Back with Dick and Jane

Last year, I tutored grade two kids with reading in English (See "Ten!", February 17, 2025).  This year I'm back, but tutoring two classes, one French, the other English at the local elementary school here in Cochrane.  As usual, it's delightful!

I am using old-fashioned phonetics, but since that is a taboo word in the world of the brilliant PhD minds who develop curricula, they now call breaking down a word into sounds and syllables "de-coding".  Remember when educators decided to chuck out phonetics to teach "whole word" reading?  Ya, didn't go so well.  So it's back to phonetics, er de-coding, because that's the only thing that works.

Me tutoring phonetics.

It's so funny to see the kids sound out each part of the word, then string it together and exclaim, "Oh!", when they finally get the word.

Other tools available include games and pictures to figure out a word, but I prefer just getting them to read and figure out the words as they go along.  With games, they figure them out pretty quickly and avoid actually reading.

A new phenomenon -- at least new for me -- is afoot in this school, and I presume others.  Children with anti-social behaviours now have personal, fulltime minders to teach them outside the regular classroom.  Sitting at my station in the hall, I heard a loud meowing noise, then a lot of screaming.  Startled, I jumped up.  "Oh, that's just Johnny, he thinks he's a cat," said my charge.  Whaaaat??!!!  "Can he not stop?" I asked.  "Yes, but he doesn't want to."

WTH!!??  Yep, apparently kids can do and be anything in school these days.  I asked if there was kitty-litter in the washroom.  No, not yet, but who knows?!  As I said, kids like this are given personal, highly-paid minders who accompany them all day long.  In my view, that's insane, but I can see the hand of many "expert" child psychologists in the school board at work here.  In my day, a kid like this would be sent to the principal's office, made to sit in the hall, or worse yet, given the strap.  

But not today.  Are schools doing these aberrant kids any favours?  When they grow up, will they ever get a job?  If so, will acting like a cat in the office be tolerated?  Rhetorical.  But, as I said, lots of child psychologists are making big money off it, so it will continue. 

So, tutoring is my contribution to early education.  Unfortunately, the teachers go on strike on Monday, so I will have to wait until that's over.  By the way, teachers will not receive strike pay while out, which I find ludicrous.  They pay big dues, but can't collect when they need it?

(Personally, I don't think the teachers should strike, but that's another blog for another day.)  

My question is, where do the dues go?  A quick check of the union org chart tells me there is a president, two vice-presidents, a past-president, an executive secretary and 15 members.  So, that's where the money is going -- to keep that afloat and finance their fancy headquarters and offices.

So, I'll only have to get up early three days a week to hit the pool, instead of another two to get to class.