Aibu about this dictation based Art homework

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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.
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.

Out of interest, why were you home-edding originally?

Out of interest, why were you home-edding originally

He was doing really badly.

First year was a bit of disaster, the previous year I'd started the complaints process against a teacher in alocal school, we were co teaching with me parachuted in to teacher train by stealth and salavage something for the kids in the school (she had total responsibility for all five elementary years).

She damn near gave me a nervous breakdown with her verbal violance, and half the kids were a gibbering mess in her presence.

Long story short, complaint upheld, typical sanction, she got moved to another school. And my son was placed in her class. By the same school admin who handled the complaint.

So I had to move him on the first day of term to a school I knew was not doing very well. His first year was no good.

Moved him to the main school in town for the second year cos they had a place. Brilliant year, he did really really well, old Italian style primary teachers with lots of patience. Then one died suddenly of undetected cancer and the other retired ..in grief basically. They had worked together for decades.

One of the subject teachers from the second year was given the dual class responisbility role for the third year. She was great, really great, but they lumbered her with two people who were shuffled after complaints elsewhere.

It went to shit.

And I got sick of going to the school and the director saying "we don't want these people working here either, but my hands are tied".

So we went HE , after much tussle cos it is virtually unheard of here (another downside to the experience).

After HE in the mornings I was on short term contract in middle schools around this area. One of the most local ones was BRILL.

Some of the best teachers I have ever worked with.

So when DS wanted to go back, we signed him up for that one and withdraw our permission to HE.

Three weeks later the new major closed down the school and put the entire cohort into the other far larger middle school, that wasn't nearly as good IME of working there.

And that was that.

I think I may be jinxed.

mayor

not major

I blame the ipad.

Good grief, what are the odds?! Must have been really stressful dealing with all that - and surely they could have just moved your DS to another class?

Anyway, back to the dictation. What would happen if you contacted the teacher and told them that you don't want your son memorising an unintelligible mess and could he provide some proper resources? Make it his problem that his method of imparting information is shoddy? And ask why they are being graded on dictation ability in Art?

"What would happen if you contacted the teacher and told them that you don't want your son memorising an unintelligible mess and could he provide some proper resources? Make it his problem that his method of imparting information is shoddy?"

The teacher is powerless - the dictation/memorisation/regurgitation method is the national system and all schools and all teachers follow the same methods.

But while dictation and regurgitation might be the national system, memorisation of incorrect information is just silly, and surely the teacher doesn't want their class to be learning rubbish?

Surely?

The onus is on the pupil to take down the information correctly in the first place.

I had the same experience as AKMD, went on a year abroad to Italy to university and was staggered by the exam system of the lecturer taking the course book(s), opening it to a random page and saying "Tell me about this chapter." Where was the reasoning? The pulling of relevant information?! Suffice to say I did not do very well, as I was too used to learning information to be manipulated into essay format, with arguments based on some principles of the course, not every bloody line of a book!

I also had some experience in a school, as worked voluntarily as an English teacher, and I have to say I was slightly appalled. We were told we could not correct the teacher in class if they said anything wrong, but honestly it was so hard not to! I remember a lesson on some parts of the english past tense usnig the gerund and the teacher adding two tyes of verb to the setence, something long the lines of "I was had having to..." and I mentioned...very deferentially...that the sentence was wrong, it should be one or the other verb, but also ;was having to; was a horrible composition of words. I was told I was wrong. I was told not to come back the next day. Not that I minded, she was so hard tow ork with!

You can definitely tell that the older teachers have no experience in formal teacher training, and worse than that, they (at least the school I worked in) are teaching subjects that they are most definitely not qualified for!

I went to school with a lot of Italians in another country. When they left and went on to university in Italy, they didn't physically move to their new university town. They enrolled, bought the books and then went back home to live with their parents to memorise the text books, travelling back to Italy from time to time to take exams that tested their regurgitation skills .

Bonsoir, it might be, but it shouldn't be. Italy has the internet, doesn't it? If they are worried about photocopying costs, they could upload the material to the internet.

