I read about the “editing” of books and it makes me seriously concerned. Assuming my kids read similar books when they get to certain grade levels, I feel like the wife and I have to check on them and see what they’re reading. It’s extra work for us, but we’ve long since decided we’re going to be much more involved in our kids’ lives and schooling than our parents did.
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Considering some of the crap people are finding in school libraries that’s always a good idea. But beyond that, I’ve found that talking about what they are reading is an easy button to have a conversation with your children.
This one happened a while back and people are just now noticing?
Among the examples of changes cited by the Telegraph is the 1937 Poirot novel Death on the Nile, in which the character of Mrs Allerton complains that a group of children are pestering her, saying that “they come back and stare, and stare, and their eyes are simply disgusting, and so are their noses, and I don’t believe I really like children”.
This has been stripped down in a new edition to state: “They come back and stare, and stare. And I don’t believe I really like children.”
Actually changes the character…
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That’s disappointing. Funny thing about all this outrage over books needing to be revised, pretty sure kids and even teenagers won’t really give a crap about any of it until adults begin putting that concern in their heads.
I read “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Yes, it’s racist. But it’s a product of its time and it should stay that way so future generations remember where we came from. Nobody gave a crap then (I read it in high school, around 2002), thankfully.
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Oh, another thing.
Critical thinking also need to be taught.
A skill many of us sadly lacks.
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No kidding! I actually stressed that over actual specifics when I was teaching IT. “Here’s your task. How do you figure it out?”. “Here is the issue. How do you trouble shoot it?”
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With my last two daughters, but not so much my first, the issue is defining the task/issue. Once they have someone tell them that they can work the problem. But it seems the identifying the issue part was skipped.
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I spent the better part of a year researching and developing an 8-hour crash course in critical thinking for law enforcement/military in 2019. I ended with a 35-page lesson plan and a deep suspicion that it’s probably impossible.
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All i can think of is Me and Bo not using our damn brains in class…
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Did I teach you any critical thinking and problem solving?
I would like to lie and say no just to be cheeky. But you did, or at least you helped improve what was already there.
Hah, just used it right there.
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Not gonna lie, I didn’t do much critical thinking throughout much of my formal education. Either it wasn’t encouraged enough (too much “this is how you do this, do it the same way”) or it just wasn’t needed. I simply had to follow directions. Granted, this was all public school and I had few good teachers.
Critical thinking became more important during college and when I entered the workforce because now nobody was telling me how to do things most of the time. No clue if I’m doing it right, but I always include details about my thought process for my oldest kid whenever I can, so he knows why I’m doing it and what I’m considering when I make a decision. It’s more than what my parents did for me, at least.
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One of the biggest complaints about Co-ops and private schools and charter schools is the funding goes with the child. To which I have always replied “No shit Sherlock”, and sometimes with a private school it doesn’t leave with the kid. The follow up to that is then that leaves less money for the kids that can’t go to a private school. Oddly enough this is never mentioned when discussing Magnet Schools which have huge amounts of extra funding for CNA, Welding, A+ Certs, or whatever else is hot right now.
So then the solution is to provide more money per student that “can’t” go private… Except Indiana, and the Feds, already do. Indiana pays over 13k a year per student, plus another 9.6k for special education or 2.4k for minor disabilities. 24k a year would likely cover those students with money left over.
Then you look at kids with “complexities”. Behavior, broken families, criminal records, etc… Indiana has a 700 million dollar fund for these kids. Apparently applied based on how many of these “complex” students they have.
Poor kids, schools make money on these kids. Free lunches are a money maker according to our Superintendent, as well as immigrant children.
We have agreed as a society that educating children is important. The NEA has decided that public school and methods they approve is the only acceptable way to do so. Are there bad private schools, sure, but you can fire them and move your kid and take your money with you, you can’t do that with a public school, and public schools can’t even fire a bad teacher.
A lot of bloat at the top in education though. Superfluous administrators making six figures.
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Not just that, but assistants to the assistants. Those 50k jobs add up quick. The school has 4 counselors, for a 1-400 ratio, no front desk worker, and a part time attendance secretary. But the admin building has two people in the lobby 9-5 and another 40 people in the building not including maintenance because they farmed it out…
I’ve never understood this. Of things I know how to cook, rice is the easiest. Water = 2X volume of rice. Bring water to boiling, add pinch of salt, pat of butter, stir in rice, cover and reduce heat to simmer for 15 minutes. Perfect rice, every time.
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Ha… my first time I nearly got it right, except I tried to rinse the rice first, lol.
Now I know. Rinse it last.
And I usually wait till my rice is halfway done, then I add frozen veggies to it, and let it finish. Less waste of energy.
Rinse it first, that way you get all the crap that you don’t want to eat out.
I love today’s rice that you only have to rinse three times and it’s okay if the water is still a bit cloudy. When I was a kid it was coated in talc, so you’d better rinse it very, very thoroughly before cooking it.