We've gone overboard on literacy.

I was just talking to a teacher here at the elementary school and he showed me the grade 5 curriculum. Physical education was a half a page of goals and instructions. Social studies was a page long, same with science and math.

Reading and writing was 3 or 4 pages long. He said, "We've gone overboard on literacy." I asked him why and he said, "Because women have started writing the curriculum."

Then he got more serious and said, "Because kids don't read books anymore."

I said, "Is there a correlation between the length and detail of the curriculum and success at reading?"

He said, "Yes, an inverse one." He said a lot of the teachers don't bother with it - it's simply too detailed, unpractical and incomprehensible.

Then he gave me an example. "Imagine if the phys. ed curriculum was 4 pages long and kids were taught pre-kicking strategies before kicking a soccer ball, and kids were evaluated on 4 or 5 different aspects of kicking a ball."

I said, "Kids wouldn't want to do it. It would be annoying. They'd want to go read a book."

He nodded his head and I went to the washroom.

Elementary school now and then.

Now that I have to work in an elementary school, I've noticed the differences between elementary schools today and elementary schools when I was a kid. (Based on an extremely small sample size!)

Here are the main the differences I've noticed.

1) Announcements. When I was a kid announcement seemed five minutes long. They started with the national anthem and concluded with the Lord's prayer. Nowadays, there aren't really announcements anymore. It's just a five second bulletin about which teacher is on recess duty.

2) The Recess Bell. When I was a kid, my school actually had a bell that would ring. This school has an annoying buzzer.

3) Classrooms. Today's classrooms are much more sophisticated. They have built-in cupboards, supply closets, sinks with running water, cable Internet and blackboards that move up and down like shades. When I was a kid, classrooms were just rooms with a closet where you could hang your coat.

4) More Happening. There's much more happening in today's schools. For example, not only does this school have regular classes, they also have a Korean school, a day care, a homeschool program and probably lots of other things I'm not aware of. There also seems to be a lot of staff doing one on one work with certain kids. I'll walk past a classroom, glance in and see a teacher working one-on-one with one or two students. I don't recall this ever happening when I was a kid in elementary school.

5) Sophisticated Alarms. When I was a kid schools did not have burglar alarms. Today they do. This school requires me to phone the alarm company, give them a code, turn off the alarm, tell them how long I plan on staying in the school, phone them when I'm about to leave, and set the alarm again. If I don't do any of these things the alarm company will send out a "runner" and I will be charged between $30 and $50.

6) Half Days. The schools in this district go half Fridays. This is becoming a provincial trend - half days, four days school weeks and soon shorter summer holidays. It comes down to money, and it's much cheaper to operate schools this way.