Seewalds 48: Homophobia Now Mixed With Hypocrisy

[Alisamer]

4 hours ago, Meggo said:

My son has been in some WEIRD mixes (one was a SK & Grade 1 split - where 5 kindies came into his class - this was primarily because those 5 kids made enough of a difference in numbers in the kindy class where they'd need to start another classroom). And he's now in in a 4-5 split (but it started the year as a straight grade 5 - so it's confusing). 

I don't even know what my school was thinking but at one point they attempted a 3rd/4th grade combination class and I got stuck in it for 3rd grade. It wasn't an overly huge class, and was split fairly evenly between the grades. The problem was that they picked the 3rd graders from the top track of students - the "gifted" kids, the ones who test well and easily, the fluent readers. They picked the 4th graders from the bottom track of that grade, the ones who were struggling to pass, the ones in situations where they were behind, for a variety of different reasons ranging from family circumstances to learning difficulties that weren't diagnosed or weren't enough to qualify for the special ed help available at the time, to behavioral. Some were repeating 4th grade.

I think the idea was that somehow this would balance out? I don't remember being taught in separate groups by age at all, so it wasn't like the 4th graders were going to come out ready for 5th, and us 3rd graders didn't get to skip 4th grade the next year, so it wasn't like we were skipping ahead or doing 2 grades in one year. And we didn't get to do more advanced stuff really either, or go more deeply into the things we were learning. 

I feel like it was a situation where the idea might not have been bad - in essence grouping by ability (which at the time they were basically already doing, unofficially). But in practice it was awful because they didn't effectively group by ability... we had 3rd graders who were reading adult level books, and 2nd year 4th graders still laboriously sounding out words. I don't think anyone benefited, and I feel like the teachers were seriously frustrated trying to figure out how to challenge easily-bored gifted 3rd graders while also teaching 4th graders who were not happy about being so clearly behind these younger kids suddenly sharing a class with them. It can't have been easy to to teach such a mixed group.

[JermajestyDuggar]

I’m going to go wayyyyy back and tell you all about my great grandpa’s school experience. He was born in 1911. He had a younger brother born around 17-18 months after him. Therefore his parents held my grandpa back so he could be in the same grade as his younger brother. They could share books and school supplies that way. They were farmers and didn’t have a lot of money. My grandpa was a very sweet and mild mannered person. He lived to be 100. It took a lot to get him angry. He said he was the only boy in his school that never got in trouble. And I believe him. He said that he made to pick the switches for the other kids to get beat with. Because the teachers knew they could trust him to get a good switch if they asked him to. Isn’t that horrible? Way to make your students resent each other! Pick your own damn switch teacher! But nope, my sweet good hearted grandpa had to. I wonder if he ever had to pick one for his brother. Luckily the two were very alike. I bet his younger brother rarely got in trouble. 

[CanadianMamam]

I went to a small rural school. I think if my ten years of elementary school, I was in split classes for 6 of them (and kindergarten didn’t count as it was half days back then). It was dine. I don’t remember there ever being major issues. Some subjects were done together (science, geography, history) and others were done seperately (math, French). Our school was used to these split classes so the curriculum was built according.
 

my kids also go to a small rural school and have always been in split classes. 

[viii]

I work at a school and anytime I talk about our split classes (Grade 3/4 or Grade 4/5 or Grade 7/8) my grandpa always laughs and says when he went to school, it was essentially a Grade 1-8 split because there was 1 teacher for all those grades! 

[Expectopatronus]

 My province used to cap K-3 classes at 22 but caps were removed around 3 years ago. It isn’t uncommon to have 26 kids in kindergarten. Lots of divisions intentionally have split cases ie) 5/6, 7/8 etc. Some schools do a great job of this and keep the splits consistent so we alternated curriculum (year A taught grade 5 science and social studies and year B taught grade 6 science and social studies), for math everyone did the units in common and the grade six kids just went further, French and English we taught common grammar, read the same current events articles and split into reading groups based on ability for novel studies. I would meet with a different reading group each day to keep track of fluency. It worked well. 

