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yardwork

(69,648 posts)
14. Ironically, the right-wing extremism is removing a previously strong educational pillar.
Sun Oct 15, 2023, 12:29 PM
Oct 2023

I grew up in a very conservative, rural area. Almost all of my teachers were quite conservative, but in those days that meant "hard work, personal responsibility, respect, strong ethics."

I had a fourth grade teacher who was mean, narrow-minded, and fairly uneducated. However, she read to her classroom, and she filled the bookshelves with classics and Newberry Award winning books. She read us Charlotte's Web, Treasure Island. Our classroom had Narnia books, plus all the SRA materials. The school library - which had been a high school library - had Edgar Allen Poe and other "adult" authors.

This would never happen now. The 21st century version of my 4th grade teacher would ban every one of those books. Something crucial has been lost.

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When I was a kid, we had SRA XanaDUer2 Oct 2023 #1
My school too! But if IIRC, it was rainbow colored & might be interpreted as WOKE! CrispyQ Oct 2023 #8
It was multicolored XanaDUer2 Oct 2023 #10
LOL. I just posted below about phonics! CrispyQ Oct 2023 #18
I really liked that system. 2naSalit Oct 2023 #11
I loved SRA. I blew through my elementary school's supply of SRA modules in no time flat. Aristus Oct 2023 #19
I remember those treestar Oct 2023 #21
Kick dalton99a Oct 2023 #2
I don't remember how reading was taught at school. Ocelot II Oct 2023 #3
Phonics "sound it out" is a phrase I dimly remember. yorkster Oct 2023 #5
I do remember... 2naSalit Oct 2023 #9
My mother was an elementary school teacher. I have no idea when I learned to read, but ... planetc Oct 2023 #22
"Sound it out." I remember that. I just don't remember learning to read Ocelot II Oct 2023 #24
I think you're demonstraing my point: "But even after we got television we still read all the time" planetc Oct 2023 #29
Right With Ya! ProfessorGAC Oct 2023 #26
Yes, reading cereal boxes! Ocelot II Oct 2023 #27
I took a "teaching to read" course cyclonefence Oct 2023 #4
Ironically, the right-wing extremism is removing a previously strong educational pillar. yardwork Oct 2023 #14
I learned to read with phonics instruction, and I use my decoding skills to this day. Lonestarblue Oct 2023 #6
My brother was in one of the initial grades in the '60s, RicROC Oct 2023 #7
See and Say was a disaster unc70 Oct 2023 #15
As someone who taught reading for more than thirty years senseandsensibility Oct 2023 #12
My children - now in their 30s - were subjected to this approach. yardwork Oct 2023 #13
I knew this was true ExWhoDoesntCare Oct 2023 #16
When I was a kid we had phonics in first grade. CrispyQ Oct 2023 #17
Similar Sympthsical Oct 2023 #20
LOL. I'd forgotten the schwa. CrispyQ Oct 2023 #25
In '89 I was in an ed psych program. Igel Oct 2023 #23
I never heard of this "Calkins Method" before now... jmowreader Oct 2023 #28
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