Re: Camping at high tide


"Nathan Sanders" <nathansanders@xxxxxxx> wrote:

"Obveeus" <Obveeus@xxxxxxx> wrote:

"Nathan Sanders" <nathansanders@xxxxxxx> wrote:

"Obveeus" <Obveeus@xxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm not convinced that Huckleberry Finn, for example is beyond the
level
of all
4th graders

And that's why you shouldn't be teaching fourth graders. If you don't
know what is and is not an appropriate reading level for
eight-year-olds, you have no business teaching them.

According to this website:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/guidedreading/pdfs/GuidedReading_Leveli
ng_Stickers.pdf
Huckleberry Finn is designed for the 6th grade. If you honestly believe
that no 4th graders are capable of reading a 6th grade level book, then
you
are a champion of teaching medioctrity.

Daniel covered this. Even a two-year difference in level of material
is a big deal for the class.

(By the way, I noticed how you started trying to limit the discussion
to just individual advanced students. The discussion was about what
is appropriate for the class as a whole, so quit moving the goal
posts.)

I'm not trying to limit discussion to advanced students. I made the comment
that Huckleberry Finn wouldn't be too advanced for all 4th graders and you
claimed that belief would make me unfit for the classroom. Are you now
saying that you misread what I wrote and that you agree that Huckleberry
Finn isn't too advanced for all 4th graders or are you sticking with your
original insinuation that no person believing that should ever be allowed to
teach?

You stated that it was ok for 4th graders to learn the word 'masticate'
because you recall learning sex ed with stuff about masturbation in the
fourth grade.

I said "probably okay". I haven't been a fourth grader in about
twenty-five years! Since I don't teach fourth grade, I am not on a
school board overseeing fourth grade education, and I don't have a kid
in fourth grade, I don't know whether the normal timeline *now*
includes sex ed in fourth grade. (I'm sure it varies by region, too.)

I can't quite tell...are you still tying the appropriateness of teaching the
word 'masticate' to the timeline at which students are taught about
mastrubation?

So, the teachers get a list of sound alike words that are not ok to
use/teach from the schoolboard or from the public or what, exactly?

Quit harping on "sound alike". As I have said repeatedly, that's a
secondary point that really only has relevance once the issue of
level-appropriateness has already been broken.

You have said repeatedly that there is a two tiered level where first a
lexical issue comes into play and then, and only then, do the sound alike
fears become an issue?

Yes, the teachers should in general be getting a list of what topics
and materials, including reading lists and vocabulary words, are
appropriate for the grade they're teaching. One of the ways that
teachers can get into trouble is to deviate from that list in ways
that the school board and/or local community find unacceptable.
That's how the job works, and every teacher knows it and signs a
contract solidifying that understanding.

While all of what you wrote just above is true, I don't think it translates
logically to a belief that a teacher is an 'idiot' if they use a word in
class that is not included on the normal spelling tests or in the booklists
for that grade.

For example, I have no ability to comprehend why
'fug' would be off limits any more than 'funk'.

Really? Seriously?! You don't have a single clue at all why "fug"
would be less appropriate than "funk" for preparing fourth graders for
the kinds of readings they are likely to encounter at their age?
Really?! Are you that utterly blind to the comparative frequencies of
these two words?

Do you notice when you change the topic?

(You're just *now* noticing that this is what I've been talking
about?!)

You keep changing what you have been talking about. Evidence of that goes
right back to the start when the topic was a word in a classroom and you
went off on some sort of tangent about subdialects and subcultures that you
have since denied has any relation to the discussion. How were we to know?

There is a difference betwen
claiming that one word is more useful than another to teach and claiming
that one word is inappropriate due to its sound alike aspects while
another
is not.

Bingo! Finally, I'm breaking through! There most certainly is a
difference, and a word being "more useful" is what I consider most
important, *as I have continued to state over and over in practically
every single response to you*.

