Florida's teachers insist they just don't have time to do spelling bees anymore, because every second is needed for FCAT preparation:
In Orange County, more than half of public elementary and middle schools did not participate in the county bee last week, about 10 fewer schools than last year. Interest also has fallen off in nearby Volusia County, where 43 percent of schools chose not to send students to show their skills at spelling sometimes-complicated words.
"We just can't afford the time -- that's really it," said Jody Adkins, a fourth-grade teacher at George W. Marks Elementary in DeLand. The school hasn't signed up for the county bee in years. "It really is unbelievable how little time during the day we have. We try to use every single second."
I've no doubt they try to use every second, but I wonder how efficiently they're using it. What's more, these kind of comments make me very suspicious:
Despite the state's argument that bees can help children prepare for the FCAT, and after decades of holding the contests, school officials are saying they don't think the bees are worth the time.
A few state organizations, including the Florida Council of Language Arts Supervisors, has taken a stance against spelling bees. Gayle Cowley, president of the Florida council, said a better way to teach spelling is by writing words, dissecting words, learning their meanings and studying word patterns.
"Spelling is one of those skills that is not as critical as it used to be because of all the aids we have for spelling," Cowley said. "But even more than that, the focus has moved from those kind of automatic memorization skills to critical thinking and analysis skills, which I think most of us believe should be the focus of our instruction."
The head of a Language Arts council believes that because Word has a spellchecker on it, kids don't need to practice their spelling. And they've moved beyond "automatic memorization skills" to teaching kids to "think critically." Think critically about what, I don't know, because the kids haven't memorized any facts.
This is part of the standard, asinine pedagogical ideology that states that basic skills are inherently bad, and "higher-level thinking" is inherently good. Since Word has a grammar checker as well, doesn't this mean the rules of grammar are also "less critical than they used to be"?
Attitudes like this make me discount the cries of teachers who claim that FCAT preparation time is all that's holding them back from teaching kids the joys of learning how to spell words. What they're hearing from educators in positions of power is that these little "memorization" skills aren't worth the time.
Posted by kswygert at February 27, 2004 09:38 AM