[MathQueen]

8 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I don't even know what my school was thinking but at one point they attempted a 3rd/4th grade combination class and I got stuck in it for 3rd grade. It wasn't an overly huge class, and was split fairly evenly between the grades. The problem was that they picked the 3rd graders from the top track of students - the "gifted" kids, the ones who test well and easily, the fluent readers. They picked the 4th graders from the bottom track of that grade, the ones who were struggling to pass, the ones in situations where they were behind, for a variety of different reasons ranging from family circumstances to learning difficulties that weren't diagnosed or weren't enough to qualify for the special ed help available at the time, to behavioral. Some were repeating 4th grade.

I think the idea was that somehow this would balance out? I don't remember being taught in separate groups by age at all, so it wasn't like the 4th graders were going to come out ready for 5th, and us 3rd graders didn't get to skip 4th grade the next year, so it wasn't like we were skipping ahead or doing 2 grades in one year. And we didn't get to do more advanced stuff really either, or go more deeply into the things we were learning. 

I feel like it was a situation where the idea might not have been bad - in essence grouping by ability (which at the time they were basically already doing, unofficially). But in practice it was awful because they didn't effectively group by ability... we had 3rd graders who were reading adult level books, and 2nd year 4th graders still laboriously sounding out words. I don't think anyone benefited, and I feel like the teachers were seriously frustrated trying to figure out how to challenge easily-bored gifted 3rd graders while also teaching 4th graders who were not happy about being so clearly behind these younger kids suddenly sharing a class with them. It can't have been easy to to teach such a mixed group.

I’ve taught a number of combo classes over my career, much of it in rural schools (retired now after forty years of teaching.) The second combo I taught, a second/third grade combination, was formed just liked you described. It appeared to be done based upon reading ability. Within the first quarter of the year, the second graders had far surpassed the third graders in skills, and I spent  the entire rest of the year working to keep very demoralized third graders engaged and learning. The experience was was absolutely insightful for me. I realized that the important determiner should be speed of acquisition, rather than skill level. It didn’t matter if the kids were quick, average, or slower learners, as long as they all moved at the relatively same pace. The next time we had to form a combo, I was able to convince the powers that be to form the class with students learning at an average speed that were fairly independent learners. It was so much better for all of us! After that,  I volunteered to take combination classes because I enjoyed the curriculum design element required to integrate standards from two different grade levels. I also took “bubbles” (too many students in a single cohort), and I would loop with them and teach them the next year, too. This usually happened second to third, because fourth grade was legally allowed to have larger classes that could absorb the bubble. Sadly, these kinds of classes are usually relegated to the newest, most inexperienced teacher, since more senior teachers could opt out. I wish that didn’t happen. I found each one of these classes challenging and invigorating. Those kids become a family, and I am still close to many of them today as adults. Best thing ever!

[Meggo]

The thing that absolutely baffled me about the kindergarter/Grade 1 split is that Kindergarten in my province is play-based learning. It's very much learning to get along with others, learning to sit still, not to bite, not to hit, if you happen to learn your letters through singing and dancing - great. But it's not "sit in this chair, at this desk and learn this material". So putting 5 kindy students into a "real" school environment kind of misses the play based learning thing. (and then covid came along and screwed that up anyway)

And last year - in the 3/4 split - Grade 4 starts French - so there was an activity that was JUST for the students doing French. A whole day of French stuff - and the grade 3's in that class were off doing something else entirely because it was JUST for the students doing French (so any kid grades 4-8). Which... is weird. 

Splits are tricky business. I feel bad for the teacher this year because he's got the split - he's got at least two students (my son included) who have serious delays in academics (and socially) so he's trying to manage basically three classes in one. Grades 4, 5 and then wherever the other two boys are. So keeping the smart grade 4's challenged, the average grade 5s managed and then the two yahoos (I say this with love - based on MY kiddo who is a completely yahoo and will spend more time getting out of work than it would have taken him to DO the work)  who can't work independently and need to be constantly monitored so they're brains don't wander off because they aren't engaged at their level. Yikes - he needs a raise. 

