Counting On Season 5/6/7 Who Knows? It's on Tonight!

[feministxtian]

I never learned long division until I had to teach my kids and come up with a way to explain it that they'd understand. I spent a weekend fooling around with the problems, came up with a couple of ways to explain it and then presented it to my kids. To my great surprise, they learned! It turns out that trying to explain things with lots of drawings and just a few words worked best for them (and me). I guess none of us are auditory learners. That method of teaching math worked with my kids all the way through whatever math they hit before they quit school. Algebra maybe? I do remember tutoring #1 son long distance when he took a couple of college level math classes. English grammar, asking questions. Like "is this a noun"? Cue lost look from child. "Is this a person? A place? A thing?" Cue glimmer of understanding. Once their little gears got turning, they were in good shape. Problem was, in the school situation they had been in, there was no time nor effort put forth to try to reach any kid other than those in the middle. The kids on either side of the bell curve got left in the dust. 

The emphasis on "present material, review, review, test" was also a problem for my kids. Once they got it, they were good, They didn't need the review. That was when the "fun" started (aka behavior problems). At home we didn't do the review thing. They were able to go along at their own pace for most things, stop for questions and then keep going. I think that's why #1 and #2 kids were/are more successful in college. 

However, YMMV. 

DISCLAIMER: This is what worked for MY children. That's it, my children. They did not fit into a "normal" educational scheme. Not dissing teachers, schools or anything else. 

[Sky with diamonds]

2 hours ago, Carm_88 said:

I had great teachers, horrible teachers, and teachers that fell somewhere in between. There are certain people who get a degree in education who should never step foot in a classroom. However, if my parents tried to teach me anything, I would have ended up with no high school diploma. Until, I was old enough to do homework for myself, it was a pain. My Mom would force me to sit down and do it, I would be drilled nonstop until I cried. Once I cried, she would try to do it for me. That's not what I wanted, I wanted her to leave me alone so that I could do it the way I was taught. It was absolutely horrible. 

Teachers are trained to teach kids of all skill levels and all ways of learning. My friends who are teachers talk about their nonstop planning and how the best moments of their days is when the kid who thinks that they are stupid, gets it! Teaching is a hard and often thankless job and I truly appreciate all the teachers who gave me a good school experience. 

Agreed. Bad teachers are the worst, I had one who still gives me nightmares. But I had one great teacher in particular. I will always be thankful to him. 

[zee_four]

On 8/3/2018 at 8:41 PM, KelseyAnn said:

Thanks! I've been clean for nearly 2 years now and have traded the coffee addiction for a book addiction. 

Congrats! I've been clean going on 3 years myself after 10 years of almost completely on with very little off drug addiction that was predominately hard drugs. If you ever need to chat with someone else in recovery feel free to send a PM!

On 8/2/2018 at 5:53 PM, BernRul said:

No problem. When people say that if you have a good program anyone can homeschool, I just feel like it shows the disrespect and actual contempt we in America have for our teachers. I could look up medical info online, that doesn't mean I should be my children's doctor. I shouldn't diagnose them or preform home surgery. I could read some good law books, but that doesn't mean I can stand lawyer for my child if he was accused of a crime. (I could for myself, but everyone seems to say that if you're your own lawyer than you have a stupid client). Yet for teaching it's fine. It shows we don't consider teaching a serious profession.

I would even be willing to compromise and say let's create an accelerated program for parents who want to homeschool. Hell, I'd even say they could teach while enrolled, so long as they are enrolled. Truthfully I think that parents should be required by law to have a teaching degree, but I'd be willing to meet parents halfway. 

As for @Irish13 she can behave how she sees fit. As a teacher, I'm use to being yelled at by irate parents. No big deal

A former teacher here myself, I was a special needs liaison for our local Head Start preschool program (our school district is rural so multiple large rural counties combine into one BOCES or Board of Cooperative Educational Services) and worked with predominately ELA children. I'm now just finishing up a counseling degree to kind of specialize my future work plans.

I agree with the idea that anyone can homeschool makes it seem like teaching is so super easy just anyone can do it and it's really detrimental and disrespectful to those of us who went to school at least 4 years and have done tons of extra training and work in a very difficult very disrespected and low paying environment. It's not a slam against parents who've successfully homeschooled, but I wish people would be more thoughtful about what they imply by statements like that.

I think that instead of just pulling students out who don't succeed in standard schools, we should work on creating an educational environment that meets the needs of all students. Of course lack of funding and resources makes this almost impossible in some places (like Colorado where I taught and made $11.46 an hour- our state is 48th in the US in K-12 funding despite being a super high CoL area) I also think charter schools are detrimental to working on an educational system that meets the needs of all students, in my area they're all white while the "regular" public schools are all Latino/a and our school district is 50% white 50% Latino/a. That's a problem. 

