While stumping for local Democrats in California, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., addressed students at Pasadena City College and made a comment about education and the war in Iraq that lent itself to much controversy.

"You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq," he said.

Too bad he's not running for Prez- GOP'd have it locked up- still he should do like Al Gore, Jimmy Hoffa, Saddam, Bin Laden- just dissappear (or dig a hole and stay in it till- what?? 2350 AD)

Whatta dope

It is getting cold here. High's in the 50's today-this time last month was high's in the 90's!
Shawn-I read the 1st part of your post and instantly thought about an event that's at least 2 years in my future. I think teachers forget that children think differently and aren't always so linear in thought.
T-my kids are doing a program called Everyday Math and it sucks. Their purpose is to try to teach several ways to do something, but they end up not making the kids efficient in any one way. They have to draw a picture to do multiplication and they have to do division backwords from the real world. I'm trying to figure out how this is helping test scores when it takes my son 10 minutes to do a problem I can do in less than one and even double check it. And to top it off, they never learn how to apply any problem solving skills. I wind up teaching my kids more at home than the teachers can at school-not knocking the teachers, just the cirriculum. Also, my kids just come home with a worksheet, not a book, so I have no idea what they are actually supposed to be doing until I go into their class the next morning and figure it out.
So I was sitting on the couch today and my 3 year old snuck up behind me and jumped into me and managed to bruise my kidney. Talk about freak stuff. It actually hurt so bad when it happened I thought I was going to pass out! My husband had to get out of bed (works nights) and drag me to the doctor and sit in the waiting room with our son, who's crying because he hurt mommy. My husband swears things like this only happen to me.

My Favorite Day - What a great theme! Kudos to your daughter for thinking forward, knowing that with the right mindset your best days are always ahead of you. She should have gotten extra credit!

Please - no new fangled math though!

My daughter came home stumped at her sub (her teacher is out for surgery) is teaching her in math (this is new - she LOVES math and is really good at "getting it") - dividing with decimals. So she tries (and tries is the operative word) to explain all the twist and turns of this "new way" of dividing them. :eek:

I had to sit her down and show her "my" way: move the decimal over in the divisor and then that many again in the number to be divided. Then it's just long division. Bam, done. She looked at me and was stunned at how quick and easy it really was.

Now, my question is this - what in the H%ll are they trying to teach these kids? I've seen some of the other problems come home - and it is so confusing (to me). I can barely help her with her homework at times!

T

[ 11-01-2006, 09:26 PM: Message edited by: crazy4my2 ]

Good Grief! Are my teachers still alive?! Sure sounds like it!
If we still teach kids out of books (understand most don't have the $'s to go high tech like Gates) can't we as taxpayers demand up-to-date books.

Oh here is one, on photosynthesis,,,,,homework is supposed to list all the needs of the plant.....child writes carbondioxide and gets it marked WRONG. .....the answer the teacher wanted was AIR. There was only one right answer in this teachers mind, obviously, or he just didnt know the composition of air, or the mechanism of photosyntehsisi, or the big book theyre using to teach, said the answer is AIR and the teacher follows the book only.