I was reminded this morning of my elementary school days.
On the radio this morning, the dee-jays were discussing a contest in which someone would get to meet two members of the band Duran Duran. They stated that you can enter as often as you like. This lead to a math difficulty. One of the dee-jays said that if 10,000 entries are recorded and you enter once, then you have a 1 in 10,000 (1/10,000) chance of winning. If you enter 200 times, then you have a 200 in 10,000 (200/10,000) chance of winning. One of the other dee-jays told him to reduce his fraction.*
They couldn't figure it out right away. They even looked around for a calculator.
However bizarre the circumstances, I was reminded of elementary school. Specifically, some of the irritating and aggravating things that I experienced while suffering through.
I went to elementary school in a suburb of Dayton, but not the place I live now. I believe the education therein to be sub-par, but I am of a prejudiced opinion.
In second grade, I had a haggard, old bitty of a teacher, Mrs. N, who delighted in reigning over her class with an iron fist. Her method of getting attention was to blow a gym whistle with all her might right in our small classroom. I have to wonder if this lead to my tinnitus, perhaps? Regardless of whether we behaved in class or not, when released for recess, she would make us "stand on the line." This was a punishment in which we would have to stand on a line painted on the playground pavement parallel to the building. Every few feet, there was a short perpendicular line crossing the longer parallel, and it is on the point where they crossed where we were required to individually stand, facing the building. Sometimes it would be for a few minutes, sometimes for the whole of recess. I believe the Geneva Convention specifically forbids this type of treatment.
In third grade, we had a somewhat different setup of a classroom. We shared a large classroom with another class, and Mrs. M and Mrs. O shared responsibility for teaching different subjects. The evil of this grade level was the inane busy work we were assigned. I had to wonder if teachers actually taught in elementary schools. Every week, we were given about 30 words that we had to define on paper. From the dictionary. Verbatim. These were words, such as "run" which when written out longhand took about 500 pages of notebook paper in the typically large and uneven handwriting that is normal for third graders. The words were always ones that had ridiculously long definitions. While I understand that this can help children to learn the meanings, both primary and alternates, is it really necessary to copy from the dictionary verbatim? Is this not a violation of copyright?
In fourth grade, our teacher Mrs. M (a different one from the 3rd Grade Mrs. M) was an unpleasant individual. Any time one of us would tell her something that she found uninteresting, which was most of the time, she would belt out a heartfelt "Thrillsville." and look at us like we had a third eyeball. It was also in this class that we had one of the most awful things ever...
"The Mad Minute"
If you have never heard of "The Mad Minute," count yourself lucky. This was a quiz of sorts dealing with easy mathematical problems, and they filled a letter-size paper horizontally. There were 60 of these problems. Each page dealt with a different operand, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We were expected to complete as many as possible within the one minute time period. After which, we traded papers with another student and they graded them for the teacher and announced the scores to the universe, while the teacher wrote the scores on a chart. Click here for downloadable evil.
I never did very well on these quizzes. I'm not really good at math, so I would often get only a few because I would have to count on my fingers. I believe that I was one of the worst in the class at this. The one thing about this test that I thought was unfair was that as soon as you got one wrong, that was it. Grading stopped. So, if you managed to answer all 60, and got the last 59 correct, but the first one wrong, you got a big fat 0. Yeah, that will stimulate learning.
The one thing I remember, though, was my evil side coming to bear on one of these tests. After the 60 seconds, we were to write our name on the back of the sheet and hand it to someone else in the room. She would say "Ok, write your John Hancock on the back and pass it along." So, I did exactly that...I wrote "John Hancock" on the back and passed it along. It went ok until she called out for my score. No one answered. She asked a couple more times, and the dingleberry that got my paper said, I have John Hancock's paper. I then admitted to her that that was, indeed, my paper. To which she looked me over like I had a third eyeball.
This is also the same teacher that initially thought that I could not read. In the fourth grade. Hmmm. She broke the class up into groups based on perceived reading level, and I was with the remedial group. We got a special easy-to-read textbook called "Superkids". Very simplistic. She went around our group and had us read aloud. The others read slowly and carefully, sounding out words and such. They read, at most, a paragraph. When she got around to me, I belted out about two pages before she stopped me and sent me to her "advanced" group.
Never mind that the standardized reading and comprehension tests we were given placed me as a college-level reader. In the fourth grade.
