Quote:
Originally Posted by Shotsie
Whether or not kids do well in school has a lot more to do with parenting than with a teacher's skill level.
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And there it is.
Last night I was helping my six grade daughter do homework and discovered she was dong Algebra. Not pre-Algebra, but Algebra. We took Algebra in 8th grade when I was a kid twenty years ago.
The problem isn't the level of teaching. The tools they have these days are amazing - No more overhead projectors they have schedule a week in advance only to have a bulb burn out; These days they have a camera mounted above their desk that ends up being projected on the chalk board - and they can also stream directly from their computer. They still have text books, but the text books now are colorful with lots of graphic design work and come with a website with videos of everything they learn in school - which comes in handy after school when mommy and daddy can't figure out their math homework. Yeah, the class sizes have gotten bigger, but now each class has a full time teachers aid.
The problem is at home. I have a friend up the street who has two kids, both of whom are failing. Their daughter is friends with my daughter. Mother is a nut case (and legally unable to see her kids), father works full time and is rarely home, and the live in girlfriend is only so interested in raising kids that aren't hers. The end result is no one is there to supervise the kids, help with homework, watch over them... In the past two years the kid went from being involved in after school sports to being a latch key kid who rarely see her only parent. (First day of school their kid knocked on our door at 8am telling us that she missed her bus and her father was at work and not picking up his cell phone - First day of school and she had no one turn to.)
And I'm seeing this with a lot of kids these days.