I read the
article Left Behind, Way Behind by
Bob Herbert and I agree with it one hundred percent. Teachers are not making the children learn
things they teach in the classroom. For
example, if a child does not learn or understand how to do something in math in
third grade, the fourth grade teacher reviews it or reteaches it the next
year. They are reteaching things year
after year and not building. It is not all on the teacher to make the children
learn the material and do the homework; the parents need to also take part in
it as well. Also, children are not being
held back in grades, they are moving on to the next grade whether they are ready
or not. The saying, “The United States
curriculum is a mile long and an inch deep”, is basically telling you that
there is so much curriculum to teach in school but teachers only introduce it
and do not get in depth with it.
Children can never master the things they are being taught. I think another problem is substitute
teachers. Basically anyone with a four
year college degree can be a substitute teacher, does not matter what your
major is. Substitute teaching is not a
babysitting job, but that is what it is like in the classroom. Children also lose so much of what they learned
over the three months of summer. The
teachers next year have to at least review with them the material they learned
last year. Maybe all year round school
would be a good thing to look into.