Again I can't stress this isn't a jab at parents who have positive successful homeschool experiences, but that doesn't mean that teaching isn't a highly skilled profession that takes education and training and is more than just a good set of course materials and/or being able to access the internet. 

[feministxtian]

29 minutes ago, zee_four said:

I think that instead of just pulling students out who don't succeed in standard schools, we should work on creating an educational environment that meets the needs of all students.

In my experience, kids that are on the right side of the bell curve get left in the dust in most school systems. For my kids, in the district we lived in at the time, the "gifted" program was bullshit. Rather than advanced academics, it was more projects. Not a great fit for kids who aren't into project after project. In another district, it didn't matter what the test results were, if the kid was diagnosed with ADHD or on the spectrum, they were immediately excluded from any G/T classes. 

I once got a call from a school administrator who told me "you must impress upon (kid) the importance of school". I replied that I'd love to but you won't let me shackle him to a chair to keep him in school. I can preach about it all I want but if you're not challenging him or providing the right environment, there's not a helluva lot I can do about it. 

If I wanted my kids to have any sort of basic education, it was up to me. It didn't matter how many meetings I had with teachers, principals and administrators. I see this now happening with another generation. One grandchild is doing online school, another one is going to a charter school (in Aurora) that's geared towards STEM. The third one starts school this fall and is enrolled at another charter school that's K-8. The jury is still out on how that one will do...but he's another pretty smart one. The child in the STEM school had to deal with bullying at the old school because she's little for her age, wears glasses and is a damn brainiac. The one doing online was also dealing with bullying and the mental/emotional effects of that before she got pulled out. The school/school system didn't do a damn thing to provide a safe environment for either one of them. THAT is bullshit. That hasn't changed in the almost 40 years since I graduated from HS. 

[zee_four]

19 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

In my experience, kids that are on the right side of the bell curve get left in the dust in most school systems. For my kids, in the district we lived in at the time, the "gifted" program was bullshit. Rather than advanced academics, it was more projects. Not a great fit for kids who aren't into project after project. In another district, it didn't matter what the test results were, if the kid was diagnosed with ADHD or on the spectrum, they were immediately excluded from any G/T classes. 

I once got a call from a school administrator who told me "you must impress upon (kid) the importance of school". I replied that I'd love to but you won't let me shackle him to a chair to keep him in school. I can preach about it all I want but if you're not challenging him or providing the right environment, there's not a helluva lot I can do about it. 

If I wanted my kids to have any sort of basic education, it was up to me. It didn't matter how many meetings I had with teachers, principals and administrators. I see this now happening with another generation. One grandchild is doing online school, another one is going to a charter school (in Aurora) that's geared towards STEM. The third one starts school this fall and is enrolled at another charter school that's K-8. The jury is still out on how that one will do...but he's another pretty smart one. The child in the STEM school had to deal with bullying at the old school because she's little for her age, wears glasses and is a damn brainiac. The one doing online was also dealing with bullying and the mental/emotional effects of that before she got pulled out. The school/school system didn't do a damn thing to provide a safe environment for either one of them. THAT is bullshit. That hasn't changed in the almost 40 years since I graduated from HS. 

Oh totally, I get why and how in the current set up, charter schools and homeschooling work. I do. It definitely works for most of the children who take that route. I think it's a sad reflection on the state of the public community based school system.

Just as a Head Start teacher I worked with kiddos who weren't going to be pulled out and sent to a charter school (the charter schools here in Eagle require parents to volunteer or contribute financially, which parents who are only Spanish speaking working minimum wage or less full time cannot do) or definitely homeschooled. These are the kids who will get stuck left behind so to speak in the failing school system no matter what. Really what's happening in schools is like the educational version of white flight. As high achieving and/or families who are very engaged and/or have resources leave schools, they become more and more likely to fail if that makes sense. 

However as a parent myself, I can see why it's not as easy as asking parents to keep their kids in schools that are failing or don't meet their children's needs, just so ideally in the long term (in respect to being beyond one child's tenure at a school) resources and energy including engaged parents, can help morph a better community school that meets all children's needs. That'd be absolutely ridiculous to ask.

It's a hard question I don't really have a concrete answer to.  Unfortunately right now each answer takes major compromises from the other group and that won't work, we need to find something that will benefit everyone as much as possible, not just one group over another. 

[TatiFish9]

On 8/4/2018 at 1:48 PM, DillyDally said:

I loved how they start the new season with an update on each couple and the grown-up siblings and just leave out Jill and OfJill as if they never existed. Ice cold, Jessa 

They even left her out the baby pictures!!! So trife.

***I am telling ya, she took something from Derick (CSA) and he took something from her (show). Derick done got their entire little family kicked off TLC. Even Anna showed up every now and again after Josh gate. Jill is completely obliterated. Gotta follow that headship right on out the door as it swings behind him. 

