I have a question that I thought I'd ask the board:

What are grade schools like these days? In California (where we just moved away from) I got the distinct impression (from friends at church who had kids) that a grade school teacher's main job is to pick which iPad apps to assign. The teachers seemed to do little actual "teaching."

Is this the case everywhere? How many in-class hours are spent on computers/iPads at different age levels these days?

I'm mostly interested in hearing from people who are teachers or who have kids who are currently in school.


I'm asking because I have a kindergartener that we decided to homeschool this year mostly because we were in the middle of a move and thought it would be easier than changing schools multiple times so rapidly. She's ahead of where I was at her age and I'm more concerned about her social and physical development than academic achievement for the next few years. So if school time is mostly spent staring at a screen then that doesn't really help much for physical or social development.

We had a pretty good elementary school (K-5 here) experience even at an under-performing school in Raleigh. Turns out the school was mainly getting poor ratings because there are a few apartment communities that go to the school full of transients. So kids would move to town a week before EOG tests and take them and do poorly and it would reflect on the teachers/school. 5 of the 6 teachers my kid had were excellent and the 6th one was just old and probably checked out from dealing with little kids.

In middle school, however, we're finding more reliance on iPads to teach. My daughter was struggling with math and stayed after for extra instruction and was told to watch some youtube videos. She said her teacher doesn't teach and when we went to walk the schedule night, sure enough, the teacher said she didn't like to stand up in front of the class and would rather the kids work in groups to solve the problems without her. ?????? WTF???? We complained to the principal but not much has been done.

My ex taught in a middle school in east Montgomery County, which is probably about as close to Deliverance as you can get on flat land. They didn't have the resources to rely in iPads and the like, so their use of any electronic devices was minimal.

At the other extreme, my understanding is that Allen ISD, in wealthy suburban north Dallas, issues all students laptops and uses no textbooks--everything is either on disk or other media, or comes online. They are the ones who built the $60 million HS football stadium, so money is clearly no object for them.

(10-17-2018 05:45 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  My ex taught in a middle school in east Montgomery County, which is probably about as close to Deliverance as you can get on flat land. They didn't have the resources to rely in iPads and the like, so their use of any electronic devices was minimal.

At the other extreme, my understanding is that Allen ISD, in wealthy suburban north Dallas, issues all students laptops and uses no textbooks--everything is either on disk or other media, or comes online. They are the ones who built the $60 million HS football stadium, so money is clearly no object for them.

My daughter ordered a copy of one of her textbooks from Amazon for $11. She was tired of reading the online version on her tablet.

My son is in 4th grade and it has been 100% traditional teaching this far.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

My wife has taught 3rd and 4th grade for about the last ten years in southern OH. They have computer labs, and a few computers in each classroom, but that's it for technology. All text books are good ol paper.

What you will hear constantly is teaching to the state standards, essentially benchmarks that should be achieved in knowledge for each grade level. Issue with that is at her grade level nearly 100% of the focus of those standards is on math, reading and writing, so science and civics suffer in the amount of time allotted.

My wife works hard to give those subjects attention each week, but many teachers don't do anything with them because they aren't measured on them.

Geezus I just had an hour conversation with my 5th grader about her homework and her iPad.

I have a senior in HS, an 8th grader, 5th grader, and a 1st grader.

The 1st grader has more homework than the other three... at least on paper because his grade is not 100% on iPad.

I love the technology and the fact our system provides the kids the technology to learn in a way that will prepare them for the future.... BUT

It's a lot harder on parents to manage on a daily basis what the kids are learning and how they are learning the material.

No books all iPads. It's been a big adjustment over the last few years to try and validate they actually did their homework and know the material.

A good outcome of the technology is monitoring grades on a more regular basis. It's more real time.

I do get a feeling that certain teachers are relying more on the technology and not teaching the material in a traditional sense.




Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

(10-17-2018 09:36 PM)maximus Wrote:  Geezus I just had an hour conversation with my 5th grader about her homework and her iPad.

