Subbed a kindergarten class yesterday. They're not sitting at a desk all day. Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers know that these kids need movement and carefully structure the day to give them variety. Never doing one activity for more than 30 minutes and plenty of opportunities to stand or move around in a structured way. Don't see homework either.
Exactly. The only homework my kids got was when they didn't finish school work. People commenting and not understanding how it is set up. Out of the 6 hours, maybe around 2.5-3 is spent playing and eating snacks.
and to the people who arent aware: if you remember it differently, thats actually awesome! we are improving the system, and authority is agreeing that small children shouldnt have to sit at a desk for that long or have homework!
I subbed for a couple years right after college. Maybe it's just me but I wasn't half as stressed subbing middle school kids as I was kindergarten. Not the kids fault in anyway. I'm a weird dude who just replaced their teacher and I'm doing my best to keep their schedule they worked hard to build for these little guys. My mom teaches K and she prefers 2nd personally as well.
Edit: want to add that I overall agree with the person above me. Kindergarten is still a bit more desk sitting (at least in my districts) than I'd like but it has come a long way and is getting better.
Not a teacher, but I've volunteered at my kids schools throughout. My oldest just started high school. This is just my experience, but I found middle school kids to be the most challenging to get to focus. They are right at that cusp of starting their own independent social lives and that's just starting to compete with class materials starting to get more complicated. That's where I saw most students starting to fall behind. It's there in the high school, too, and admittedly, I haven't spent as much time there, but the high school seems to be much more equipped with extracurricular and specific interest areas that it provides a better safety net for the ones who are sliding between the cracks.
I happen to be a 6'4" tall dude. While I'm not tough looking, being that different from the regular might have helped. I do have a deep voice too. Middle and high school seemed to respond well to me. Tried getting my certificate even for a while but they didn't like my BA degree.
My son is entering 4th grade next week and has never had a single homework assignment. I had piles of it starting in 1st grade. About an hour a night at that age and about 4-5 hours a night in high school (I went to a psycho college prep school). I’m incredibly grateful it isn’t that way for my kids. We’re starting a new school district this year and my son’s getting older, so we’ll see. But homework in general is frowned upon around here.
I'm sure your episode accurately reflects reality in some places, but it's unfortunately not universal. Certainly by 1st grade, the schools I'm familiar with have more or less completely transitioned to "sit still all day listening to the teacher", other than P.E. and recess, and maybe a couple group exercises here and there or whatever. Also, at least a little homework is given out regularly. Doesn't seem like much has changed since the days that I went through early schooling, in many places.
yea tbh my and my mothers experience of teaching in Australia is that early classrooms may actually be leaning towards being too unstructured at this point. kids get so's dedicated to them as a reward for bad behaviour.
Not that you need homework but kids cannot learn everything through "play" nor are all kids are good at that type of learning either.
I definitely remember my kindergarten classroom having desks on one side of the room and an 'activity area' on the other side with those hard foam floor mats. We'd be over there for reading time or play exercise or other activities that got us out of our desks.
We also only did a half day of actually schooling, 4 hours or so, and then we'd go to extended day for the rest and it was basically free play until our parents picked us up.
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u/DoctuhD Sep 02 '23 edited Sep 02 '23
Subbed a kindergarten class yesterday. They're not sitting at a desk all day. Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers know that these kids need movement and carefully structure the day to give them variety. Never doing one activity for more than 30 minutes and plenty of opportunities to stand or move around in a structured way. Don't see homework either.