Dear Editor,
Tammy Vickroy of Gilroy wrote in a letter to the editor to say
that she thought Mr. Tom Mulhern was right on with his column
questioning state funded mandatory preschool.
Dear Editor,
Tammy Vickroy of Gilroy wrote in a letter to the editor to say that she thought Mr. Tom Mulhern was right on with his column questioning state funded mandatory preschool. She was curious if other parents thought the curriculum may be losing some of our kids because our measure of a good student is “too narrow”.
I absolutely believe our curriculum is too narrow! I am working on a description of what’s on the agenda for parents of first- and second graders at my school. I am continually shocked by what is on that test. There is so much depth to what is covered in just three subjects, and the teachers are hard pressed to cover it all in one year. The material on the test, in my opinion is too broad and too advanced for a second grader. The test will assess whether second graders know their times tables to 10 and whether they know what a syllogism and an aphorism is, but it will not be able to assess how well a child can draw, how well a child can use their imagination to write a creative story or how they might use their problem solving skills to figure out a difficult math problem or an appropriate solution to an everyday problem they may face. Not all our children will need the skills that they are drilled on daily in order to pass standardized tests. Not all of our children will be technical writers, mathematicians, or spend all their days analyzing what they read.
A well-rounded curriculum not only includes math concepts, reading and writing but also science, art, social studies, music and physical education.
Rachel Oberstadt, Gilroy
