As you know, the school year has looked drastically different than a year ago. I was expecting hiccups here and there, especially difficulty going through Zoom and staying ahead of Luke's studies at home. However, I was NOT expecting having issues with the way they were teaching Mila! Here's how it all went down...
On Wednesdays, Mila is at home. She has two, 45-minute Zoom meetings with her classmates and teacher. I've learned that if I do it on the computer, she can't see her classmates, but it's hands-free and I can keep her in one place at the dining room table. If I do it on the iPad, we can sit anywhere and she can see her classmates at different segments throughout the meeting. I've learned that I can let her sleep in a little bit on Wednesdays, and she's not in a rush to eat breakfast, therefore, she can go to the first meeting, eat, and then go to the second. I've learned that it's difficult for her to complete more than one assignment in between the two Zoom meetings. Sometimes we will do one assignment, sometimes we will hold off until after lunch to begin working on anything. In fact, she is assigned 8 things to do a day, a lot of which are repetitive and have videos or games that go along with them. We can't do all 8 in one day. The teacher doesn't assign them until Wednesday morning (it would much easier if I knew ahead of time what they were so I could get a leg up on the videos at least), and they are due on Sunday by 5pm.
The first Zoom meeting starts with a song (completely dumb, much like the "I Love You" song of Barney... I don't know what kid would like it), and then a self-soothing, breathing technique (either S.T.A.R., which I don't know what it stands for, a drain or a balloon). Don't ask me why they do the technique when they haven't even started the class. What do they have to take a breath for when they haven't even done the work to get to the place where they need to take a moment? So, the first half of the first Zoom meeting is wasted on that. They barely cover the days of the week and the weather. Then, they move on to the English portion. Sometimes they end the meeting with a story.
The second Zoom meeting deals with math. I find that it's more productive than the first meeting. A lot of the kids though, in my opinion, should already know the concepts... but we're only at the beginning of the year.
Now, I've had my complaints here and there - 1. Don't waste my time and my kids' time on sing-a-long songs and techniques that aren't doing diddly. I'd rather the time be shortened or teach them what they need to learn. 2. Two Zoom meetings is almost too much. 3. Eight assignments is too much. These are Kindergarteners! (They do best by learning through living it.) But, if you're going to give assignments, let the parents have a choice out of the eight... it's just a thought. We're fairly committed; I think you can trust us to pick a variety of assignments and not just the "easiest" two every week. BUT, none of these complaints have made me feel like I need to pull all of my kids out of school IMMEDIATELY.
Last Wednesday started like a typical Wednesday. We had our first Zoom meeting. Mila wanted to be a drain because it's fun to rain down water. The teacher showed the kids a sight word that they didn't get to: SEE. And then, she had them go through an activity where the kids were supposed to watch for their name on the screen, and when they saw it read the sentence, which goes like this: "I am Mila. I see a turtle," and so on. (A great activity, although it took up a lot of time because the kids weren't really watching for their names, so the teacher could've just called on each one. And somebody had their sound on the whole time or were goofing off, so we couldn't hear as well. ~Another issue that gets in the way of being online.) Last, she ended with a book about a STAR that had a hard day and went to the other room and took a breath, like a star does, and felt better. So really, the whole session could've been narrowed down to 15 minutes.
I let Mila have her breakfast and then it was time for the second Zoom meeting. They had an activity on greater than or less than where she went through each student in pairs and they had to say if they had more or less, or equal to, their partner. Except that, the directions weren't very clear to parents so almost all of the students had exactly 10 items. Whoops. But, overall, not a bad session.
Then, came the hard part. I said, "Mila, let's do one activity and then you can go play. This one looks easy!" I picked out the one on the word, SEE, because it involved a simple tracing of the word, coloring in bubble letters of the word in rainbow (which Mila would LOVE), finding the word among other words (and Mila is very good at I-Spy), and last cutting and glueing the word together with the correct letters in the correct order. I didn't know it involved a long video. We did the assignment and then watched the video.
The video covered every sight word known to man I think. But we don't call them sight words. We call them "popcorn words" because they should "pop out at you on the page". And when we say each letter we should have proper mouth placement, and say it with the right loudness or softness. For example, V is loud and F is soft. And when we see a word our first strategy is to find the vowel (A, E, I, O, U) no matter where it is in the word. If it's alone, then it says it's name. But if not, you see what's next to it and if it has partner vowels like in the word BAKE or SEE. Oh, that's not all covered in this ONE video - there are pairs that go together like TH and SH. And she went on through every single strategy until I think we covered everything in the English language (which statistics show is the hardest to learn). I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. They were talking to 5-year-olds!!! I get worked up just recounting the moment... Then, she went on to say that as they're sounding the words out, there shouldn't be any pauses between letter sounds, but keep making the sound and pull it out of your mouth like bubblegum. And there were abbreviations and rhymes for everything.