Hmm...but what would they then do all lesson if not some utterly pointless exercise?

I've got one of these. Being able to write down exactly what somebody is saying as they say it is pretty much redundant in the modern world.

I have been quite clear on this thread that I do not condone the system. However, I also know that it is absolutely pointless to fight it.

Sorry, Bonsoir, I know you said you didn't approve. I am raging against the system, not you :)

I'm not sure I could put my DS through an education system which is so obviously flawed, but the social side is a problem.

I think Bonsoir is talking sense. given that dictation is the system, if he wants to stay in school for the social side, then one to one tuition to get better at taking dictation would seem a reasonable strategy.

When you live in a country and have DC, you do, by and large, need to accept its educational system with all its foibles. The best way forward, IMO, is to fully support your DC within the system, analyse the system's shortcomings and try to "HE" your DC in those areas where you think they are not gaining critical skills. I speak with some experience!

and surely they could have just moved your DS to another class?

We asked.

He was counted as an "immigrant" cohort (tainted by my genes perhaps?)

Was told "ok give us three days to find a suitable immigrant child to swap with him."

And I just couldn't do it

I just couldn't let another child be plonked in her class, cos I knew what they were in for.

I'm just a TEFLer not a proper PGCE graduate teacher, but even I was able to work out that the issue was too profound on so many levels that it was just not possible to be the cause of inflicting it on another child, especially one who might already be battling an uneven playing field.

What would happen if you contacted the teacher and told them that you don't want your son memorising an unintelligible mess and could he provide some proper resources? Make it his problem that his method of imparting information is shoddy? And ask why they are being graded on dictation ability in Art

high dudgeon

With the potential to make him a target.

Only one test a year is standadized, and that is only for maths and English, the teacher can call on a specific child to be tested more often, be asked harder questions or more questions than the other kids, graded lower (it's often totally subjective the marking, no mark scheme. and no proof cos it's oral)

Where you get unlucky teacher-wise it can extend to insults. I'm teaching one little boy English, not for the sake of English being important, but becuase he is a target and his mum is trying to make it harder for the teacher to call him stupid or cretin through out the class. I spend most of the lesson building up his confidence as human, let alone as a learner or an English speaker. He's only 9.

And there will be nothing I can do to help DS if that happens to him. Not unless another adult in the school is prepared to speak up.

Having been in the postion of the adult who speaks up I have some undeestanding why those on long term or perm contracts so rarely do. It was one of the less pleasant periods of my life.

The above is all worst case scenario, not standard, automatic fare. But it is not rare enough for me to take that kind of risk having had enough of a taste of the lack of recourse when people do go over any lines.

I already have my card marked with the HE thing and the history with the elementary school business, so I think we are a higher risk of fall put than average.

I think with the school I just have to suck it up an accpet the one thing I can do is write a letter, frame it as him being disadvantaged by 2 years HE (that bit burns, he got excellent results from the school he had left those two years, his ex teachers created and gave the exam), and a mother who unintentionally buggered his Italian by making too much of a meal of his English, and can he have a clean copy im the case of dictation/test please in all subjects.

Then get dh to sign it so it looks like he is apologising for his wife's meddling in DS's education.

That will actually be the most effective way of getting clean copies, and possiby even getting the more easier flattered of them to go a it easier on him while he works on his speed issues.

bloody hell this country makes life so very complicated and intensly "political" sometimes. In areas you'd never expect it to be such a huge stride culturally.

He went to bed ready for the art test. Here's hoping it doesn't all fall out of his head during the night. Or the geography test prep that he sprang on me hasn't taken up all the room in his short term memory banks. But at least that was from his text book and not a dictation.

The teacher is powerless - the dictation/memorisation/regurgitation method is the national system and all schools and all teachers follow the same methods.

Not so much since the reform, the introduction of the NC etc. There is a big push for teachers to let go of the old ways and accept the new. But new methods mean more work for no more pau (lots more prep, materials production etc.) so then you have to cope with unions making nioses, and everybody backs down, and so it continues. Italian teachers are very low paid and from their perspective giving up the more prep lite methods is like having the goal posts move from the end of the field, to the other end of the region.

