• Home
  • Login
  • Registration
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS
ESLarticle.com
Tweet
  • Home
  • Articles
  • Blog
  • Members
  • Add Article

Top Categories

Teaching 509
Other 210
Classroom Management 138
Career Development 135
Learning Methodology 121
Study Skills 90
E-Learning/CALL 87
English Language Learning (ELL) 78
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) 77
Teaching Methodology 76
English Language Teaching (ELT) 73
English as a Second Language (ESL) 64
Teach in Shanghai
Home / Articles / Other / View Article

Publishing

  • Articles
  • Add Article
  • Articles Archive
  • Latest Articles
  • Popular Articles

Latest Articles

Jan 5, 2019

Metacognition in Reading Competency

As related to the reading process, metacognition can be defined as contemplation concerning one's own thinking processes or knowledge of one's own...

Jan 5, 2019

Mass Media Literacy Reflections for Language Instructions

"You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself." Galileo Galilei Mass media forms thrive today. As development...

Nov 30, 2018

Ideas for the First Class with New Learners

~~The first class with new learners can be an anxious one for all concerned – teacher as well as learners. Below are some tips to make that first...

Nov 19, 2018

10 Amazing Hacks for English Learners

10 Amazing Hacks for English Learners It is estimated that there are over a billion English speakers in the world, including native speakers,...

Nov 15, 2018

Building Reading and Writing Knowledge with Very Young Children at Hom

Education Today, December 2013 Building Reading and Writing Knowledge with Very Young Children at Home  Timothy G. Weih University of Northern...

Popular Articles

1127842 Views

5 Creative Ways to Decorate Your Classroom Bulletin Board This Winter

Back to school, fall leaves, Thanksgiving and Christmas all easily lend themselves to great decorating themes, but what to do when those are over...

366766 Views

Three Unique Ideas To Make Your Bulletin Board More Useful

Bulletin boards have long been existent in campuses. They have proven to be such versatile and useful aids in both the learning and teaching...

133183 Views

History of the Chalkboard

Walk into just about any classroom and you will find one: A dark green board on the wall, lined with pieces of chalk and felt erasers. Chalkboards,...

62939 Views

Report Card Comments

For a small minority, writing report cards isn't a big deal. But most teachers generally dread report card writing time. Completing the comment...

41397 Views

The Most Useful American Business Words

The Most Useful American Business Words: Here's a list that will come in handy for any student enrolled in an English as a Second Language (ESL)...


Eight Warning Signs of a Bad School

by Bruce Deitrick Price

Aug 28, 2009 Other 3388 Views

_notregistered/art_2721_9dc311b099~.jpg

How do parents find a good school? Not only are public schools crippled by dozens of bad ideas, but the schools seem intentionally designed so that parents cannot understand what's really going on inside the classrooms. Probably it's more practical to stay alert for the danger signs that can be observed from a distance. Here's a checklist of the top eight signals that you don't want your child in this school:

1) READING: The most important skill is reading. If you hear any mention of Whole Words, Sight Words, Dolch Words, Fry Words, or Balanced Literacy, run the other way. English is in alphabetic/phonetic language, and should be taught phonetically. Children must immediately learn the alphabet, and that letters stand for sounds. (There seem to be five or 10 good phonics programs available. I'm not convinced the small differences matter. What's been killing us is this one big difference: teaching basic alphabetic information or NOT teaching it. Any synthetic phonics program, mixed with poetry, song, and a light touch, seems to do the trick. Advocates of phonics report that virtually all their students learn to read by age 7. Advocates of Whole Word say children should memorize a few hundred words each year, in which case they'll be effectively illiterate through high school.)