[viii]

15 hours ago, Expectopatronus said:

 My province used to cap K-3 classes at 22 but caps were removed around 3 years ago. 

I think a lot of the time, caps would be so beneficial for schools, but I know how unrealistic they are. Right now my school is struggling with oversized classrooms and not enough teachers. Our Grade 7 class has 32 students and it's a class filled with academic needs and behavioral problems. However, caps don't exist here, and so we just keep accepting students, even when we don't have the room. 

[Meggo]

17 minutes ago, viii said:

I think a lot of the time, caps would be so beneficial for schools, but I know how unrealistic they are. Right now my school is struggling with oversized classrooms and not enough teachers. Our Grade 7 class has 32 students and it's a class filled with academic needs and behavioral problems. However, caps don't exist here, and so we just keep accepting students, even when we don't have the room. 

I wonder if the solution is either more EAs or smaller class sizes. My son is in Grade 5 - but I can tell you he would NOT do well in a class of 32. He'd do REALLY well in a class of 20. And the smaller the class size, the less likely he'd need an EA. (He shares one with the other yahoo who also needs one - again - saying yahoo out of love for both of those boys - they're crazy bananas - but they're sweet kiddos). 
He absolutely did NOT do well in kindy because it was loud, chaotic, his teacher was an awful excuse for a human. He got to grade one - where it was a class size capped at 20 and he had a great teacher - and he did SO MUCH BETTER. 

 

[viii]

17 minutes ago, Meggo said:

I wonder if the solution is either more EAs or smaller class sizes. My son is in Grade 5 - but I can tell you he would NOT do well in a class of 32. He'd do REALLY well in a class of 20. And the smaller the class size, the less likely he'd need an EA. (He shares one with the other yahoo who also needs one - again - saying yahoo out of love for both of those boys - they're crazy bananas - but they're sweet kiddos). 
He absolutely did NOT do well in kindy because it was loud, chaotic, his teacher was an awful excuse for a human. He got to grade one - where it was a class size capped at 20 and he had a great teacher - and he did SO MUCH BETTER. 

Most kids don't do well in a classroom size of 32. I don't think more EA's are the answer - right now my school has 13 EA's for roughly 300 kids and they can only do so much. Plus, it's becoming more and more common here in my community that EA's are really only being hired to work 1-1 with high need students, so students that struggle academically are falling through the cracks. I really think smaller classrooms are the way to go. 

My community used to have 8 elementary schools (K-6), 1 junior high (Grades 7-8), and 1 high school (grade 9-12). They tore down the junior high school, plus two elementary schools and now all elementary schools are K-8. It's way too many children. I wish they had invested more money in the upkeep of the junior high building because a) classroom sizes were smaller and more manageable and b) junior high was a great stepping stone for kids between elementary and high school. It prepared them in a way they're not anymore, and we're really noticing that in our high school. 

TLDR; education is a MESS right now. 

[marmalade]

Interrupting the school discussion to post an actual update from Jessa. Yesterday was their anniversary.

 

[viii]

Still really like her dress. One of the better ones, I think. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Yes it’s a pretty dress. I can’t believe it’s been 9 years. Time flies.

[justmy2cents]

I can’t believe that Ben is 28 already

[Father Son Holy Goat]

On 11/1/2023 at 3:57 PM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I’m going to go wayyyyy back and tell you all about my great grandpa’s school experience. He was born in 1911. He had a younger brother born around 17-18 months after him. Therefore his parents held my grandpa back so he could be in the same grade as his younger brother. They could share books and school supplies that way. They were farmers and didn’t have a lot of money. My grandpa was a very sweet and mild mannered person. He lived to be 100. It took a lot to get him angry. He said he was the only boy in his school that never got in trouble. And I believe him. He said that he made to pick the switches for the other kids to get beat with. Because the teachers knew they could trust him to get a good switch if they asked him to. Isn’t that horrible? Way to make your students resent each other! Pick your own damn switch teacher! But nope, my sweet good hearted grandpa had to. I wonder if he ever had to pick one for his brother. Luckily the two were very alike. I bet his younger brother rarely got in trouble. 