Fine. You now want to stand on the 'firm ground' that you have always been
limiting your discussions to what word is 'more useful'. So, while standing
on that ground, do you still want to proclaim a teacher to be an 'idiot' if
they use some other word than the 'more useful' one? Should they be pulled
from the classroom if they introduce a word that isn't 'more useful'?

It's about time it sank in. I think if I go back to count, the magic
number is around 10 times that something needs to be repeated before
you understand it. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

It must be more than 10 because, while I have noticed you repeatedly trying
to insult me, I haven't noticed you explaining the idiot/racist claim
towards the teacher based upon her use of one word with any degree of
logic/satisfaction yet. Meanwhile, you keep flip flopping around about
whether the teacher should be removed from the classroom for said offense.
It seems we may never get to a point where I understand what your original
claim was..

And then I add:

"The fact that it also just happens to be uncomfortably similar to a
taboo racial epithet is just an additional reason an intelligent
person wouldn't have used it in front of fourth-graders, many of whom
were black."

This implies it would be less wrong to use the word 'niggardly' in a
classroom with only white children present...or was there some other reason
for the words 'many of whom were black'?

Note the piece that says "just an additional reason". I have, since
the very beginning of my participation on this topic, explicitly
placed utmost primacy on frequency of usage and how that relates to
appropriateness, with the issue of phonetic similarity to taboo
vocabulary being explicitly ranked below that.

Really, I don't see how you missed this, because it's been a clear,
consistent, overt point throughout my entire series of posts.

A point that I have been trying to get you to translate over to your comment
about being a racist or an idiot based upon that one word.

Now you seem to
be implying that a teacher should be removed from the classroom if they
introduce words that are less useful.

Hey, now you're getting it! You're damn right.

Ok. So, you have now agreed to your earlier implied claim that any teacher
caught using words that are 'less useful' should be removed from the
classroom.
Maybe I don't need to inquire further about your teaching beliefs. I think
4th grade teachers should be there to expand a child's horizons rather than
just babysit and cattledrive. You think that it is of utmost importance
that they limit all speech to the restricted vocabulary level of 4th graders
or that they be removed from the classroom..

If time is being
taken away from learning *useful* things (in particular, those that
the school board and local community have deemed to be useful), in
order for the teacher to teach things that are much less useful, and
especially things that are clearly potentially incendiary, then you
can bet said teacher will be in hot water.

Ah, now see, you have introduced some sort of time element as wiggle room.
I agree with you that if the teacher were wasting half or each day on
pompous wording and philosophic garbage discussions they should be removed
from the classroom. However, if one word slips out in a year...or even one
word per week...or even one word per day, I don't think that they need to be
removed from the classroom. YMMV.

You can't just whip out condoms in the middle of a random class and
start talking about birth control options, no matter how instructive
or beneficial you think that might be.

What if you are in nutrition class and talking about 'masticating'? Hmmm,
maybe you don't need condoms for that?

Seriously, what have condoms got to do with teaching a single word that is
not a 'bad word', but sounds like one?

There are guidelines set forth
by the administration and community, guidelines that cover what you
are supposed to be teaching, and frequently, even explicit guidelines
about what you are *not* supposed to be teaching.

and those guidelines don't nail things down to a list of non 'bad' words
that are still not acceptable and you know it.

If a teacher wants to contradict those guidelines, then she needs to
be prepared to face the consequences. And if she didn't think there
would be consequences, she's an idiot. And idiots shouldn't be
teaching our children.

Those that can't do, teach,

(There's that pesky implication again! Can you handle it?)

(I can add a pesky implication of my own. Can you handle it?)

*That* is the big problem here. She *should* have known better. She
*should* have been able to foresee the potential problems. She
*should* have displayed a minimum level of common sense and good
judgment to know to avoid the word in that setting. But she didn't,

Not being there, you don't know what the setting or discussion even
entailed.


.

Loading