Third week of school
Equivalent to British year 7
Art class
The kids had a dictation about the history of art.
It's about one and a half sides of A4 with not large writing, skipping one line between lines, he thinks he failed to get down about a 1/4 of what was dictated.
 He is not great at dictation because he either writes slowly in an effort to keep it legible, and misses chunks of sentences OR he speeds up...and neither of us can read a word of it. This has been an issue since the first dictation in year 1. We've practiced extensively over the last 2 years,  but while he has got better his speed still isn't fast enough to keep up and get an accurate complete copy of the dictation.
The teacher then told the kids to study the dictation they produced for an oral test.
He will need to be able to answer questions worded in a way that as closely as possible quotes from the dictation.
Except no matter how hard he tried to memorize the dictation he wouldn't be able to achieve that level of accuracy, and would most likely fail, or score low on the test, which will harm his GPA. Because in the absence of a clean copy, his study is based on a text that has some missing bits, confused bits that don't make sense and some bits that defy all attempts to decipher them.
As a result we have had to leave the study to the last minute because it has taken me 2 days to cobble together a "clean" copy after playing telephone ping pong  (of the mutual dictation kind) with a couple of mums who have a child in the same class.
Art is on 2 consecutive days, so the above telephone ping pong won't always be an option thanks to the time frame.
This is far from an uncommon practice, the chances are we will be facing the same issue in all other subjects through out the year.
I appreciate that a mainly British forum can't help much with the more typical "and what to do about it" phase of a question like this, given that the system in Britain is very different.
My main objective is to get opinions, parental and professional, regarding the extent to which the practice is unreasonable (or not) and why/why not it is good teaching practice.
Because conversations with family, friends and other parents leave me feeling like I must be bonkers to take the view that dictation/memorise resultant student copy of dictation is something more serious than a minor annoyance.
My son has been back at Italian state school for about three and a half weeks after two years of home ed.
And I am already flooded with such a sense of deja vu. Me being very hacked off with teaching practice, everybody else regarding anything above mild annoyance as being a massive over reaction, me then wondering if perhaps I am slightly bonkers to take the view I do.Â
Is it me ? Are they right and I am making a fuss about nothing ? Could this be me seeking out ways to find fault with the school system here (again) because I am culturally prejudiced against it  and the dictation thing is actually not that bad an idea ?
I absolutely want honest opinion. If this is about a problem with me or my attitude or blowing "nit picks" up out of proportion, my approach to dealing with the school issue has to radically change, as does my mind set.
If it not me I need external confirmation of my viewpoint so I can move forward without second guessing myself on a five minutely basis, and approach the school to seek some changes with rather more faith in myself that I am doing the right thing, than I have at this minute.
I'd rather find out I am unreasonable and plain old wrong than be stuck in this limbo of not being sure what's what anymore.
Cos at least then I could start doing something about it, be a more effective parent to my son and stop feeling so miserable and het up(what with all the second guessing of myself) cos I'd know where I stand and would just have to deal with the practical side of things.
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Aibu about this dictation based Art homework
98 replies
fastweb · 29/09/2011 07:58
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