In one of her books, What Happened to You, Oprah talks about being made to find and sometimes maker her own switch by braiding two or three weaker branches together to make an acceptable switch. It’s horrible to force a child to facilitate their own or other’s abuse. 
 

 

[Cam]

I have jumbled knowledge on the different Duggar sisters’ weddings. Jessa’s gown is too Cinderella-ish for my taste, tho I’m surprised she was allowed to wear a scoop neck. The blush color is okay but I think she could have pulled off a pure white and looked stunning. In the above photo, she appears to be perfecting the pose of submissive wife: “Husband, your thoughts are my thoughts” kinda thing.

[Alisamer]

I do really like her dress. Princess-y is good with me, and it seems to suit her. And it doesn't have any weird additional "Look! Modesty!" stuff going on. Time really does fly, doesn't it?

On 11/2/2023 at 12:36 AM, MathQueen said:

I’ve taught a number of combo classes over my career, much of it in rural schools (retired now after forty years of teaching.) The second combo I taught, a second/third grade combination, was formed just liked you described. It appeared to be done based upon reading ability. Within the first quarter of the year, the second graders had far surpassed the third graders in skills, and I spent  the entire rest of the year working to keep very demoralized third graders engaged and learning. The experience was was absolutely insightful for me. I realized that the important determiner should be speed of acquisition, rather than skill level. It didn’t matter if the kids were quick, average, or slower learners, as long as they all moved at the relatively same pace. The next time we had to form a combo, I was able to convince the powers that be to form the class with students learning at an average speed that were fairly independent learners. It was so much better for all of us! 

I agree, I feel like mixed classes CAN be a great thing if done well, but they really have to be done well. I feel like the one I was in just took the top scoring 12 or so 3rd graders (whose parents weren't likely to put up a fuss about the mixed class - I noticed it wasn't the wealthy kids in there) and put them with the bottom scoring 4th graders. And I think you are right about speed of acquisition. Kids who can read fluently are likely to pick things up faster than struggling readers. And kids who enjoy reading and read a LOT are going to "just know" some stuff that other kids might not have picked up yet. Or be able to pick up on things solely from context.

I was once in a college psychology class where there were two students (older than normal college age) who just did not seem to have any base of reference whatsoever so had to be taught basic common knowledge stuff before they could understand any concepts beyond that. It was so frustrating that you could hear half the class groan every time one of them raised a hand to ask a question, and the professor was clearly frustrated. Sometimes their questions were so basic and stupid I wondered if they were trolling. But now that I think of it I imagine it would be like taking a college level history class with a Rod child - it'd be hard to go into the more in depth study of, say, WWII, with a kid who doesn't have any base of knowledge like when it happened, what countries were on which side, a basic concept of how it developed, and when/why the USA got involved. 

And if part of the class's older kids' issues have to do with family or financial situations, that is going to put them at a disadvantage regardless. I didn't have a ton of money but we were comfortable enough mom stayed home with us when we were in early elementary school ages. And that meant that in summers we went to the library at least weekly, mom was able to allow us to buy books sometimes (we rarely got toys and such outside of birthdays and Christmas, but books mom would buy if she could generally), and there was reading material always in the house - a set of encyclopedias, the daily newspaper, dad's Dairyman magazines, a couple bookshelves with random things (I enjoyed the Foxfire books, a first aid manual, mom's finishing school textbooks, and going through my parents' yearbooks especially).

[Father Son Holy Goat]

I love Jessa’s gown, it’s my favorite of all the Duggar wedding dresses. 

