Today my daughter came home from school with horrifying information especially to me, an English/Secondary Education graduate, ex-high school teacher, and homeschool mom.
On a lighter scale, her Honors Freshman English, her teacher confessed that she was not a very good speller.
Umm, there is no problem with having spelling challenges, but to be an English teacher and NOT work on improving her spelling? That is lazy and makes me question what kind of education my daughter will receive.
That wasn't the worst of it, however. In class, the teacher afflicted the students with the TV show Friends, an enormously popular, morally bankrupt show with actors playing relatively flat characters. She had enough class to recognize that it could be abhorrent to my daughter, since she had revealed in her initial paper that she was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called Mormon. Unfortunately, my daughter has had very little exposure to today's television programs since we have rarely had cable television and have restricted TV viewing so she trusted that the show would be fine if it was being shown in her English class. She hates having attention drawn to her so she chose to stay. Ugh. Nasty lesson for her.
Excuse me, but that show has so-called "adult" content. So adult that I'm not old enough to subject myself to it. Why would I want to? There is nothing good or praiseworthy in it. It teaches that drama is the order of the day, and that immorality is the norm and should be encouraged. In this era where teen pregnancies are topping the list of societal ills that are costing this country millions in welfare measures, having a show like that shown and therefore implicitly condoned in a public high school simply does not make sense. That just starts the list of negative facets of that show. Yes, I know it was popular. Yes, I know that I may lose friends for expressing my opinion of such a popular show. So I'm not Facebooking it. However, I have the expectation that education is essentially worthless unless it uplifts the individual and the society. Depravity is easily found and requires no skill or education. Classics require more discernment.
My next objection to this choice of examples for which the students were to describe characterization is simple. The characters are flat. Stereotypical.
Last, the students were required to read one of two novels over the summer. Why weren't those books used as source material for the assignment? I did not read the one selection because a few reviewers on Amazon revealed parts of the plot that were distasteful to both my daughter and I. The other, Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, was rife with wonderful characterizations.
Which takes me to my next problem with this "Honors" Freshman English class. From what I can tell, there is no difference between the Honors Freshman English and English 1 right down to the summer reading assignments. I expected it to be run at a higher level, requiring higher order thinking and reading. I expected full-scale analysis, not 5 sentences.
In another class, my daughter was dealt a different kind of blow. She was told, along with the other students, that she would have to turn in their science books at the end of the week because there aren't enough texts for everyone. She was so excited to read that text! Now she won't be able to devour it as she wanted. I was astonished.
On a lighter scale, her Honors Freshman English, her teacher confessed that she was not a very good speller.
Umm, there is no problem with having spelling challenges, but to be an English teacher and NOT work on improving her spelling? That is lazy and makes me question what kind of education my daughter will receive.
That wasn't the worst of it, however. In class, the teacher afflicted the students with the TV show Friends, an enormously popular, morally bankrupt show with actors playing relatively flat characters. She had enough class to recognize that it could be abhorrent to my daughter, since she had revealed in her initial paper that she was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called Mormon. Unfortunately, my daughter has had very little exposure to today's television programs since we have rarely had cable television and have restricted TV viewing so she trusted that the show would be fine if it was being shown in her English class. She hates having attention drawn to her so she chose to stay. Ugh. Nasty lesson for her.
Excuse me, but that show has so-called "adult" content. So adult that I'm not old enough to subject myself to it. Why would I want to? There is nothing good or praiseworthy in it. It teaches that drama is the order of the day, and that immorality is the norm and should be encouraged. In this era where teen pregnancies are topping the list of societal ills that are costing this country millions in welfare measures, having a show like that shown and therefore implicitly condoned in a public high school simply does not make sense. That just starts the list of negative facets of that show. Yes, I know it was popular. Yes, I know that I may lose friends for expressing my opinion of such a popular show. So I'm not Facebooking it. However, I have the expectation that education is essentially worthless unless it uplifts the individual and the society. Depravity is easily found and requires no skill or education. Classics require more discernment.
My next objection to this choice of examples for which the students were to describe characterization is simple. The characters are flat. Stereotypical.
Last, the students were required to read one of two novels over the summer. Why weren't those books used as source material for the assignment? I did not read the one selection because a few reviewers on Amazon revealed parts of the plot that were distasteful to both my daughter and I. The other, Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, was rife with wonderful characterizations.
Which takes me to my next problem with this "Honors" Freshman English class. From what I can tell, there is no difference between the Honors Freshman English and English 1 right down to the summer reading assignments. I expected it to be run at a higher level, requiring higher order thinking and reading. I expected full-scale analysis, not 5 sentences.
In another class, my daughter was dealt a different kind of blow. She was told, along with the other students, that she would have to turn in their science books at the end of the week because there aren't enough texts for everyone. She was so excited to read that text! Now she won't be able to devour it as she wanted. I was astonished.