2) MATH: The next most important thing is arithmetic. If you hear any mention of Reform Math, run the other way. (Reform Math is an umbrella term for at least 10 different programs, with names such as Everyday Math, Connected Math, MathLand, TERC, CPM, etc.) These programs tend to push advanced concepts at children who don't even know how to add 10 and 16. These programs like to use obscure methods and algorithms so that children end up confused and scattered. The proper goal is that children gain mastery of basic arithmetic, for example, easily adding and subtracting one- and two-digit numbers. Then they move on to multiplying and dividing one- and two-digit numbers. There should be no use of calculators, no "spiraling" about from topic to topic, no mention of college-level concepts.

3) KNOWLEDGE: The next most important thing is that children are routinely expected to acquire knowledge. This used to be ordinary; but for 75 years our educators have waged war against content, facts, and memorization. "They can look it up" is a huge danger signal. To study history, for example, requires that children first learn the names of oceans, continents, rivers, mountains, and countries. Basic geography should be a staple throughout the first few years; there should be maps in every classroom, both of the US and the world. In general, in all subjects, children should first be taught the very simplest information, the essentials, the foundational knowledge, all in preparation for studying the subject at a higher level. If children do not learn the names of the oceans in the first grade, they are not at a school but a babysitting service.

4) SCIENCE: Children should be taught, from the start, the rudiments of science and scientific thinking. For example, children can look at  common objects and say whether they are animal, vegetable or mineral. Children should be able to talk about water changing from solid to liquid to steam. Older children should be able to discuss the different kinds of problems dealt with by doctors, chemists, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, etc. Studying simple maps, diagrams, charts, illustrations and blueprints is a good sign. (Put it another way, I can't imagine that a bad school would think of teaching children to understand simple diagrams in first grade.)

5) CONSTRUCTIVISM: One of the big fads raging in some public schools is called constructivism. (It can turn up in the teaching of any subject.) The giveaways are phrases such as "construct new knowledge," "guide at their side," "prior knowledge," "learning strategies," etc. All of these stand in direct contrast to direct instruction, whereby expert teachers teach what they know better than anyone else in the room.  "A sage on a stage" is exactly what children need. Constructivism devalues the skill and preparation that good teachers bring to the schoolroom; and helps to conceal the poor training of bad teachers. Constructivism guarantees that instruction will move slowly and be fragmented.

6) FADS RUN RAMPANT: Other popular fads to be avoided include: Self Esteem (where children are constantly praised and awarded good grades even if doing a bad job); Cooperative Learning (where children are constantly forced to work in groups so they never learn to think for themselves); Critical Thinking (where children are encouraged to engage in deep discussions of subjects they know little about); Creativity Curriculum (where playing with the arts is given prominence over learning knowledge); and Fuzzy Anything (where children are allowed to guess, to concoct odd spellings and odd grammar without correction, to be wrong but still be graded as if correct). All of these are warning signs.

7) GOALS: Perhaps the most distinctive trait of good schools is that they talk about what will be taught and what will be accomplished. There are goals and expectations. There is a sense that the school has a map and  has traveled the road many times before. Bad schools are distinguished by an endless litany of excuses and alibis. There is a sense that these schools don't have clear goals, and they don't really expect to advance very far. In bad schools, a lot of what happens is actually a sort of make-believe whereby children are kept busy doing pretend-work that doesn't add up to very much. Perhaps the most disgusting part of the whole charade is that some of these schools will pretend that they are being considerate of the children, that they don't want to push them too far, and they don't want to expose the inadequacies of poor and minority children. All of this, it seems to me, is the merest drivel, not to mention racist. Children need to be challenged and pushed, not to the point where they give up but to the point where they think, "Wow, look at me go."

8) SAFETY: A signal that cuts across all the others might be called basic orderliness and security. Schools should be safe places, both law-abiding and predictable. The point is that children should be able to relax so they can learn. A scary school ceases to be a school. The Principal (comparable to a small town's Mayor and Sheriff) is a crucial figure in this paradigm: he or she sets the tone. Principals explain goals and policies to students and parents; principals motivate and support teachers. (This might be called the Principal Principle.)