I have a senior in HS, an 8th grader, 5th grader, and a 1st grader.

The 1st grader has more homework than the other three... at least on paper because his grade is not 100% on iPad.

I love the technology and the fact our system provides the kids the technology to learn in a way that will prepare them for the future.... BUT

It's a lot harder on parents to manage on a daily basis what the kids are learning and how they are learning the material.

No books all iPads. It's been a big adjustment over the last few years to try and validate they actually did their homework and know the material.

A good outcome of the technology is monitoring grades on a more regular basis. It's more real time.

I do get a feeling that certain teachers are relying more on the technology and not teaching the material in a traditional sense.




Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

I'm fortunate in that I am able to rely on trust that the work has been done. So far I have not been betrayed. I do have 2 little girls that haven't started school yet so I am sure my luck will run out, but my 4th grader's schooling has required 0 parental effort for all As.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

so far it's tradition here in St Johns County Florida. I have a 3rd and a 7th.

It's just high school experience but when my oldest was in 11th grade the school district started moving to Ipads so he still had a mix. My youngest moved to high school the year after my oldest graduated and they were strictly Ipads and no textbooks. The biggest problem I saw was the fact that each school only had a limited number of spares and everyone knows that electronic devices will break, especially when handled by kids. My son broke his and there wasn't a spare available. Luckily my wife's employer had just upgraded their Ipads and still had the old ones so we were able to obtain something fairly quickly for him to use, and the school's IT lady was happy to help get it set up for him.

(10-17-2018 05:38 PM)Chappy Wrote:  We had a pretty good elementary school (K-5 here) experience even at an under-performing school in Raleigh. Turns out the school was mainly getting poor ratings because there are a few apartment communities that go to the school full of transients. So kids would move to town a week before EOG tests and take them and do poorly and it would reflect on the teachers/school. 5 of the 6 teachers my kid had were excellent and the 6th one was just old and probably checked out from dealing with little kids.

In middle school, however, we're finding more reliance on iPads to teach. My daughter was struggling with math and stayed after for extra instruction and was told to watch some youtube videos. She said her teacher doesn't teach and when we went to walk the schedule night, sure enough, the teacher said she didn't like to stand up in front of the class and would rather the kids work in groups to solve the problems without her. ?????? WTF???? We complained to the principal but not much has been done.

A switch from textbooks to Ipads isn't necessarily bad - it may not be ideal for their eyes, but then again too much reading small-print books is bad too.

But your story is alarming to me. I don't want teachers/schools that use Ipad apps as a crutch to substitute for actual teaching. Not only do kids learn less, but it makes them spend 4+ hours a day on the computer before coming home at night.

I had one friend in CA whose 2nd grader was in a magnet program that gave her 40 minutes of IPad homework assignments every night. They were able to switch teachers, but I shudder to think of the type of lives that are lived by the "advanced" children who stayed with that teacher.

(10-17-2018 05:31 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  I have a question that I thought I'd ask the board:

What are grade schools like these days? In California (where we just moved away from) I got the distinct impression (from friends at church who had kids) that a grade school teacher's main job is to pick which iPad apps to assign. The teachers seemed to do little actual "teaching."

Is this the case everywhere? How many in-class hours are spent on computers/iPads at different age levels these days?

I'm mostly interested in hearing from people who are teachers or who have kids who are currently in school.


I'm asking because I have a kindergartener that we decided to homeschool this year mostly because we were in the middle of a move and thought it would be easier than changing schools multiple times so rapidly. She's ahead of where I was at her age and I'm more concerned about her social and physical development than academic achievement for the next few years. So if school time is mostly spent staring at a screen then that doesn't really help much for physical or social development.

I also just moved away from California (to New Jersey) and have found that what California considered a good 3rd grade education is not quite a 2nd grade education in NJ. Also, my 9th grader is facing similar issues due to the 8th grade teachers assigning computer work daily and not actually teaching anything.

California schools are awful and I was in a fairly affluent area (Monterey County).

We are having to double down on work to get our now 4th grader up to speed.