High school: the years of a child's life whenever you are expected to behave as adults in a adult world, but you are treated as anything but an adult. Kist brings up this important point in the last chapter of his book about the current public school system that calls for attention.
Yeah, teenagers make some pretty dumb decisions. That doesn't mean that public schools need to monitor their students so heavily. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we expect high school students to act like adults, yet they have to ask permission to use the bathroom. It is not difficult to spot whenever a student abuses class time to go hang out in the restroom or skip class- simply paying attention to who leaves and for how long can be evidence enough for that. Having to ask to use the restroom is simply an atrocious policy in my opinion.
I think to allow students to grow into responsible adults, the institution needs to loosen the shackles and release the students from the cave to see the sun and feel the grass- cause hell, at this point I think it's safe to say that by the time most students graduate high school they don't even know what reality is and in that sense we have failed as a society.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Standardized Exams: The Plague of Education
Some seniors in Seattle run the danger of not graduating for not having satisfactory scores on a newly state mandated math test.
In my opinion, standardized tests are completely worthless and unnecessary. Just because a student is bad at math doesn't mean they should be excused from taking math courses or doing it- they should still be pushed to try and receive help when they need it, but all standardized tests do is push teachers to have their students learn a specific set of materials for them to pass a test and this, in my opinion, is not what learning is about.
Being smart isn't about knowing tons of scientific facts and laws, it's not about being able to solve elaborate equations, it't not about knowing tons of words. A proper high school education should give students the ability the knowledge at a basic level to operate in the world around them. But if this is done efficiently and correctly, there should be no need for state or federally mandated exams; The responsibility should lie within the schools and the teachers to determine if a student is proficient in a certain discipline. I see this all as a waste of time and money.
The fact that around 100 students may not graduate high school on time because they can't pass a math test, which consists of material that they most likely will never use in real life unless they enter a profession which requires them too and that they will forget shortly after leaving high school, is appalling to me. In high school, I took up to Pre-Calc/Trigonometry and my senior year a college-in-high school (CHS) statistics course. If you were to hand me any work or problems from my Pre-Calc/Trig class today, I guarantee I wouldn't be able to work them out. Same goes for CHS stats, although I do remember the important concepts and ideas about statistics that I apply quite a lot. That doesn't mean my education and diploma is worthless or that I am not a intelligent member of society- it simply means that I do not care for much of math and I had no desire to really pursue it passed what I need to function well in society.
In my opinion, standardized tests are completely worthless and unnecessary. Just because a student is bad at math doesn't mean they should be excused from taking math courses or doing it- they should still be pushed to try and receive help when they need it, but all standardized tests do is push teachers to have their students learn a specific set of materials for them to pass a test and this, in my opinion, is not what learning is about.
Being smart isn't about knowing tons of scientific facts and laws, it's not about being able to solve elaborate equations, it't not about knowing tons of words. A proper high school education should give students the ability the knowledge at a basic level to operate in the world around them. But if this is done efficiently and correctly, there should be no need for state or federally mandated exams; The responsibility should lie within the schools and the teachers to determine if a student is proficient in a certain discipline. I see this all as a waste of time and money.
The fact that around 100 students may not graduate high school on time because they can't pass a math test, which consists of material that they most likely will never use in real life unless they enter a profession which requires them too and that they will forget shortly after leaving high school, is appalling to me. In high school, I took up to Pre-Calc/Trigonometry and my senior year a college-in-high school (CHS) statistics course. If you were to hand me any work or problems from my Pre-Calc/Trig class today, I guarantee I wouldn't be able to work them out. Same goes for CHS stats, although I do remember the important concepts and ideas about statistics that I apply quite a lot. That doesn't mean my education and diploma is worthless or that I am not a intelligent member of society- it simply means that I do not care for much of math and I had no desire to really pursue it passed what I need to function well in society.
The Graphic Response to Literature
In Broz's article, "The Green Knight Should Be Green: Graphic Response to Literature," he goes through different assignments he gave his students throughout his teaching career that allowed them to respond to literature without the traditional essay.
