Tanglefoot might help but ants are smart and could find a way around it or put stuff on it. There should be no difference between ants and no ants with peonies in your area. No scientific base but I believe that when peonies evolved, mostly in central asia, the original plants being in an area that received little rain the plants with the sweeter sap on the flowers attracted more ants to eat the substance so the flowers would open. When the flowers started moving into gardens people would select the plants with the least amount of ant attracting gunk. Over the centuries man has selectivly reduced the amount of sweet sap until the flowers can now open on their own. There are ants that do not eat sweets, another experiment. One thing that is more subjective than anything is that we have had several years where the sweet eating ants have been few. In those years the peonies have opened fully but the flowers that had been heavily rained on with the sap amount being reduced opened beyond the point of fullness. The flowers almost formed a ball on the stem rather than showing the base of the flower. Depending on where you are in New York there are several gardens that you could take your students to see. Cornell because their interest in plant development and their peony garden could be a source for your students. I do not know if they have speakers but if they do perhaps one could come to your school either for a class or public presentation on peonies. If public perhaps you could ask for small donations to offset the cost of the experiments.

I don't think a teacher has to have straight "A"'s in college. But the teacher should be required to do his or her job correctly , just like any other job. I too agree that tenure holds too much power. Even if the teacher does not teach what he or she should after tenure they still should be fired for doing such. There should be a certain cirriculum that the teachers should be held accountable for. Also if helps if you have a principal that cares that the teacher in his or her school are doing a good job. Some care, some don't. Some take any complaints from parents about a teacher's teaching with a grain of salt, others go check it out and see if the complaint is true. There are brillant, bright teachers that love their job. There are teachers that don't like their job and don't teach but hang on until retirement. Every parent knows these teachers. These same teacher get real offensive if questioned about how they are teaching your child. They assume they are the teacher, they have the degreein education, you are not a teacher you don't have a degree of any kind -or if you do have a degree it isn't in education, so what would you know? Their attitude is they are the teacher they know what they are doing (?) Some of the most arrogant teacher I have encountered in years past are the worst teachers. But as any other job, you can put personality aside. A teacher should be judged on their merit and their work. Lazy of teachers that do not teach (I have seen a teacher that got at years end to page 30 of a 300 page Math book in Grammar school) These type teachers should be shown the door- and not able to teach at all. Many times a principal will turn a deaf ear to a complaint that the teacher isn't doing his or her job, especially if the principal is very friendly with this particular teacher, other times the principal may just not want to do their job and get involved. You can not tell always by the grades your child is making just how good the teacher is at teaching what he or she is suppose to . Straight A's from a teacher that is not teaching the material mean nothing. You must keep up with what the teaching is teaching. Some of this information comes from being a parent.Some comes from knowing and talking to teachers that are friends in the teaching profession.

An emphasis on students finding information for themselves, and focusing on topics that they are interested in, is important throughout school, and I would argue, grows more important as students grow older and are able to make better choices. Here is an article that studied how children retrieve information from a library online catalogue. Without intending to, the author found that students being taught with a more student-centered curriculum (he doesn't use that term) were far better at finding information creatively - the way we all do in life, with no multiple-choice options. It is kind of a long article, but here is an excerpt: "Important contributors to children's information retrieval behavior are their motivation, purpose, and interest in their topics. During the course of this study, it became clear that some students were more involved in the information retrieval process than others. For some, it was an adventure and challenge that carried them to new understanding of the material they were studying. Their products went beyond copying facts from their readings to point out discrepancies and unanswered questions and, thus, to display their critical thinking skills. These children's experiences also led them to develop more advanced information skills, which they needed in order to pursue their interests in depth. For instance, the group of first graders studying planets soon began to share information about their planets and to propose theories that related the characteristics of the planets to their size and distance from the sun. Their written reports contained ideas and questions about such matters as what it would take to allow people to live on presently uninhabited planets. "For others, that spark of interest was missing. These children found the minimal information they needed to satisfy the assignment but contributed little of their own thinking and did not advance their information skills. Their products were simple lists of facts without interpretation or comparison. For instance, when fifth graders were asked to write reports about the states, their assignment sheet contained a list of pieces of information to be included in each report (e.g., population, area, major cities). Not surprisingly, their actual reports provided 'just the facts.'" Here is a link that might be useful: Children and an OPAC

At our school each teacher has their own method that is basically keeping track of behavior. One second grade teacher sends home a paper each day with either a green, yellow or red stamp on it. Very similar to your son's teacher. Some use a bulletin board in the room where the entire class either receives or loses points based on individual behavior and behavior as a class. Some teachers use marbles or blocks. They all use something like this. Most of the kids are good kids. There are some kids who do have behavioral problems that are mainstreamed, but the teachers do not subtract points for their behavior (the feeling it would be unfair to the other children since they cannot control their behavior). I have never thought it was a bad thing. My son is in high school now, and yes, even though every one of his teachers would tell me he is a joy to have in class, even he lost the occasional point. We would just sit down and talk about what happened. Once he understood that the teacher was not angry at him he was fine with it. A friend of mine had more problems getting her son to relax about it, but he brought home a lot of red stamps early in the year before he started to settle down.