The Italian grammar, Epic/Anthology, History, Spanish and English teacher will be expected to do diction not too infrequantly. The others not.

There has never been a requirement to insist that students study for a test from a "dirty" dictation copy.

Things will change, they are changing, (at the same speed of a glacier) but like most reforms the time lag is quite long. And of course the reforms contain much shady cost cutting so some good stuff gets thrown out in the rush to denounce the not so hidden overall objective of the people who wrote the reforms.

We were told we could not correct the teacher in class if they said anything wrong, but honestly it was so hard not to!

Not when your mother has drummed into you for an entire summer just before your sixth birthday than you never ever correct the English teacher, and if she corrects your pronunciation just repeat it as directed and keep your trap shut in the playground.

We got quite lucky at ele for English, his first teacher promoted him to assistant and he modelled all the pronun and the second
sent him round the class to help people who were stuck.

But he was most disappointed that they held him to a diferent standard and he only got a nine, while a couple of kids who did well with their first tastes of English got a ten.

So he is hiding the fact he is half English from the teacher in the new school and his friends are on board with not blurting as long as he helps them with their homework.

Not sure what his cunning plan is the first time she asks the kids to stand up and answer an open question like "what did you do last weekend?"

I can see a cat flying out of a bag at that point.

"Italy has the internet, doesn't it"

Yes, but you don't typically have the sort of school website that you get in the UK.

There is no log on for parents to get downloadble mats, or changes tomthe timetable or even a way to email a teacher.

My son's school website is five pages, four under construction and one featuring the school calender....for 2008.

A very signficant number of kids don't have access to a computer let alone the internet, and its not confined to people who can't afford it.

It will be a good while until the internet, or email, is seen as normal way for schools,parents and teachers to communicate or share docs etc.

There is an interactive whiteboard in my son's school. In a storeroom. Still in the plastic wrapping it arrived in some years ago.

To give you an idea of the gulf. I've never taught, and my son has never learned, in a classroom with anything other than a blackboard.

Not whiteboard.

Blackboard.

And I had to buy my own coloured chalk. Which was considered very novel, by teachers and students alike.

Yanbu!

Sounds like a test of listening and writing, not knowledge. Anyone not able to do this will be marked down even if their comprehension skills and understanding would have been fine. My OH cannot listen and write at the same time, or indeed read and comprehend at the same time due to dyslexia. He has no qualifications and is successful despite this. You cannot truly listen if you are writing down any way - even the most academic will surely lose out from this method....

OMG the Victorians called and they want their school back

what I meant to say was I,d never taught in a state or private school with anything other than a blackboard.

Everywhere else I get at least a whiteboard.

due to dyslexia

Hmmm

Three years running I asked for DS to be tested cos I suspected he had a mild case of dysllexis. I was diagnosed at around 9 or so, (asyou may have noticed from my posts, it shows up when I am tired) and he reminded me of myself.

They said he was fine and there was no need to test everytime, so I let it drop.

Could I have dropped a ball there?

oh ffs

dyslexia

Love how that of all words that one is such a bastard to spell.

noblegiraffe

We should do a classroom exhsnge trip.

I would rock your world

In my bustle.

"The problem with this dictation malarkey, is that even if he masters it, he is still being sold a lemon educationally. "

Exactly what I was thinking noblegiraffe and I agree entirely. te subjectivity of the exam and marking system sounds very familiar - I have expressed surprise and concern several times during discussions with my sister and she too has said similar things about the inability of schools to get rid of poor teachers. As an outsider I think the system is appalling, bizarre and, as AKMD said, pants. Given the difficulties of fighting the system I think you have to find ways of making it work for your son and your letter strategy sounds like the way to go. I also think Bonsoir is giving good advice - worth following. Interestingly my dsis did not want dnephew to end up working for his father but he is planning to go into the same field - and my dsis had to admit that actually he is suited to doing so - can't fight the genes eh ?
Lots of sympathy for you tho' - must be so hard to have to bend to a system you know is rubbish.