I can deal with my math issues. I am still not good at math, but I understand quite a number of advanced mathematical concepts that I learned over the years. But with reading, and reading for comprehension, I had an early start. My mother read to me constantly. She read me anything and everything she could, from typical children's books (my favorite being "The Giant Jam Sandwich") to newspapers and magazines like Newsweek and National Geographic. I could read at 3 years old. The second word I learned was "TV Guide". (The first was "porcupine", for whatever that's worth.) I knew how to read the TV Guide so I could find my favorite cartoons and shows. I just didn't want to read what these teachers put in front of me to read. Old boring crap like "Dick and Jane" books and goofy stories from textbooks just did not interest me. I did, however, read our science textbook cover to cover multiple times. I would read Star Trek books constantly, and did up until I started college. I loved electronics, computer and photography magazines and always had some in my backpack to read during recess or on the walk home.
I am certainly glad that school daze are over. I don't think I could deal with it. But sometimes I think back on my time in school and think how great it would be if I knew then what I know now, and had the same flip and cynical attitude that I enjoy today. I would certainly have been expelled...several times.
Even today I get depressed around "Back to School" time. I don't know why, since I've been out of school...even college...for a number of years. I have to remind myself that I don't have to go to school anymore. Sometimes I have awoken in the night around back-to-school season with cold sweats and heart palpitations thinking that I have to go back to the hell that was elementary school.
Thank God junior high and high school were much better!
*The correct answer is 1 in 50 (1/50).
On the radio this morning, the dee-jays were discussing a contest in which someone would get to meet two members of the band Duran Duran. They stated that you can enter as often as you like. This lead to a math difficulty. One of the dee-jays said that if 10,000 entries are recorded and you enter once, then you have a 1 in 10,000 (1/10,000) chance of winning. If you enter 200 times, then you have a 200 in 10,000 (200/10,000) chance of winning. One of the other dee-jays told him to reduce his fraction.*
They couldn't figure it out right away. They even looked around for a calculator.
However bizarre the circumstances, I was reminded of elementary school. Specifically, some of the irritating and aggravating things that I experienced while suffering through.
I went to elementary school in a suburb of Dayton, but not the place I live now. I believe the education therein to be sub-par, but I am of a prejudiced opinion.
In second grade, I had a haggard, old bitty of a teacher, Mrs. N, who delighted in reigning over her class with an iron fist. Her method of getting attention was to blow a gym whistle with all her might right in our small classroom. I have to wonder if this lead to my tinnitus, perhaps? Regardless of whether we behaved in class or not, when released for recess, she would make us "stand on the line." This was a punishment in which we would have to stand on a line painted on the playground pavement parallel to the building. Every few feet, there was a short perpendicular line crossing the longer parallel, and it is on the point where they crossed where we were required to individually stand, facing the building. Sometimes it would be for a few minutes, sometimes for the whole of recess. I believe the Geneva Convention specifically forbids this type of treatment.
In third grade, we had a somewhat different setup of a classroom. We shared a large classroom with another class, and Mrs. M and Mrs. O shared responsibility for teaching different subjects. The evil of this grade level was the inane busy work we were assigned. I had to wonder if teachers actually taught in elementary schools. Every week, we were given about 30 words that we had to define on paper. From the dictionary. Verbatim. These were words, such as "run" which when written out longhand took about 500 pages of notebook paper in the typically large and uneven handwriting that is normal for third graders. The words were always ones that had ridiculously long definitions. While I understand that this can help children to learn the meanings, both primary and alternates, is it really necessary to copy from the dictionary verbatim? Is this not a violation of copyright?
In fourth grade, our teacher Mrs. M (a different one from the 3rd Grade Mrs. M) was an unpleasant individual. Any time one of us would tell her something that she found uninteresting, which was most of the time, she would belt out a heartfelt "Thrillsville." and look at us like we had a third eyeball. It was also in this class that we had one of the most awful things ever...
"The Mad Minute"
If you have never heard of "The Mad Minute," count yourself lucky. This was a quiz of sorts dealing with easy mathematical problems, and they filled a letter-size paper horizontally. There were 60 of these problems. Each page dealt with a different operand, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We were expected to complete as many as possible within the one minute time period. After which, we traded papers with another student and they graded them for the teacher and announced the scores to the universe, while the teacher wrote the scores on a chart. Click here for downloadable evil.
I never did very well on these quizzes. I'm not really good at math, so I would often get only a few because I would have to count on my fingers. I believe that I was one of the worst in the class at this. The one thing about this test that I thought was unfair was that as soon as you got one wrong, that was it. Grading stopped. So, if you managed to answer all 60, and got the last 59 correct, but the first one wrong, you got a big fat 0. Yeah, that will stimulate learning.
The one thing I remember, though, was my evil side coming to bear on one of these tests. After the 60 seconds, we were to write our name on the back of the sheet and hand it to someone else in the room. She would say "Ok, write your John Hancock on the back and pass it along." So, I did exactly that...I wrote "John Hancock" on the back and passed it along. It went ok until she called out for my score. No one answered. She asked a couple more times, and the dingleberry that got my paper said, I have John Hancock's paper. I then admitted to her that that was, indeed, my paper. To which she looked me over like I had a third eyeball.
