I have been convinced for a long time now that the children in the schools I visit are having a hard time with the three most basic Rs (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic). When asked by the schools to help them conduct remedial lessons, the basics were definitely high on my list of priorities. Imagine my surprise when I was informed that remedial lessons had to act merely as supplements to their existing class-work. Schools were disinterested in creating opportunities for students to develop these basic skills and were far more interested in having children pass their exams.
To help schools understand the gravity of the situation and also to collect some pre-remedial, base-line data, we created short tests for both Math and English to check students' understanding of basic concepts. Despite our lack of faith in students' grasp of basic concepts, we thought the tests were designed to take no more than ten minutes apiece. Imagine our surprise when students in fifth grade took three times as long to write 4 simple sentences and underline some parts of speech. They took even longer to solve problems which involved simple operations.
The question they puzzled over for the longest time was an equation that looked like this: 4 + 5 - 2 + 5 = ___ + 5. Answers ranged from 4 + 5 - 2 + 5 = 16 + 5 (totaling up all the numbers on the left, ignoring the signs) to 4 + 5 - 2 + 5 = 4 + 5 (copy the first number and hope that it is a pattern). This question should not have been the source of so much consternation to ten year olds. If children understood what it meant for two sides of an equation to be equal, these sums would be as simple as pie. Alarming as these solutions are, at least it is possible to isolate the problem and misconceptions and find strategies to address them.
It is much more difficult when a ten year old, who is asked to make a sentence with the past tense of run, writes, "I run the very fastle." When asked if he wanted to correct the sentence, the child confidently shook his head and handed in the paper. These English medium schools are not equipped for ESL (English as a Second Language) learners, nor are the teachers fluent enough to detect these errors when they are made in written or spoken language. It is impossible to know where to begin to sort this problem out but we are trying to create plans that address the needs of the teachers and the students in the quickest possible way.
It is difficult knowing that we only have a few more months to put these interventions in place, partly because we know that it will take more than a few months for the results to be tangible, but mostly our worry is that if teachers are not yet able to identify these problems, it is unclear how they will be able to tackle them on their own when they are no longer supported.
To help schools understand the gravity of the situation and also to collect some pre-remedial, base-line data, we created short tests for both Math and English to check students' understanding of basic concepts. Despite our lack of faith in students' grasp of basic concepts, we thought the tests were designed to take no more than ten minutes apiece. Imagine our surprise when students in fifth grade took three times as long to write 4 simple sentences and underline some parts of speech. They took even longer to solve problems which involved simple operations.
The question they puzzled over for the longest time was an equation that looked like this: 4 + 5 - 2 + 5 = ___ + 5. Answers ranged from 4 + 5 - 2 + 5 = 16 + 5 (totaling up all the numbers on the left, ignoring the signs) to 4 + 5 - 2 + 5 = 4 + 5 (copy the first number and hope that it is a pattern). This question should not have been the source of so much consternation to ten year olds. If children understood what it meant for two sides of an equation to be equal, these sums would be as simple as pie. Alarming as these solutions are, at least it is possible to isolate the problem and misconceptions and find strategies to address them.
It is much more difficult when a ten year old, who is asked to make a sentence with the past tense of run, writes, "I run the very fastle." When asked if he wanted to correct the sentence, the child confidently shook his head and handed in the paper. These English medium schools are not equipped for ESL (English as a Second Language) learners, nor are the teachers fluent enough to detect these errors when they are made in written or spoken language. It is impossible to know where to begin to sort this problem out but we are trying to create plans that address the needs of the teachers and the students in the quickest possible way.
It is difficult knowing that we only have a few more months to put these interventions in place, partly because we know that it will take more than a few months for the results to be tangible, but mostly our worry is that if teachers are not yet able to identify these problems, it is unclear how they will be able to tackle them on their own when they are no longer supported.
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