A former teacher explains one of the reasons why she left teaching.

Keep the people dumb, and you can do whatever you want. - Some politician, somewhere. It is so disappointing that we fail these children, whose prospects in life are needlessly tanked because we feel bad.

I knew something was wrong when my 9th grade teacher said I was at a “college reading level” and I was just reading books like Twilight and Eragon.

I think one unstated incentive for doing a lot of what she’s describing is the fact that often some funding is contingent, at least in part, on passing rates. My state at least does that to an extent, and it creates incentives to game the system.

It’s not the only factor, but it’s certainly a factor.

Too long, can't read

“in teaching we were told sounding it out is a bad thing” wtf?? that’s literally how i learned how to pronounce a lot of words

My wife and I retired from careers in education about eight years ago. I have a daughter in law who is a teacher. The major problem we saw was a never ending erosion of parents emphasizing the importance of education to their children, while simultaneously not supporting teachers, and instead basically working against them creating a hostile environment. Not to mention administrators who are too afraid of parents to support their teachers.

Yeahhhh I have tutored kids in reading and I cannot even tell you how many times during a session a kid would take one look at the word, and then instead of trying to figure out what it said, they’d immediately look up at me and just start naming off words that started out with the same/similar letters (always with a question mark at the end of each word) & I’d say, “Don’t guess. Let’s look at the word together, take your time, and sound it out.”

It made me sad bc I could tell a good number of them felt that sounding out the words was too daunting to even try and like it made them nervous. I also got the feeling they felt very rushed normally so it didn’t feel natural when I told them it’s okay to take their time, no matter how long it takes.

But what they’re being taught in school is to base everything off “sight words” like the video says which I think is ultimately such a handicap. It’s incredibly disappointing that this has been adopted into the core curriculum and is doing the students zero favors.

The biggest successes I had were with the students who felt comfortable enough to take the time to sound things out which takes a lot of patience on their part, esp if their homeroom teachers are actively telling them NOT to do it that way. I’m amazed most teachers go along w it tbh bc it’s very obviously inhibiting students’ potential.

Man now I wanna start tutoring again.

No Child Left Behind was a lie based on fake numbers and sold as a solution over 25 years ago from TX to the rest of the US.

I learned to read because my older brother and sister could and I could not.

That really chapped my ass so I learned to read.

Showed those mother fuckers what was really up.

I'm surprised how many people can't spell at work.