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While the NY Times' story on a Harlem charter school's kindergarten visit to the Queens County Farm Museum might just seem like a human interest story, there's actually a serious reason behind it: The state's English and math tests seem biased towards kids with knowledge of farms. There are "several questions each year about livestock, crops and the other staples of the rural experience that some educators say flummox city children, whose knowledge of nature might begin and end at Central Park. On the state English test this year, for instance, third graders were asked questions relating to chickens and eggs. In math, they had to count sheep and horses." Oh no!!!
Harlem Success Academy founder Eva Moskowitz spoke about the agriculture-heavy emphasis on the state tests, "There were passages, literally, about milking, plowing — things that were pretty foreign to Harlem kids. It’s a little bit annoying that there are no passages about the subway, or how crowded the streets are.” And while officials say they haven't received complaints about the test, the head of the committee that advises the state on testing conceded that some NYC kids might get confused about a math question that involved finding the total number of corn stalks when there are 46 rows with 32 stalks each: "Most kids in New York City would know corn, but they wouldn’t know stalk. You have to know the unit you are working in to do the mathematical manipulation."
Students don't go into testing frenzy until the third grade, but one five-year-old showed she learned something at the city's only working farm, "Chickens make eggs. I didn’t know that before."
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Knowing that chickens come from eggs is pretty basic. I don't see how that is "biased towards kids with knowledge of farms."
Yeah, I thought it was more sad that the kid didn't now something that seems really basic. But the corn stalk thing being biased I could see.
Really? See that's what i have an issue with, it's like their making excuses for Stupid F'ing kids. Regardless if it's corn stalks, cows, chickens, guns, hamburgers... it's STILL a basic math problem, "46 rows with 32 stalks each" it still boils down to 46 x 32, do they really think a NYC kid would solve a math problem if it related more?? I think that's a stupid & pathetic assumption on their part.
didn't pres. obama mention something at the NAACP convention, something about stop making excuses?
how bout we change the question to "how many air jordans...?"
True enough—but if you're under tons of pressure already, I could see a kid being distracted by the word stalk. Maybe teachers are telling kids not to get hung up on the small stuff, like weird terms such as "tractor" and "bushel."
I hope you aren't talking about the 5 year old, I mean should people be born knowing that chickens make eggs? I thought it was cute!
i went there a couple of weeks ago & the corn maze was pretty cool. i recommend it.
perhaps schools should participate in a little-known phenomenon called "field trips." its an event where students and teachers pile into a bus and have an educational adventure outside of their normal parameters.
Or at least include discussion of these topics in their classes.
Complete education fail. These are reading comprehension and math problems. The kids fail on the reading comprehension. Should I be optimistic that they'd be able to multiply 46 and 32? Well, I'm not.
From another angle, this is akin to asking "A squid has eight tentacles. There are three squid. How many tentacles are there?" and getting the response "But I've never seen a squid!". You don't need to know in order to solve the problem, and if you can't answer, you fail. That's how it's a test.
If city kids are granted changes because of supposed bias, then the really rural kids (and there are some areas of NYS that are) need changes when the tests asks about. Maybe the suburban kids need changes when the tests ask about parallel parking.
I find a lot of the need to protect "city kids" from their own lack of knowledge condescending. My guess is that it's the teachers who are afraid their kids won't get it, not that the kids actually do not get it.
There are stories where kids can see a corn stalk or a sheep, for crying out loud. Kids outside of the city are asked to relate to urban stories, why can't City kids be asked to relate to anything out of their own experience? They are just as capable as other kids.
Books would still do the job or librarians.
replace the TV, video game with books in the house.
like chris rock mentioned, books are like kryptonite to some.
Oops, it was supposed to say:
"then the really rural kids (and there are some areas of NYS that are) need changes when the tests asks about traffic."
It doesn't matter if you know what a stalk is; it's extremely basic problem solving to read a question saying "there are 46 X with 32 Y each, how many Y are there in total?" and figure out that you're being asked to multiply 46 by 32. It could say "there are 46 flibbertigibbets, each of which has 32 gobbledigooks, how many gobbledigooks are there in total?" and it wouldn't matter that they're made-up words, because it's a fucking math problem.
What the fuck is a Y!?
The analogy is not exactly correct. It is more like asking: if there are 46 rows of 32 xyz's. How many abc's are there? can you really assume that there are 1 abc for each xyz? Notice the question mentions stalks and then ask for corn. If you have no idea how many corns are on a stalk, how do you do the calculation? Sure, you can guess that there is one stalk for every corn, but you would still have to guess.
City kids who never left the city and never have seen a farm?
The exact same situation existed 100 years ago.
The difference is that presumably the schoolchildren were not being tested on their knowledge of the farms.
heaven forbid some educational material actually refer to something outside the realm of the city block a kid lives on.
HUMANE EDUCATION and a trip to WOODSTOCK Farm Sanctuary.
Perhaps the parents of these children can pick up where the educators leave off by taking them to a fucking farm...
City Kids Lack Critical Abstract Thinking Abilities.
This phenomenon may be due to the quality of their schools, living conditions, and other socioeconomic factors.
C'mon lets all be fair:
Pookie's got 32 in the clip and 1 in the whole, how many bodies pile up with 3 clips?