 

 ***This comment could be subjected to heavy speculation and inaccuracy.

[feministxtian]

7 minutes ago, zee_four said:

Really what's happening in schools is like the educational version of white flight. As high achieving and/or families who are very engaged and/or have resources leave schools, they become more and more likely to fail if that makes sense. 

They pull their kids because the schools are not serving the kids. When you have a kid with ADHD and a 140+IQ (not bragging, tested) who's failing because he's bored out of his skull and you can't make the administrators understand that this kid ALSO has "special needs", well...it then becomes an issue of "do I want my kid to at least be literate or stay in a school that's just this side of a zoo?" I called administrators out on lies like denying a gang problem, denying bomb threats. 

There is no easy answer. The only answers I can think of are bringing back some heavier handed discipline (not advocating corporal punishment here), dress code, clear expectations of students, parents, teachers and administrators, get away from the present, review, test system, teaching to the test instead of teaching for knowledge. I have ideas...but since I'm not an educational specialist, just a parent who dealt with frustration, 

I will never forget what I saw in the high school my kids attended (temporarily). It was insane.

[Iamtheway]

I had a horrible spanish teacher as well. She was so bad. I did pretty well in highschool but my proudest moment was when I made her suggest to me that I change to the other class with the better teacher. 

Me (on the outside): Really? Yes that might work. I’ll miss this class though. 

Me (on the inside): Yes! Yes! Yes!

[Meggo]

On 8/4/2018 at 6:45 PM, nvmbr02 said:

 Our situation is a little different. We live in Guam, so a US territory and my kids go to DODEA school here, which is set up with the DOD. 

You live in Guam?? A teacher I knew in high school became a priest a few years back and just moved there!!

[zee_four]

1 minute ago, feministxtian said:

They pull their kids because the schools are not serving the kids. When you have a kid with ADHD and a 140+IQ (not bragging, tested) who's failing because he's bored out of his skull and you can't make the administrators understand that this kid ALSO has "special needs", well...it then becomes an issue of "do I want my kid to at least be literate or stay in a school that's just this side of a zoo?" I called administrators out on lies like denying a gang problem, denying bomb threats. 

There is no easy answer. The only answers I can think of are bringing back some heavier handed discipline (not advocating corporal punishment here), dress code, clear expectations of students, parents, teachers and administrators, get away from the present, review, test system, teaching to the test instead of teaching for knowledge. I have ideas...but since I'm not an educational specialist, just a parent who dealt with frustration, 

I will never forget what I saw in the high school my kids attended (temporarily). It was insane.

Sorry if I was unclear, I definitely understand why a lot of kids are pulled, your case completely rings true.

In Eagle County specifically however there is a very openly discussed and believed idea among white parents that if their neighborhood school has a large number (or in some cases any number) of Latino/a kids the school is bad, teachers there will spend all their time dumbing down lessons to ELA students, teachers will be dealing with misbehaving kids, etc.In a school district that is 50% Latino/a and 50% white the public elementary and middle schools should not be 90%+ Latino/a while the charter schools (including the ski academy where public school dollars go to teach kids for half a day lessons who all have their own iPads and whose parents pay $14k a year in tuition to the private ski club- membership being a requirement to be allowed into the school) are 90%+ white. It's completely untrue. At one of the two public high schools in the district where there's 50% white English native speaking students and 50% Latino/a students where a majority but not all are native Spanish speakers, 10% of white kids were behind grade level in English reading and writing while 10% of Latino/a kids were behind grade level in English reading and writing, while I was teaching in the district. There's no truth to these rumors but they definitely influence the community schools in a really horrible way.

Again I want to stress this was in the ski resort area schools where there's a good chunk of wealthy white students and working class Latino/as and there's a huge split like this because of charters.

City schools are a COMPLETELY different issue, with much larger bureaucracies that shield ineffective teachers and that are focused on test scores (argh the CSAP now TCAP) and such that result in hoards of students not being served at all. I went through DPS and APS myself in high school as a student. I was at Montbello HS when the kid was stabbed to death in the cafeteria. So I understand the issues you've had to go through are very different than those where I personally taught.

There's actually a long history of DPS schools that led to some of its current problems including being the first non Southern school district to federally desegregate that led to busing that continued until 1994. I could go on and on but literally it became the topic of my honors thesis at CU so it's not really forum appropriate. Aurora doesn't have the same history but has many of the same problems.

I'm just starting to navigate the school system, even from afar, as my son was supposed to start Kindergarten this year but I just found out he's going into the school's Pre-K program instead because his birthday is a week after the cut off (he'd be fine here in ECSD) It gives me anxiety thinking about my own child, as much as I cared for and loved all my kiddos in the classroom, your own child is always different. I know nothing about Texas schools, particularly those in the Houston suburb where he lives with his grandparents. I want to be as involved as I can. I don't know what I would do if he was faced with the problems your children were. I very well might do exactly what you did for your children or something similar. I commend you for finding out successful solutions for all your children when public schools and the public school system failed them. 