This is also the same teacher that initially thought that I could not read. In the fourth grade. Hmmm. She broke the class up into groups based on perceived reading level, and I was with the remedial group. We got a special easy-to-read textbook called "Superkids". Very simplistic. She went around our group and had us read aloud. The others read slowly and carefully, sounding out words and such. They read, at most, a paragraph. When she got around to me, I belted out about two pages before she stopped me and sent me to her "advanced" group.
Never mind that the standardized reading and comprehension tests we were given placed me as a college-level reader. In the fourth grade.
I can deal with my math issues. I am still not good at math, but I understand quite a number of advanced mathematical concepts that I learned over the years. But with reading, and reading for comprehension, I had an early start. My mother read to me constantly. She read me anything and everything she could, from typical children's books (my favorite being "The Giant Jam Sandwich") to newspapers and magazines like Newsweek and National Geographic. I could read at 3 years old. The second word I learned was "TV Guide". (The first was "porcupine", for whatever that's worth.) I knew how to read the TV Guide so I could find my favorite cartoons and shows. I just didn't want to read what these teachers put in front of me to read. Old boring crap like "Dick and Jane" books and goofy stories from textbooks just did not interest me. I did, however, read our science textbook cover to cover multiple times. I would read Star Trek books constantly, and did up until I started college. I loved electronics, computer and photography magazines and always had some in my backpack to read during recess or on the walk home.
I am certainly glad that school daze are over. I don't think I could deal with it. But sometimes I think back on my time in school and think how great it would be if I knew then what I know now, and had the same flip and cynical attitude that I enjoy today. I would certainly have been expelled...several times.
Even today I get depressed around "Back to School" time. I don't know why, since I've been out of school...even college...for a number of years. I have to remind myself that I don't have to go to school anymore. Sometimes I have awoken in the night around back-to-school season with cold sweats and heart palpitations thinking that I have to go back to the hell that was elementary school.
Thank God junior high and high school were much better!
*The correct answer is 1 in 50 (1/50).
2 comments:
I have found that fast calculation is a matter of working with the easy multiplication tasks and doing some basic subtraction. For instance, if you want to do 88 x 12, it's easier to add 880 (10 x 88) + 176 (2 x 88) than to do the long multiplication thing. Of course, the math problem those two DJs couldn't work out was pathetically easy. I can't believe they needed a calculator for any whole, even number divided into 10,000!
I think that the testing situation you mentioned where, if you missed the first one, you missed them all is absolutely sadistic. Of course, a lot of really horrible grading practices are inflicted on helpless children. My music teacher used to make us all sing alone one at a time and grade us on how well we sang. Never mind that not all kids are gifted with good voices or the ability to carry a tune. It's like grading them on an inborn talent. Needless to say, I never got higher than a B-. :-p
I think teaching kids is a thankless task and a lot of kids are subjected to some pretty insane techniques by frustrated teachers trying to coerce them into learning. Kids are the worst and I can see where dealing with them year-in and year-out would bring out the worst in someone. It's one of the reasons I don't teach kids. ;-)
BTW, I've been sick all this week and haven't been reading or blogging that much.
I'm sorry that you are sick! I hope that you get better soon. Being sick is no fun at all. My pal Chris from work was off the last half of last week and the first half of this week sick, along with his kids. I just hope and pray that I don't get it!
Teaching, IMHO, is like you said...a thankless job. In this day and age of so many standardized tests and huge classes, it is nearly impossible for any teacher to teach properly. Those that teach well don't make near enough money, and many parents often blame them for their child not learning. And also, as you said, kids are the worst! I should know...I was one of them! LOL!
Unfortunately, some teachers take their teaching to the extreme...like with those that I mentioned, they are almost like dictators in some despot communist nation - ruling with the proverbial iron fist.
Other than the four teachers mentioned, there was really nothing awful about any other teachers that I had. At least nothing that I could detect or that happened to me.
There was the literature teacher in high school that was jailed for being naughty in a private way with female students. The geography teacher that could be bribed for good grades. The math teacher that always had a story about her kitten.
My favorite teacher of all, Mrs. C, was my science teacher in 7th grade, as well as my homeroom teacher. I was the new kid in school at that time, and it was rough. She was always available to talk and open up to, and if it had not been for her I would have probably not made it through that year. (Emotionally, that is. Mother had just gotten divorced and we moved in with my mamaw and papaw for a little while.)
As it was, I flipped out and beat up a fellow student who kept asking for it that year. His initials were "MG" like mine! Small world.
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