[Expectopatronus]

On 11/2/2023 at 10:46 AM, viii said:

Most kids don't do well in a classroom size of 32. I don't think more EA's are the answer - right now my school has 13 EA's for roughly 300 kids and they can only do so much. Plus, it's becoming more and more common here in my community that EA's are really only being hired to work 1-1 with high need students, so students that struggle academically are falling through the cracks. I really think smaller classrooms are the way to go. 

My community used to have 8 elementary schools (K-6), 1 junior high (Grades 7-8), and 1 high school (grade 9-12). They tore down the junior high school, plus two elementary schools and now all elementary schools are K-8. It's way too many children. I wish they had invested more money in the upkeep of the junior high building because a) classroom sizes were smaller and more manageable and b) junior high was a great stepping stone for kids between elementary and high school. It prepared them in a way they're not anymore, and we're really noticing that in our high school. 

TLDR; education is a MESS right now. 

We have 2.5 EA’s to 300 kids (thank you previous provincial government for cuts to education). We also have two empty classrooms because class sizes were increased and we lost teaching positions. All of us feel terrible that we can’t meet every student’s needs but I’m the only counsellor and there are 1.5 resource teachers; education desperately needs more funds! 

[Meggo]

On 11/3/2023 at 12:14 PM, Father Son Holy Goat said:

I love Jessa’s gown, it’s my favorite of all the Duggar wedding dresses. 

I think what I like about it is that it was all patched together to make it modest. There wasn't some weird piece of fabric attached at the neckline or whatever. 

[Lurker]

When I was in elementary school in the 60’s, we had two grades in each room.  Grades 1/2, 3/4, 5/5, 7/8 were all taught by extremely hard working nuns.  They would work with the first grade for a while, give a quiet project and then start with the second grade.  Repeat for all the grades. The classrooms were always noisy and busy, with zero down time for the four nuns, one who was also the principal.

This was in New York City, within view of what is now the High Line Park and was formerly the West Side Highway.

[Zebedee]

Sorry, this is looong! Back when I started school, in 1983, we did one week of half days, then full days. since school starts in September, and my birthday is December, I was put in with the younger half of the second years. There was a full first year class, and a full second year class, and then the mixed one in the infants’. Same with junior and senior of primary school, it all worked out that we had seven years there in total, no skipping or being held back a year. We had between 30 and 34 in a class, I think 34 was the maximum you were allowed. And we didn’t have assistants, or volunteers. It worked pretty well for primary school. The secondary school was another story, massive, no attempt at streaming in maths, say, and very little parental involvement. Plus kids coming from other primaries where they hadn’t really learned to read, do arithmetic etc well.

 

 I think it really came down to luck, in many ways. The village primary school had strong connections with most parents. There were only 11 teachers, plus head, but parents knew each other socially, teachers had often taught other siblings, etc. The secondary school had 1500 kids over five years, and the kids came in from loads of other villages. They had 30+ in a class all through school too. In primary school, there was still a lot of one on one time, even if it was often the more advanced readers who read with the ones who found it hard, same in maths etc. not ideal, looking back, but better than how I saw my friends fall behind at the secondary school.
 

But we only really did maths and english academically at primary school, lots of art, games and music, but science, history etc were just topics, used to engage interest, reading and  maths practice, art etc. Apart from learning a foreign language, when I went to my secondary school, where almost everyone had been at a private school, with French, Latin, “proper” subjects, I was either ahead, or caught up within a term or so.
 

