you" with your work. IMHO

- DeSwiss

[ThomWV]

20. Horrible.

[BuelahWitch]

22. Too much texting

Not enough reading.

[El Pinko]

24. 4 sum REEzun, TXTing lyk th1s is OLL th rAge now.

MayBE THAT haS Som3th1nG 2 do wi7h 7he prObl3m 2????


LOL LMAO PWNED EL PINK0 ROOOOLZ




:eyes:

[DeSwiss]

32. K&R n/t

[LWolf]

35. As a 6th - 8th grade teacher,

I would have insisted on a lot of editing before any letter got mailed in. It would have passed my inspection first.

Of course, my students are required to spend more actual time revising and editing their writing than they are creating first or final drafts.

Still, I have plenty of middle school students that can't produce a literate piece of writing without me doing the editing with them, one-on-one. Coming from a small, isolated rural community, where reading, writing, grammar, spelling, and literacy are generally disdained in their homes, they think I just "don't get" what's important and what's not. In their worlds, spelling and grammar are just not priorities.

They have a terrible time editing for grammar, because their spoken grammar is as bad as their written. Their functional vocabulary is minimal. I see a great deal of writing just like those letters, every day.

The difference is that I don't let it pass; it returns to the student as many times as necessary to do it correctly, and yes, their elective can be yanked if they don't get it done.

If I were not so persistently demanding, their writing would never rise above the examples cited in this article.