(On that note if any FJer knows about the Sugar Land area and the Fort Bend ISD PLEASE let me know!!!! Thanks!)

[feministxtian]

56 minutes ago, zee_four said:

In Eagle County specifically however there is a very openly discussed and believed idea among white parents that if their neighborhood school has a large number (or in some cases any number) of Latino/a kids the school is bad, teachers there will spend all their time dumbing down lessons to ELA students, teachers will be dealing with misbehaving kids, etc.In a school district that is 50% Latino/a and 50% white the public elementary and middle schools should not be 90%+ Latino/a while the charter schools (including the ski academy where public school dollars go to teach kids for half a day lessons who all have their own iPads and whose parents pay $14k a year in tuition to the private ski club- membership being a requirement to be allowed into the school) are 90%+ white

The same sort of problem existed where my kids went to high school. The makeup of the city at that time was about 70% white and 30% minorities. The schools were more flipped the other way with the white kids going to the private schools (some of which ran about 10 grand a year 10 years ago). The schools did not reflect the city at all. A friend of mine who taught in another district was able to transfer her kids there. People would beg/borrow fake addresses to get their kids into other school districts too. 

I don't know what the answer is...it doesn't seem to be much different around the country. Where I live now has the same problem and the schools are horrible. 

[nvmbr02]

4 hours ago, Meggo said:

You live in Guam?? A teacher I knew in high school became a priest a few years back and just moved there!!

Yes, temporarily anyway. We have been here a little over 2 years and have about 9 months left before we move.  It is a very interesting island... Some good, some bad but we have mostly enjoyed our time here. 

[Chewing Gum]

14 hours ago, mollysmom said:

 

Is there video of this I can watch? I saw the snip of Josie singing but I didn't see that part.

It’s up on the blog: http://www.duggarfamilyblog.com/2018/08/a-duggar-music-album.html?m=1

[DillyDally]

Okay, somebody please explain to me what Michelle was referring to with "there was more than one bomb". I gather it's from the lyrics of some song? 

[Abstract]

The Star-Spangled Banner (U.S. national anthem):

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

[CarrotCake]

18 hours ago, Daisy0322 said:

 Ben dies well with the kids... I think he actually is very involved with and without the cameras there.

I really like this typo 

[VBOY9977]

So they’re airing a two hour episode today, split into two episodes for TLCgo. If someone has the time to recap all of it, please do.

Also, this picture is from TLC’s website and it says season 8, so that solves the “which season are we in” mystery

 

[DillyDally]

"Unexpected" - the new status for all currently not expecting Duggars.

[Bad Wolf]

Josie looked like she was going to cry when M corrected her. Is this their first CD? Maybe they're running short of money.

[Pecansforeveryone]

I wish they had gone with an easier song for Josie. The national anthem is notoriously difficult for professional singers. I also just on a very personal, weird level don't want to make a child sing a song about bombs bursting in air. I think My Country Tis of Thee would have been a better choice.

[Bad Wolf]

Well. The music for the Star Spangled Banner was a British drinking song, and My Country is the music for God Save the Queen, so maybe God Bless America would work. 

[TatertotAsserole]

"Sing out Louise!"

 I was not prepared for Michelle as Mama Rose in the worst production of "Gypsy."

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

I wish they had gone with an easier song for Josie. The national anthem is notoriously difficult for professional singers. I also just on a very personal, weird level don't want to make a child sing a song about bombs bursting in air. I think My Country Tis of Thee would have been a better choice.

I have no idea who I read it, and it's been several years, but I remember reading something on why the Star-Spangled Banner is the perfect national anthem for the United States. Because it is such a difficult song and has such a wide range of notes, it's better for a group effort , as some people can hit the lower notes and others hit the high notes. Not a great song for an individual but one that's good for a group. The idea is, as Americans, we all need each other and are stronger collectively than individually.

[Chewing Gum]

3 hours ago, VBOY9977 said:

 

Also, this picture is from TLC’s website and it says season 8, so that solves the “which season are we in” mystery

Well that is just confusing. YouTube has them up as season 7. 

[Georgiana]

Good lord, why does EVERY fundie family with mediocre musicality feel called to make a CD?  How much of a market IS there for Christ-honoring tunes performed by families with lots of kids and little technical music training? 

I don't doubt the Duggars' CD will sell, but just about every Fundie family with access to basic recording software puts out CDs that range anywhere from "actually good" to "actually good to use for Halloween or to punish the cats" with most falling towards the latter end of the range.  Who the heck is buying these?  And WHY?!?

Ironically, Jill Rodrigues and her backup singers just released a new album as well.  Must be grifting season!