Tuesday, July 10, 2007

snippits from my morning

1. My mom has been teaching seventh grade English for ten years, and she loves her work (almost as much as she loves to work). One of her favorite dinner time soap boxes is the No Child Left Behind Act, and the impact it has had on special education, standardized testing, teachers, teaching, etc. She wrote about it this morning - if you are at all interested in public education, you'll enjoy my mom's blog today. It's a good soapbox, well informed and not without merit.

Incidentally, she mentions that she has quietly shared her input ... quietly? I don't know about that. "Quiet" is just not the word that comes to mind when I think about my mom and education. "Quietly" as a synonym for "meekly" - definitely not. "Quiet" as a euphemism for "nonviolent resistance" - perhaps. You decide.

2. The Today Show is saying this morning that praising your kids too much creates too high of a standard for them to maintain when they're older, and it doesn't teach them how to deal with failure. The example they gave is Little League, and every kid on the team getting a trophy for participating. What are they learning from that? What does a trophy signify, if everybody gets one just for showing up?

3 comments:

buf said...

a. I agree with the trophy crap, but not with praising your OWN child too much. maybe then they won't be slackers like me :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DOLL! xoxo
jab

Anonymous said...

See, I think there should be a trophy for showing up, but at a certain age there should be a bigger trophy for winning. I think we give too much empty praise, but for a lot of kids, showing up is an accomplishment. Once they are seven or so, why can't there be a nice little medal for everyone and then a honking trophy for the winning team? My son has a stupid paper "medal" that says "I tried my best at Sports Day" and he's really proud. I promise, he'll never win the honking trophy, but he may win a math meet, and I hope all the other kids get medals that day, too.

Jeff, Carrie Kara Beth, Kaylan and Kaia said...

happy happy birthday!!!
=)