What Your School is Hiding From You

Like this story?

What Your School is Hiding From You

Sunday, January 13, 2008

These Moms discovered schools don't necessarily tell parents all.

Trying to get a grade-schooler to talk about their day can be next to impossible, but when we started talking amongst ourselves we found more skeletons in our schools' closets than we liked.

Examples: One Mom here signed her child up for cello lessons at her public elementary school. After a few weeks, she asked her daughter how it was going. Her daughter said the cello was fine, but that she was missing out on spelling lessons. Apparently, she was being pulled out of class for cello lessons when the others were being drilled on spelling and vocabulary. This Mom was outraged, especially since this was the first time she was hearing about this. She wanted her kid to be cultured, but also wanted her to be able to spell "cultured." Was that asking too much?

Another Mom at Mom•Logic said she found out through the grapevine that her son's elementary school was cutting all physical education and art classes next year. When she asked the principal about it, he said recess was just as good as P.E., so what's the difference? (Wrong answer!)

And after our "sex in schools" Momvestigation, we were flooded with notes from parents who felt that their schools turned a blind eye to the sexual activity that was taking place on school grounds, and adamantly denied it was happening even when there was evidence to the contrary.

So... have you found out something your school didn't want you to know? We're gathering stories on this topic and would love to know yours.

2 comments so far | Post a comment now >>

Sex in school does not fall into the same category as the academic issues. The test-crazed world we now live in makes schools choose core academic subjects (math, science, english, social studies) over non-core (art, PE, music, etc). Government money, teacher salaries and jobs all depend on how students do on these stupid tests. Students are required to know more now than they ever have in the past, and there isn’t enough time in the day fore everything. While the principal saying that PE is the same as recess is a blow-off comment at best, its hardly surprising that these classes are going the way of the Do-Do. As for the cello vs. spelling, I find it hard to believe that the child missed every spelling class. It would be more logical that the music class would be 2x a week and the rest of the week in spelling. Last time I checked, drill and kill spelling exercises weren’t the only way to learn spelling. These drills can be done at home. A better way to learn to spell is to read a lot, in and out of school. Passing a spelling test one week does not guarantee that the student can spell the same words the following week. Music on the other hand has been shown to boost thinking in all areas. Basically, I don’t think these activities (not including the sex in school issue) are as nefarious as this blog post makes it out to be. They aren’t necessarily ideal, but times being what they are, core academics unfortunately trump non-core.

- Renee

Posted 01/13/08 02:55 PM

When else would they fit in cello lessons? They don’t have “study hall” in school anymore (and haven’t for generations). I had flute lessons during the day in elementary school. They did rotate the schedule, though, so you’d miss a different portion of class each week. The lack of art and PE is a bummer. It’s budget, though, not the administration being sneaky. Your legislators are the key players there.

- EG

Posted 01/14/08 10:16 AM

Name:
Email:	(not displayed)
URL:
	remember me? Yes No
Comment:
	Avoid clicking “Post” more than once.

Newsletter sign up

What Your School is Hiding From You

Related Stories:

2 comments so far | Post a comment now >>