Summary: The Tao of Education is very simple. Learning basics and academics is the goal, and the path to that goal. Facts and knowledge are the lifeblood of the classroom. Teaching should be as creative as possible; schools should be fun and student should smile a lot. But the whole process has to go somewhere, has to advance. At the end of each day, students know more than they did the day before. The problem with American education is that elite educators shifted away from knowledge-based education (a/k/a cognitive learning) toward feeling-based education (a/k/a affective learning).

A lot of psychotherapeutic prejudices were mixed in with a contempt for facts and a disregard of foundational knowledge, including even literacy. The result, as one would expect, would be a very dumbed-down, mediocre school, such you might find in any American city. The solution is to ignore the bad ideas that caused the trouble, turn away from the touchy-feely cliches, and seriously try to render service to students by giving them the best possible preparation for the rest of their lives.

Many of these themes are explored in depth on the author's site, Improve-Education.org; for example, 34: The Con In Constructivism; 36: The Assault on Math; 40: Sight Words - The Big Stupid. The themes are also explored in his 30 graphic videos on YouTube and his blog, EducationImproved.

Article source: http://eslarticle.com/pub/other/2721-eight-warning-signs-of-a-bad-school.html

  • General Information
  • Pictures
Author Info

Author Name: Bruce Deitrick Price

About Author: Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist, poet and education activist. He writes widely about education.

General

Pictures:

Most Recent Articles

  • Oct 6, 2018 Ideas on How to Reduce the Stress of Teaching by Bruce Deitrick Price
  • Sep 26, 2018 Play schools – The best option of learning for your child by Bruce Deitrick Price
  • Mar 15, 2018 Educational games for kids | Build skills by bonding by Bruce Deitrick Price
  • Aug 26, 2017 How To Select Your SBMPTN Tutoring Service? by Bruce Deitrick Price
  • Jun 28, 2017 Simple ways to ensure you undergo personal growth development by Bruce Deitrick Price

Actions

  • Print Page

Articles Archive

  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020

Random Articles

Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)

TAVI, TALO and TASP through the prism of Virginia Woolf

The paper is about three ways of applying texts in the EFL classroom. They are TAVI, TALO and TASP. The paper's secondary focus is on the use of...

Writing

Top 7 Tips to Write a Brilliant Essay

To know how to write an essay first and foremost you should identify the type of essay you are about to write. When we talk about the essay types,...

Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)

The Middle East and Arriving on the Right Foot

This article identifies and discusses distinctions among Middle Eastern countries for EFL teachers. It also shares useful tips on how to arrive...

TOEFL/TOEIC/IELTS

Common Tips to Pass IELTS Exam - Listening

Getting 9 bands is a tough job but not impossible. As an IELTS trainer, I have come across a lot of students who work hard but don't possess the...

Teaching Methodology

Alternative Educational Methods

21st century, latest technological gadgets and modern outlook - we seem to have everything. There's still something which we crave for when it...

About ESL Article

ESL Article is a private ESL/TEFL site designed and maintained by educators and educational administrators. It was launched in August 2008 with the aim of bringing ESL/TEFL students, parents, teachers and schools information and articles about the teaching profession and learning community.

Icon Group Member

ESL Article is a member of Icon Group Thailand (IGT), a group of ESL TEFL TESOL websites providing educational resources and information to teachers, schools and students around the world. The group was founded in 2003 and now includes 15+ websites covering educational information services, teaching resources and e-learning.

What is ESL?

English as a second language (ESL) is the use or study of English by speakers of different native languages. It is also known as English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), English as an additional language (EAL), and English as a foreign language (EFL).

  • Home
  • Registration
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Help
  • Partner
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
​

© 2021 ESLarticle.com.
Member of Icon Group Thailand - Educating the Future:
TESall All TESOL  Total ESL  ESL Job Feed
TEFL World  TEFL Jobs Overseas  Teach Overseas
Asia TEFL  ESL Powerpoint  Teacher Training