It's 'hole' and to answer the question..
It depends on how many wanna come up real quick before they start to clown.
It's sad that 5 year old didn't know that chickens don't come from eggs. Certain things like this shouldn'tonly be taught in school. Where do the parents or guardians to step in and teach their kids?
i meant to to say DO COME from eggs. DUH! Wow. Don't type and talk on the phone at the same time.
How have these kids not run into DEPICTIONS of horses, cows, and pigs in storybooks, movies, or whatnot? Charlotte's Web? Babe? Is it that hard to conceptualize an animal?
Exactly. Even if they didn't learn it in school, don't these kids have access to books and television? How can they have no concept of plants and animals?
what the fuck is a farm? do you mean pharmacy?
"In your neighborhood, there are 12 McDonalds and 4 Duane Reades. If you divide McDonalds by Duane Reades, how many places are left for you to go with your grandmother?"
LOL nannystate u r tha best
I've noticed that the preschoolers I teach have no knowledge of where food comes from. We were studying the fall holidays and we talked about harvest time and where fruit and vegetables come from. One child innocently told me I was wrong that all apples come from the supermarket, not from an orchard (farm). These are upper middle class kids here in Florida, so I think kids in this day and age no matter where they live just don't understand farming.
Agreed. But dont you think this also has to do with parenting, i mean honestly have they let society overwhelm their every day lives so vastly that they don't get exposed to this?? Do parents not tell stories anymore of when they were kids... nothing? And as another poster mentioned, have they not seen movies, barnyard animals, babe, charlotte's web, etc etc?, it just doesn't add up
There is more to left than your street block. I wonder if the children knows where is NJ on the map.
Pot, meet Kettle.
Almost misread that head line. Thought it was concerning city kids on fat farms. honestly.
This does seem biased to me - why ask city kids questions about farming?
There aren't any farms in New York City anymore - and there haven't been farms in Manhattan for over a century.
How the hell are city kids supposed to know about plowing, or farm animals, or even that chickens lay eggs?
Think about it - if your only contact with chicken and eggs is in the supermarket or a restaurant, how exactly are you supposed to guess where they came from?
Somebody needs to pull the Board of Regents heads out of the 19th century - and they need to update the test for 21st century urban reality!
Since when is exposure to the world the only way to learn about it? I lived in the suburbs of Wisconsin, so I had firsthand knowledge of farms. I certainly didn't have a stoop, or play double-dutch--but I knew about them from Sesame Street.
But all this is irrelevant. The skill these kids aren't being taught is how to take a test. How to read test questions, how to parse the test's language, and how to eliminate answers. You could live in a bubble and still develop test-taking skills--provided your instructors bother to teach them.
Let's not lower expectations of urban kids. Take it from someone who has met kids from everywhere, they're no dumber than your average entitled rich suburban brat.
This issue stinks of condescension against inner-city children.
I'm sure there are kids on a farm who forget that the stem of corn is called a stalk...it happens.
What disgusts me is that it's a further diluting of language in the city. It's bad enough that most adolescents can't discern "they're" and "their", why give inner city children who have enough of an excuse to not to believe in their own ability.
My friend is a teacher in NYC. When given a project to teach her students about Pablo Picasso, instead of teaching the history of the man, history of modern art or cubism, she took a picture, cut it up and had the kids mix em around: "Viola, Picasso!"
The problem is teachers believing the children aren't capable of learning and parents not even bothering to take the first step. "Why teach them?" she tells me, "they wouldn't understand". This is New York City teachers talking, people!
Parents don't think they'd understand, teachers dumb it down, too...Kids don't go to t he library on their own...Where are they going to get the reality check that the world is bigger than MTV?
Why should we learn about farming? Because it's where we ALL get our food! Just because Kid A living in the Lower East side has never been on a farm doesn't mean it's not important to know that his food doesn't start at the supermarket. Yeah, only people in the 19th century had farming...good luck, GREGORYABUTLER surviving if for some reason technology leaves us in the dark. The City will take care of us!
Newsflash: They won't....they'll leave us disabled and incapable of EVER taking care of ourselves.
Just goes to show how stupid city kids really are about the world and where their food comes from. They probably think food comes from a McDonald's Happy Meal.
And the dumbing-down of the public education system continues.
Wait, do city people think that everyone that doesn't live in a city is a farmer or something? I imagine 99% of the rest of the state has as little experience with farms as people here.
Also, down with prepping kids for tests instead of teaching them.
"Ivan Ramirez, 5, said he had learned that bacon comes from pigs, but that chicken does not" is really the winner.
Its Monday, Tyronne is slinging crillz outside the Bedford Ave stop.
He just re'upped and has 30 bundles, worth $1500.
He must repay his supplier 50% of the sales.
He and sells 6 tre's, 4 dimes and 2 nicks per hour.
He also smokes one tre per hour.
Tyronne works only from 4 to 7pm and arranged to barter a sex act for 2 dimes.
At the beginning of his shift he gave a free nick sample to a schoolkid to get him hooked and create a customer.
At the end of his shift he gave a loyal hipster customer a dime bag who will hit him off when he gets paid on Friday.
How much crack does Tyronne have left.
How much money did Tryone make after repaying the loaner, barter, and personal use rocks.
How much will he have to pay his supplier.