I may be one of a minimal few, but I have never personally enjoyed creating graphic responses to literature especially when it comes to drawing or creating some sort of physical object like he has his students do in the article. They have always truly been more of a painful experience more than anything, and I've been this way ever since I was a child; I was always a child of words.
I hated art class in elementary school. Every time I had to go, I dreaded it. But I always undertook my own personal writing projects, outside of school requirements.
Even in college, I still find myself the same way. I've had a couple projects where I have had to draw something or create a graphic response to a piece of literature for a project and I found no joy in it with exception to the 20-Shot Short Story we did, but that was a completely different medium.
I'll probably always enjoy the written word over pictures and objects- that's just where my heart lies.
I may be one of a minimal few, but I have never personally enjoyed creating graphic responses to literature especially when it comes to drawing or creating some sort of physical object like he has his students do in the article. They have always truly been more of a painful experience more than anything, and I've been this way ever since I was a child; I was always a child of words.
I hated art class in elementary school. Every time I had to go, I dreaded it. But I always undertook my own personal writing projects, outside of school requirements.
Even in college, I still find myself the same way. I've had a couple projects where I have had to draw something or create a graphic response to a piece of literature for a project and I found no joy in it with exception to the 20-Shot Short Story we did, but that was a completely different medium.
I'll probably always enjoy the written word over pictures and objects- that's just where my heart lies.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
From the School to the Home
Read this very short article
According to the article posted above, the general displeasure and mistrust towards the American Public School system is driving more students into alternate methods of education- mainly homeschooling.
The article itself makes some good establishing arguments towards the promotion of homeschooling, yet I still have some personal reservation on the matter.
One major problem I have is that parents are not certified and may not have the educational experience to teach some things to their children effectively. Teachers are good for teaching students, and while I understand parent's dislike for the current state of the public school system, I cannot let the value of teachers, who have spent years in college training to do what they do, be completely undermined by it.
Not only that, but the article states that homeschooling is void of the achievement gaps through race, income levels, or gender with no true supporting evidence. However, I feel shaky on this too, especially when it comes to income levels, because a child coming from a low-income family (and also coming from a low-income or poverty stricken area) is most likely to receive poorer educational opportunities than those from high-income areas. And obviously, the child's parents may have been likely subjected to the similar or identical educational experiences and therefore would not be able to provide their child with any better quality education than the schools.
I'm not completely hammering down on the idea of homeschooling and saying that the house is not a classroom; I believe it can have it's positive aspects as well as negative. But the point is, the nature of education is changing and in a drastic way and we need to make ourselves aware of this and educated about it to be better prepared for the future.
According to the article posted above, the general displeasure and mistrust towards the American Public School system is driving more students into alternate methods of education- mainly homeschooling.
The article itself makes some good establishing arguments towards the promotion of homeschooling, yet I still have some personal reservation on the matter.
One major problem I have is that parents are not certified and may not have the educational experience to teach some things to their children effectively. Teachers are good for teaching students, and while I understand parent's dislike for the current state of the public school system, I cannot let the value of teachers, who have spent years in college training to do what they do, be completely undermined by it.
Not only that, but the article states that homeschooling is void of the achievement gaps through race, income levels, or gender with no true supporting evidence. However, I feel shaky on this too, especially when it comes to income levels, because a child coming from a low-income family (and also coming from a low-income or poverty stricken area) is most likely to receive poorer educational opportunities than those from high-income areas. And obviously, the child's parents may have been likely subjected to the similar or identical educational experiences and therefore would not be able to provide their child with any better quality education than the schools.
I'm not completely hammering down on the idea of homeschooling and saying that the house is not a classroom; I believe it can have it's positive aspects as well as negative. But the point is, the nature of education is changing and in a drastic way and we need to make ourselves aware of this and educated about it to be better prepared for the future.
What is Learning?
The beginning of chapter 5 in our reading for Kist this week talks about Brett Moller using Facebook as an educational medium in the 21st century classroom. A very important point about education is brought up whenever Kist says, "...this project [using Facebook] was a kind of mind-shift for the students, in that they had been trained that school is about 'regurgitating information.'" That concept of "information regurgitation," is harmful to a person's educational development and is something that needs to be changed in the modern day school systems- especially public schools.
