Interesting topic, especially since I am reading this on Christmas morning! I have my firm religious beliefs. I feel it is important for children to grow up knowing and understanding that all the world does not believe the same as they do. It instills tolerance of other peoples differences. That doesn't necessarily mean that I feel they should be taught this in the public schools. This is really the job of the parents and the leaders of the institutions the parents take their children to recieve their religious training. When a child understands what others believe it can give a sense of understanding of why their family believes the way they do. But tolerance of others and respect for the beliefs of other is something that does need to be taught. How one does this is a public school situation is tricky. I hope when you went to speak about Christmas, you explained that there are many branches of Christianity, such as Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, etc. and that they all believe that the birth of Christ marks the beginning of God's revelation of the path to salvation. I hope you finished that everyone's individual beliefs should ALWAYS be respected, whether or not they celebrate Christmas. Afterall, the person who's birth you were explaining taught tolerance via non-judgementalism.

As far as Pre-K curriculum books go, I have actually seen some very good ones (It looked that way) In Teacher's supply stores. Also some Kindergarten Curriculum books. Some schools have certain requirements as to what subjects these teacher are suppose to cover. As far as curriculums for grade school, usually the teacher has her books (the teacher's edition of the child's textbook)and experience from each year she/he teacher that she draws from, at least in Public schools. She saves this material usually and adds other interesting items she finds to this material. She/he draws from all the material that she is suppose to cover, many times making her own additional worksheets or also buying these at Teacher's supply stores. And perhaps visual aids she may buy at Teacher's supply stores or order. Many times her weekly or monthly curriculum sheets are sent the to the principal, in many areas now, and the principal over looks and ok's the sheet. Good teacher incorporated some additional topics into the curriculum while covering all the material in the books that have been selected for them. I know that many times the teacher must incorporate as well items in his/her curriculum that the children will be tested on. In some states there are additional tests besides the Achievement tests in 6th and 9th grade to see just how the child is doing. And if the child has to take a test to graduate from High school in Jr. High and earlier grades the teacher helps prepare them for these tests in addition to the cirriculum of other subjects she/he has. Some teacher's curriculum can be lacking. As there are some teachers that just can't seem to follow their own cirriculum and don't cover the material that they have even wrote down on their monthy curriculum sheets, which are many times given to the parents in grammar and middle schools. These curriculum monthly sheets are given out especially in grammar school. There are just some teachers that don't make the effort or just aren't organized enough with their time (or) seem to know how to cover the boooks/curriculum that needs to be covered. And there are some that don't really care. Especially after their tenure is up. I didn't say all teachers, I just said there were some that fit in this category. While also their are some principal and other people that just don't thoroughly check the teacher out, and give tenure to some teacher that do not deserve it at all . Sometimes on a subject the state might have more than one textbook they use for one subject. Many times there are also workbooks that go with the texts that the teacher can buy. Creative teacher make up their own worksheets also and during first year teaching , they study many aids to use in their teaching . In grammar school computers can be used. In Middle school onward material the student can learn about Power Point Presentations to make up on the computer. She/he(the teacher) also can present Power point programs, and sometimes teaches helps the students present these programs for the class. The Power Point program is a program that projects pictures and motion, sounds, along with words to present a sort of filmstrip on a certain topic. This is one way of using a good visual aid as a teaching tool. That is usually how curriculums in public school are done around here. Of course there are private schools that have more of a defined curriculum that are in a bought Curriculum book, that the teacher is suppose to abide by, while adding additional material, if she likes. This is usually true for the grammar school, at least. Many times around where I live the same text books in Jr. High and High school are used in the Private schools as the books that are used in Public schools.

There was an very interesting article in the NY Times magazine section a couple of weeks ago on the pros and cons of standardized testing. I tried to access their achieves for a URL but it's an article that has a fee attached so I didn't get it. If you are interested, you might want to spend the time/money (a small fee) to access and read it. It's too long and complicated for me to try to summarize here. I do recall, though, that it mentioned that no past federal laws have met the established goals, the current one won't either and, in fact, there will be no repercussions, as written into the law, against school districts that fail to meet prescribed standards because to punish those schools is just not "p.c." It's a law with no teeth. I have a friend, an elementary school principal, who would love to see her parents rebel against testing, as parents in some state have done. She feels that there is so much testing material to be covered that almost all spontaneity has been lost in the classroom. Teachers can't go off and explore an issue in depth because they just don't have time - covering the test material is their prime responsibility. In reading the responses above, I didn't see anyone address the issue of kids with learning disabilities. In most states those kids are thrown in with "normal" students for testing purposes - is that fair? However, on the opposite side, there is my state (I don't know about others) which has mandated testing for kids with severe developmental disabilities - for kids in special schools that accept tuition monies from the school districts from which their student population comes. I have very close knowledge of this "testing" and it is the most ridiculous thing ever invented. They want to affirm that these kids have achieved a standard within certain areas: language, literacy and math. For example, to "prove" that a child has learned the meaning of the word "open", the teacher can take a picture of this child opening a door. Does that really tell the powers that be that that child understands the meaning of the word? Or the teachers wear mikes and recording devices and record what goes on in the classroom, a classroom that has students who can barely be understood when talking face to face and not understood at all over a tape recorder. On the flip side of that, our new commissioner of education has decided to eliminate some standardized testing as being useless. We are going to end up like the Japanese who learn by rote in order to pass the strenuous testing to get into college - and who have no imagination or spontaneity.

Roald Dahl (my favorite) Henry Huggins Books & other Beverly Cleary like Ralph S. Mouse (my other favorite) Encyclopedia Brown How to Eat Fried Worms The Chronicles of Narnia Zilpha Keatley Snyder (most of her characters are girls except in the Blair's Nightmare books, which I think are the best). Issac Bashevis Singer has an awesome collection of stories for children Gordon Korman (the Bruno & Boots books) Richard Peck Scott O'Dell The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald (my absolute favorite) Gary Paulsen is a good author for boys but maybe for a little older boys. I haven't read the captain underpants but they are supposed to be great. Louis Sacher's "Holes" is our Seattle library's all-kids-read-the-same-book book this year. He also wrote "there's a boy in the girls bathroom" Some of my suggestions might be for when he is a little older, I can't really remember.