Getting Rid of Cursive Writing?

There has been great debate about whether cursive handwriting should still be part of the elementary curriculum. The main reason that teachers have been disregarding it in their lessons is that cursive is no longer valued as necessary in the age of technology and standard based education. Many teachers have stated to me that they no longer teach it because it is not tested on Virginia Standards of Learning. Their claim is further justified in the fact that the SOLs only have cursive handwriting stated one time - third grade. The few teachers that are teaching it, are only having students learn how to write their names in cursive.

My concern for getting away from cursive, it that we will have several generations of students who will not be able to read our country's historical documents. When students read these now, they are often just reading reprinted blurbs in textbooks. No one ever mentions this fact about accessing our country's early documents.

Just on a whim, I did my Friday lesson, entirely in cursive. Only a fourth of my students could read my science notes. The kids wanted to know how to write and read in cursive because their parents know it and they can't read their parents' notes. This really blew some my colleagues away who did their own gathering of data and got similar findings as I did.

I told the kids that I would teach them but it was going to have to wait until June because we had to get through our SOLs. I had one parent that wrote me and said thanks; I told her she was welcomed and that I hope I don't get fired because I was teaching something not in the SOLs for sixth grade. She quickly responded that if that happened, she would personally bake a cake with a file and set up a collection for me:)

Education in the Great Depression

With all the recent talks about another great depression in the US, I was curious as to what education organizations did to survive the 1930's? They did exactly what I thought they would by cutting services and salaries as was noted by the following author:

The 1930's were a perilous time for public education. With cash money in short supply parents were unable to provide their children with the necessary clothes, supplies, and textbooks (which were not furnished in some states) to attend school. Taxes, especially in rural areas, went unpaid. With the loss of revenue, school boards were forced to try numerous strategies to keep their districts operating. School terms were shortened. Teachers' salaries were cut. One new teacher was paid $40 a month for a five month school year - and was very glad for the job! When a rural county in Arkansas was forced to charge tuition one year in order to keep the schools open, some children were forced to drop out for that year. One farmer was able to barter wood to fuel the classrooms' potbellied stoves for his four children's tuition, thus enabling them to continue their education. The famous Dick and Jane books that taught millions of children to read were first published in 1931. These primers introduced the students to reading with only one new word per page and a limited vocabulary per book. All who learned to read with these books still recall the "Look. See Dick. See Dick run."

There is already some areas that have cut services because of costs without a recession or depression. For example, in Stafford County Public Schools, summer school has been reduced to less than 15 days from 30 days from about 5 years ago. Some districts are experimenting with this 4 day option as a regular week of school from the traditional 5 day while others are experimenting running schools without administrators.

ARe schools ready for a huge economic change if such an event were to happen? My guess is yes; however, the communities that have depended on schools for watching and caring for their children are not prepared which makes me worried.

What students and teachers need to know about the copyright!

Teaching Generation Z has some timely information for teachers and students about copyright. Students (and teachers) are constantly using images off the Internet without knowing all the limitations. As was mentioned at Teaching Generation Z many folks think that if the copyright symbol is not included then it is fair game to use. Not only is this incorrect, the message is not getting to our students quickly enough or our teachers.

Math Interventions for Students with Disabilities

In "Mathematics Interventions for Children with Special Educational Needs: A Meta-Analysis" in Remedial and Special Education Volume 24, Number 2, March/April 2003 by Drs. Kroebergen and Van Luit have concluded some major findings that special education teachers and administrators need to start paying attention to especially since No Child Left Behind requires schools to use scientifically based research practices. The researchers looked at 58 studies focusing on three domains: prepartory mathematics, basic skills (ie. the four classic operations), and problem-solving strateiges. In summary, interventions that involved direct instruction and self-instruction had the greatest effect sizes while computer-assisted instruction and peer tutoring were the least effective.

The implications to teachers and adminstrators of special education students should be quite clear. Over the years, peer tutoring continues to be advocated as an acceptable practice for special educaiton students; however, the results of this study would show otherwise. "One important factor is that peers are less capable of perceiving the needs of other students than teachers." (p.111) The researchers also noted that computer-assisted instruction was also not as effective. While the researchers only conclude that humans are better than machine. I feel that a deeper explanation could be hypothesized: Computers cannot sense when a student is not focusing and therefore off-task hence the learning has stopped. Teachers can redirect students with verbal and non-verbal cues.

It would be interesting to know how many special education students have peer tutoring and computer-assisted instruction accommodations. While I feel confident that most teachers of special education students use direct intruction to initialy teach a concept, I wonder how many put students with peers and/or a computer to reinforce concepts. The reinforcement stage is the most critical to be able to correct miscues in understanding that only an experienced teacher can catch.