Are East Coast kids losing basic skills?
“A lot of the ‘old school’ things ... are still necessary at times [such as] an authentic signature, reading a clock when there is no phone, and basic math facts without a calculator.” Natalie Roginsky Edgar Retired teacher
Are we losing important skills today? It can be concerning to think that by junior high school, some children can't read and write cursive, don't know proper phone etiquette and have no idea how to write, address, and post a letter.
As the world changes, it can be argued how we teach children should also change. Should we care about the lack of these transferable skills in today's youth, or is it just a sign of the times?
After 31 years of teaching kindergarten to Grade 8 in Ontario, Natalie Roginsky Edgar retired to Murray Harbour, P.E.I. During her time teaching, she noticed her students lacking certain skills.
“Phonics, printing skills, handwriting, and an inability to stay on task for a length of time (ie: writing),” she lists as a few examples.
She also noticed her students lacking basic math facts — addition, subtraction and multiplication tables — and were unable to tell time and count money.
There was an overall “decline in social skills, such as responsibility, time management, respect, and homework completion,” she adds.
So, when asked if we're losing important skills today, Edgar's response is “absolutely.”
“Especially after this pandemic, with two years of interruptions to structured learning, many students are lacking in many of the basic skills needed to progress to the next level,” she says.
Edgar says that in 31 years of teaching, “I saw the pendulum swing in many ways: phonics to whole language, ‘new' problem solving-based math to learning your timetables, segregated classes to fully integrated classes, and the evolvement of Asperger's.”
She believes we should care that things like handwriting aren't being taught the same way in school these days.
“A lot of the ‘old school' things that were taught are still necessary at times,” she says.
These include “an authentic signature, reading a clock when there is no phone, and basic math facts without a calculator. Being able to read and write your child's notes from school.”
A MIX OF BOTH
While there are definite positives to evolving technology, she says, a mix of those traditional skills is also necessary.
She also feels that “many social skills are being left up to schools to teach and I think a lot of that needs to come from home. If parents don't have enough time in their day to instill these, and teachers do not have enough time to teach these, where can they be learned?”
Having a strong home/ school connection and teamwork between parents and teachers, she says, is necessary to help students get the full education that they need.
“I have seen, and continue to see, a lot of changes to the education system over the years. Some good. Some not so good,” she says.
But she believes that most teachers are dedicated to helping students succeed.
She points out that sometimes socio-economics can play a big part for some students, teachers and parents.
“If a child is hungry, he can't focus on learning. If a child has no boots in the middle of winter and is cold and wet, he can't focus. If a child was taken into a shelter overnight, he can't focus,” she says.
“So many new, sad, uncontrollable things also deter from a student's learning… not to mention COVID. So valuable teaching time of the curriculum doesn't always take precedence.”
UNDERGRADUATE IMPACT
Blake Brown, PhD, is a professor and chairman of the Department of History at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.
Brown began teaching as a part-time instructor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie in 2003 and has been a full-time professor at Saint Mary's University since 2007.
“I think that the skills many students bring to university have changed since I was an undergraduate student in the early- to mid-1990s, and even since I started to teach university classes,” he says.
In some ways, he feels that undergraduate students skills have improved.
“For example, my sense is that young people start making PowerPoint slide decks and using them to make presentations in elementary school. The result of this is that most students seem more and more at ease giving presentations in university classes.”
On the flip side, though, “basic writing skills have probably gotten weaker, probably in part because there seems to be less emphasis on teaching grammar in public schools,” he says.
“Students write a lot in their daily lives (texting, etc.), but not using a style that is transferable to work or school environments.”
Reliance on technology can have another impact on university students as well, he points out.
“Left to their own devices, most first- and second-year students gravitate towards internet searches to complete research papers,” he says. “This means that professors have to make clear in their instructions what are appropriate sources, or craft assignments designed to build students' knowledge of academic research sources.”
He offers an example from a first-year history course at SMU.
“It is not a large, traditional year class. It is capped at 30. Students explore, in-depth, a small number of historical events, and are introduced to the techniques required to
analytical practice history (research, thinking and writing),” he says. “A key part of this is training on how to use library resources — to search for and use academic sources.”
Brown says that many professors now build in requirements that students find and interpret primary sources.
“This is relatively easy because of the existence of
databases digitized newspapers and like Canadiana.ca,” he adds.
“Students who complete the honours program at SMU are required to write an undergraduate thesis based, at least in part, on primary research.”
But, he adds, students tend not to explore primary sources on their own initiative.
“In their defence, students are busy, often because they are working many hours in part-time jobs to pay for rising tuition fees and housing costs,” he says.
“They are rational actors, who triage their assignments, work responsibilities, and try to build their resumes through volunteer work and extracurriculars. A negative consequence of this is that they have less time to just explore random subjects of interest.”