This article has the principal who decided to remove honors courses from the school giving some rather odd reasoning.
Eliminate the stigma of non-weighted courses
I didn’t realize being normal carried a stigma with it. Of course, she also claims, “There is very little difference in the curriculum between Honors/Regular…” which makes me question what the honors course is actually teaching. Shouldn’t it be a deeper dive into the curriculum, with more rigorous work expected from the students? But that’s just me.
It’s been over three decades since I was in high school. And I wasn’t offered anything called “honors” or “advanced placement” courses, even though we were the largest high school in the state at that time. There were some “advanced” classes that were open to anyone who’d passed the regular classes. Things like “advanced chemistry” and “advanced physics” were offered, which was just an extension of the basic chemistry and physics classes in previous years. The only course that I had to get approval for was a “social studies” class that delved deeper into government, which I presume was more akin to what my Dad took years before as “civics”.
It’s sad how dumbed down American education has become over the years. My daughter is in 5th grade this year, and they are just now learning the standard algorithm for multiplication. The “whole word” nonsense with reading is just loony. “Make a guess at the word and see if it makes sense in the sentence” is so idiotic. There are usually multiple words that could fit the sentence, and they don’t all have the same meaning. That sounds like a really good way to get people hurt later in life if they don’t have a large vocabulary. But hey, personal safety isn’t really a thing anymore. We’re just all supposed to let .gov look out for us and hope whomever knows what he’s doing.
April 18, 2022 at 11:43 am
I had to look up what the “standard algorithm for multiplication” was.
I taught it to the girls as “the easy way,” it ‘clicked’ in the Princess’ head because it works so similarly to vertical addition, not so easily for the Duchess. (She does better with visualizing groups. This is the same girl who asked for pre-geometry for the 21/22 school year, so….)
Have you gotten the “you got the correct answer, and that’s a legitimate way to get it, but it’s wrong because we haven’t taught you that method yet” marked-down grade yet?
April 18, 2022 at 12:46 pm
Not yet. Once she gets to middle school I think math will be easier for her because they won’t be requiring multiple ways to solve problems. I’ve seen her do the problem, get the right answer, and then erase it to try another way.