Pretty much everyone could read and do ok in maths when we left. And the teachers used the time we were reading with other kids to concentrate on the ones who had real struggles. I know there were a few dyslexic kids at primary school who got a lot of extra help, for any other LDs I don’t know. It was the 80s, I suspect, in retrospect, we were quite lucky that our teachers had the training to help. And we had outside visitors who would come and do assessments every yearAt secondary school, with all the new info, you just can’t do that. Can’t have a kid who is just learning about photosynthesis try and guide another  one. And it sort of fell apart.

of course, I make it sound almost idyllic! We were from a solid working/middle class area, mostly both parents working , but also one with very few social difficulties in our little village. I also really don’t know what the policy was on SpEd students, except for help for dyslexia. And I really think we got lucky with the specific group of teachers and our head. It was not like that in lots of the other little village primary schools around. And we only started yearly testing at primary schools a year or so after I left. Before that, I think it was 2-3 times total. Teachers had a bit more freedom to help out the pupils who needed it one on one, while the rest of us worked on our projects about the tudors, or whatever.

There is also a caveat here, that while my mixed group classes were great and worked well, even in big ish classes, that was still one grade level together, and with what I now realize to be an exceptionally good group of teachers, for the most part. Even the “worst” were good, and they were all at least qualified, and able and interested enough to help out the struggling kids. A far cry from SOTDRT types.
 

We did have a few issues, one teacher in particular. He was a bully to some kids, me included. After my dad died, he made it his mission to humiliate me, and my friends, especially since my dad died “sinfully”, ie suicide. Also, I didnt appreciate him trying to play  “daddy”. One of them was the daughter of the local Baptist church, and this teacher was a born-again type who even went to that church (a very liberal, normal Baptist church, albeit with a few batshit beliefs). But the year after I left, partly because we all got together and stood up against him, he was forced to take early retirement. before that, his bad behavior had been overlooked, as he was friends with so many parents, and they didn’t really believe he would behave like that. And he didn’t, 99.9% of the time. At least he wasn’t one of our parents, and we weren’t stuck with him! It pains me a bit, though. He was an amazing maths teacher. When he wasn’t bullying a couple of kids every few years, that is. I was like two years ahead in maths when I went to secondary school, thanks to him. I was also terrifed of speaking in class, being noticed at all, and all men with any authority. 
 

I looked him up a few years ago, and found he had died. I felt bad that I didn’t feel sad.  My older brother was a bit sad, as he had loved him. I also found out this summer that my beloved teacher from the year before had died. She had managed to get all us kids interested in music, she was a former opera singer, and had the patience of a saint. No kid was ever left without an instrument, and whatever awful noises our orchestra made, she managed to get us to improve. And keep us in line without being an arse, especially in choir. Wonderful woman. I made her a cross stitch when I left her class, and cried about it. She framed it, and hung it on her wall. It is now in my living room. Her DIL found me on FB, and sent it to me. I cried again, after that! RIP Mrs McKechnie. 

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

I worked in a private school that had mixed level classes. The whole school rotated through certain history time periods and certain English stuff every four years. It was very cool in a lot of ways. Everybody in the school was studying the same basic history stuff each week but  each group did so according to the level appropriate to that group. It was a lot of fun with the kids, created a lot of community even though some kids couldn't read and some kids were more like college level. But everybody was talking knights and castles at the same time. 

Unfortunately the being an employee part of that job was awful due to craziness that had nothing to do with the curriculum. Conceptually it was very cool and I think the kids got a lot  more out of it than in public school.

[marmalade]

Here's Jessa pimping for Christian Health Ministries again. I wonder if her hospital stay is already 100% covered? 

As for the picture, given how she fudges timelines, it's hard to guess how far along she really is. That picture could be several weeks old.

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by marmalade

[Mama Mia]

2 hours ago, marmalade said:

Here's Jessa pimping for Christian Health Ministries again. I wonder if her hospital stay is already 100% covered? 

As for the picture, given how she fudges timelines, it's hard to guess how far along she really is. That picture could be several weeks old.

 

I have no idea how that Christian ministries health share thing does with general medical care, but they seem to do a good job covering maternity care, which makes sense given their market.  Currently I’m mad that my insurance co-pay on ANY x-ray, imaging, mri etc has gone up to $250 each. Since I’m supposed to have a surgery that will likely require multiple images —- yikes!