For example: K-12 history classes. All history classes are based on in elementary and high school, at least in my experience, is repeating "facts" back to the teacher in class. Yes, I did put "facts" in quotations marks for a reason, but that's another discussion for another day/blog. Unfortunately, this setup causes kids to mostly despise history classes, such as myself.
However, my freshman year of college I had a professor named Dr. Senecal. The first day of her class, I was intimidated because we had no textbook (we read novels the whole semester), and all of her tests and quizzes were essays with absolutely NO multiple choice at all. I ended up loving it though. The class was amazing and I learned more than I have in any history class ever. I got A's on every quiz and high B's to low A's on every test. Some memorization was involved, obviously, but it was simply memorizing minute and trivial details. Those details contributed to ideas and those ideas are what we used in our understanding of the history being taught to us.
More of this needs to happen in public schools, and not just in history courses, but EVERY course.
For example: K-12 history classes. All history classes are based on in elementary and high school, at least in my experience, is repeating "facts" back to the teacher in class. Yes, I did put "facts" in quotations marks for a reason, but that's another discussion for another day/blog. Unfortunately, this setup causes kids to mostly despise history classes, such as myself.
However, my freshman year of college I had a professor named Dr. Senecal. The first day of her class, I was intimidated because we had no textbook (we read novels the whole semester), and all of her tests and quizzes were essays with absolutely NO multiple choice at all. I ended up loving it though. The class was amazing and I learned more than I have in any history class ever. I got A's on every quiz and high B's to low A's on every test. Some memorization was involved, obviously, but it was simply memorizing minute and trivial details. Those details contributed to ideas and those ideas are what we used in our understanding of the history being taught to us.
More of this needs to happen in public schools, and not just in history courses, but EVERY course.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
A Small Digression
Hey guys, this has nothing to do with the class or readings but if you could take a couple seconds to help my brother out a bit.
If you're into post-hardcore music like Bring me the Horizon, Attack! Attack!, and Emmure check out his band, Awake and Create, on Facebook and take a couple minutes to listen to their debut single and vote for them to help possibly get them on the Ernie Ball stage at Warped Tour this year.
Any support is much appreciated, and thank you all.
If you're into post-hardcore music like Bring me the Horizon, Attack! Attack!, and Emmure check out his band, Awake and Create, on Facebook and take a couple minutes to listen to their debut single and vote for them to help possibly get them on the Ernie Ball stage at Warped Tour this year.
Any support is much appreciated, and thank you all.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Cultural Variances in Education
This article talks about how schools in Iran are beginning to implement lessons of abstinence as early as kindergarten, as well as being taught (the women at least) of wearing the hijab. The article states that the purpose of these lessons are have children adhere to Islamic traditions more closely.
Growing up in American schools, issues as blatant as this never truly arose during our time in public schools. However, since most of you reading this will be educators, or are already, understanding what the role of the public school holds is crucial.
I'm asking you as knowledge hungry and eager college students (or just knowledge hungry person), what you think of this policy? Should public schools be able to implement religious measures such as this (the article explicitly states these practices are of a religious manner)?
Just to jump start any discussion that may occur: I don't believe public schools have any room taking this kind of action. I believe religion should be a truly personal experience and shouldn't be forced onto children like this. Truly, this is nothing more to me than a violation of children's free will.
Growing up in American schools, issues as blatant as this never truly arose during our time in public schools. However, since most of you reading this will be educators, or are already, understanding what the role of the public school holds is crucial.
I'm asking you as knowledge hungry and eager college students (or just knowledge hungry person), what you think of this policy? Should public schools be able to implement religious measures such as this (the article explicitly states these practices are of a religious manner)?
Just to jump start any discussion that may occur: I don't believe public schools have any room taking this kind of action. I believe religion should be a truly personal experience and shouldn't be forced onto children like this. Truly, this is nothing more to me than a violation of children's free will.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)