What are my issues?
1. They went through EVERY STRATEGY in one session. This should be a progression. Start off with the easiest strategy and work your way to the hardest. I felt like I was bombarded, and when I looked over at Mila, her eyes were wondering around everywhere except for at the computer screen. She became detached. It was too much!
2. Don't require your kids to call it "popcorn words" vs. "sight words". Who cares? But more importantly, parents will know what a "sight word" is and have no idea what a "popcorn word" is. A little kid isn't going to know what the word "strategy" means either. Just saying.
3. This continues on with "bubble-gumming" a word. I get that you're trying to paint a mental picture to stretch out the word, and you can do that... but, we need time to think. A gap in the word is OK. It's not going to end the world if a child has a gap in their word as they're sounding it out.
4. I can yell at you and the F will be loud. Mouth placement is just about moot. It works for showing the difference between M and N, where the tongue is, and if the mouth is open or closed, but not every letter needs that pointed out.
5. Your rhymes are annoying. Limit it.
6. FINALLY, AND MOST IMPORTANT, Mila was prepared and completely ready to read before this. I set her up for success. At age 4, she knew the sounds of all of the letters. She knew that the A had multiple sounds, and the E could have different sounds, etc. She was ready to put the sounds together just by sounding it out. EVERYTHING that the teachers have taught her has set her back by ten steps. She is now QUESTIONING her reading and telling me that it's difficult to find items throughout the house that start with certain sounds, when she was doing this at home last year. She was working on ending sounds last year. And middle sounds. She's questioning herself!
I am so livid, and hurt. I feel like we made the wrong choice. My baby was ready to read, and they did her a disservice and they're doing all of the kids a disservice. I was ready to pull her completely out of school and strictly homeschool. I was going to spend the $800 (hopefully I could find a deal somewhere) on an out-dated Biblical curriculum and teach Mila at home. Then, I thought it through a little bit. That would be difficult with Luke's requirements. I'll pull them ALL out. And just do my own thing. At our own pace. It is what it is. They'll know what they need to know. And learn about real world problems. The other option was pull her out and put her in virtual school, and anything that doesn't make sense skip entirely, except that it might interfere with Luke's virtual school (he would have to take on more responsibility; and Nayelli would interrupt. From the very beginning I've felt lied to about how the entire school scenario would go, and now it's to these horrid teaching practices.
So, I called up my dad. I said, "Dad, I need to vent. And then I need you to be that person that won't tell me what I want to hear, but what I need to hear. Can you be that person?" The conversation was a long one, but a good one. The culprit: Common Core. I was reminded that we had this conversation when Luke was learning a different kind of math a few grades ago. They had him add in a really weird way, splitting up ones with ones and tens with tens. If you think back to the good years of the 1990's, they taught a little thing called "carry the 1," which they don't do any more. It's more about mental math. While this might work for some people, it's not going to work for everyone. It's adding more steps and making a problem MORE complicated. That's what they're doing with English. For Kindergarten. They've broken everything up. And it's because of Common Core. Every child needs to know certain things, but what they need to understand is that every child is unique and learns in their own way. Rather than teaching multiple to techniques to everybody, they could narrow it down, and if there are kids that need more attention, whether slower at processing or ahead, give it to them. Let's get more specialized services!
Who in their right mind would stand behind Common Core?
And while I'm on this rant, Luke's Reading assignments are POO. There is no order, rhyme or reason to them at all - not even Common Core. I'm doing that myself!
And after talking with Luke, Dad and Aldo, I've settled on the fact that come second semester, I'll send Luke back to school so he can learn "how all the other kids are learning" and do the stupid Common Core assignments the right way, because he knows my way and picks up on those things easily. We've had discussions of History and I know what books he likes. He'll probably be repeating a lot because we're actually ahead. And while he's in school, I'll be able to spend the quality time with Elli that I've been wanting, take ahold on the house again, and be prepared to teach Mila (or re-teach) if I have to, and especially work with her on Wednesdays.
If this doesn't work, though, Aldo will have to consider pulling them all out and never going to public school again. :-P
SIDE NOTE: With elections fast approaching, this just makes me more involved in the voting process and knowing who the candidates are. I'm not talking presidential. Those guys are covered. It's blatant what their beliefs are and it's covered in the news and on social media all the time. I'm talking LOCAL. I'm talking school boards, county representatives, governors. I knew that local government was important, but even more since Covid. How our STATE has reacted to orders and suggestions, and even more so when the states and counties are GIVEN the final decision in areas. Man, it really makes a difference. I don't want our state or our school district to be a follower, but a leader.
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