12. Is that so?
People need to realize that the main reason you’re in school (as children) isn’t to learn useful skills. It’s to exercise your brain while it’s still impressionable to make you sharper and more intelligent, and to instill a good study/work ethic to make you productive members of society.
13. None
As an English teacher, it’s what’s not in the curriculum that is the most infuriating. There are 0 lessons for grammar or how to put a sentence together. In fact, on the state writing test, only 2 of the 10 points are for English conventions. I’ve tried to squeeze in a grammar lesson here and there only to be told they don’t want to see that kind of instruction.
14. Wait, that’s dumb
This isn’t really about my curriculum itself, but the university where I teach has mandated that my department institute a proportional grading system (a curve). Their reasoning for this? Too many students are receiving high grades, thus qualifying for study abroad programs with limited enrollment, and we need a way to create more spread. It’s a nightmare to implement if you maintain any kind of consistency on a grading rubric, and profits my students none.
15. Whatever that means
In England there has been a massive push on teaching children “British Values”….Democracy. Rule of law. Individual liberty. Mutual respect and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs.
While I agree that’s it’s vital children are taught about these subjects I really hate the term “British Values.”
I worked in a school where 80% of the children came from non-British families and it just didn’t sit right for me. These principles apply in many countries and to me just feels like we are teaching that Britain is morally superior. It feels smug.
A very heavy handed way to tackle extremism in UK schools.
16. Financial literacy
I’m a high school math teacher, and while I generally teach what I’m obligated to, I wish that there was a basic financial literacy class that all students had to take. Things like how to set up a bank account, how loans actually work, how to invest in the stock market (mutual funds), how to budget/save for retirement, etc.
17. Thinking outside the book
Religious education. I don’t teach it but it is taught at my school. As an atheist, my issue is that the children are not taught to think about different religions or compare belief systems until they are 15/16. They get “this is exactly what happened” from the age of five and only in late high school do they learn that Catholicism and Judaism are a thing. Islam, Buddhism, atheism, agnosticism etc are not mentioned. Any child who raises questions is usually told to shut up and go to RE class. I’ve had students ask me if I “really believe this stuff” because they are starting to question the existence of a God but I’m not allowed to discuss atheism with them.
18. Huh?
I was a teacher and worked in different schools before.
One thing that drives me up the wall is actually the English alphabet. Stop using its name!! Use the phonetic! It helps children read the smaller words which they will understand first. Cat, Bin, Cup, Dog, etc…
19. That’s cuz it’s not
They should all plan to go to college after graduation, whether a 2 year or 4 year school. NO. Many, many students don’t have the money, the interest, or the work ethic to go on to college right out of HS. They would be better off working, traveling, or joining the military. Or some of them know what they’re interested in, but a technical school would serve their needs much better than college, or even serving an apprenticeship. Slowly, these are becoming more “acceptable” options, but I try to stress to my kids that college is NOT the only route in life.
20. “History”
History teacher. I have to teach that America won WW1 and WW2.
No one won WW1 or WW2. It came to a natural end with the Treaty of Paris and Russia drilling into Germany.
Oh and I have to have a moment of silence on September 11th in my class. I have to teach my students about 9/11.
But do we take a day to remember Pearl Harbor or D-Day? Nope.
21. Social and emotional kindergartner
As a Kindergarten teacher… I hate the amount of time we spend on academics and not social emotional stuff like, you know, how to be a good and functioning human in society. That gets pushed to the back burner so we have time for hours and hours of academics. Here in Mass. we have kids reading by December and I’m sure most of the rest of the country is the same.
22. ESL
My mother teaches in a low income/migrant area. They are having to teach kids who can barely speak English grammatical concepts that are way over the heads of most of the teachers. And the school gets no compensation for it, so they are repeatedly doing badly on their OFSTED inspections and SATs tests.
Basically, kids who need to be taught life skills and basic English are being forced to learn stuff they don’t understand just to pass a test.
23. Dumb tests!
How To Take A Test rather than How To Think Critically/Analytically. This is especially true in TX where the State-mandated test is written incredibly obtusely and poorly. Many questions are highly advanced for the actual grade-level curriculum of the student (think very basic substitution algebra in the 6th grade).
This is true when I was in school as well. I could do calculus on problems where I had done very similar ones before, but when applying concepts to different situations it became much more difficult.
