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julia h
Joined: Jun 9, 2007
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American Education
August 15, 2007 - 08:29 PM
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When I went to a regular American school I flunked out, and then I went to a charter school. This school was based one a different methodology and being there, I finally realized how ineffective the typical American high school is.
In the typical public high school, American children do not engage their creative processes: information is only collected into their short-term memory, and gets thrown out usually when the year ends. There isn't much that I remember from my earlier years of high school. So, in other words, that whole school year was wasted.
The one main thing that will help our children learn is teaching them to want to learn, and not lying to them either. History in so distorted in most American schools that there is no point in learning it.
It is also important to give students more freedom in their education. In many subjects there are no right or wrong answers. The answers should be determined by the individual. It is hypercritical of us to emphasize individual when we lack it in our institutions.
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prieten47
Joined: Oct 26, 2006
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Re: American Education
August 15, 2007 - 09:21 PM
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ejk159 wrote:
The one main thing that will help our children learn is teaching them to want to learn, and not lying to them either. History in so distorted in most American schools that there is no point in learning it.
It is also important to give students more freedom in their education. In many subjects there are no right or wrong answers. The answers should be determined by the individual. It is hypercritical of us to emphasize individual when we lack it in our institutions.
I am happy you found a school that fits your needs. How did that school motivate children to want to learn? My parents always demanded I study and they placed a high value on education and that attitude rubbed off on me.
I live in Japan where I teach English and visit a different school every day.
In most classes the kids are focussed on me and the material I am teaching. Other classes have a "free for all" atmosphere where kids are making silly sounds, aping the dialogues, throwing things. And in all the pandemonium, some kids just put their heads on their arms and sleep!
I think a school can only do so much. If children don't learn at home to want to learn, I think they are not going to try at school.
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julia h
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Re: American Education
August 16, 2007 - 04:11 PM
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The school was a Glassner Quality school. Only about a hundred kids are accepted into the school, which is supposed to be "community-like." There are no cliques in this school because it is so small and the staff goes out of its way to make sure everyone knows each other.
Nobody can get Fsl. You can only make As or Bs, and if you don't, you have to keep trying until you do. The idea behind this is that an F will discourage a student, whereas an A or B will encourage them.
There are no due dates for assignments because the school emphasizes quality work, and quality work takes time.
Another thing about this school is the attitudes the teachers have. I think that in a lot of other schools teachers are so exhausted and they don't care whether their kids are doing well or not. Classroom are set up to be small so that teachers can get to know their kids better and therefore have better relationships with their students.
I think that teachers can easily instigate a student's desire for learning simply by doing things like asking more about the student's opinions and making learning exciting.
Finally, I think some of the teachers helped me take interest in the rest of the world because they actually have travelled and knew a lot about it. When I read a book by Marquez, the teacher told us stories about the years she spent in Columbia and went out of her way to teach us its history.
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Sam Mjalli
Joined: Aug 28, 2007
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Re: American Education
August 29, 2007 - 10:10 PM
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I think that there are two main reasons why education in the US is failing. Firstly, it is much too easy to become a teacher and certain programs such as tenure mean that the expectations of what a teacher must be capable of have dropped. Also, it's pretty well shown that the majority of teachers became teachers because they had no other real path;Today's teachers are the C students of yesterday.
Another reason the education system is failing is because, quite honestly, the classes are no longer thought provoking. Whether that's the result poor teaching or something else, I don't really know. I think chances are it's the teaching.
What we really need to do, is channel more funds into our school systems. Raise the salary of teaching along with the requirements to become a teacher. Obviously, we must allow current teachers to continue teaching.
The problems we are experiencing will take a while to be solved but the goal is that over time, we will gradually improve our education process by providing students with a more aware and thought-provoking environment. I firmly believe that the best way to secure a brighter future for this country is to first begin producing a more aware generation of citizens.
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Trevor Gillespie
Joined: Oct 21, 2007
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Re: American Education
October 21, 2007 - 05:16 AM
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A healthy education in American schools is limited by the capacity of the teachers and the involvement of the parents. Parents play just as much if not more of a role in keeping their children motivated in modern schools as teachers. It is the teachers job to bring about the interest in a subject and propel the student mind in new directions while it is the parents job to facilitate the productivity of the learning pathways.
When I look at education today I see the downward trends and then I see parents blaming the education system. Children take their cue from their parents and if they see their parents going against a pubic system while not invoking change then what do you think the children will embody?
If U.S. schools are to improve, then parents need to step up themselves and play an active role in their children's academic achievements. This involves taking the learning outside the classroom. When I was younger my parents would encourage the learning process by providing "summer homework assignments." While I despised the work, it promoted an active mind and solidified academic motivation as one of my values.
The simple answer to education improvements doesn't exist, but by getting parents more involved we can at least make a step in the right direction.
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Sam Mjalli
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Re: American Education
October 21, 2007 - 08:24 PM
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You're absolutely right about the responsibility of parents to be involved in their child's education process. I also agree with the importance of education outside the classroom; my parents have done that with me all my life, something that most certainly affected me in more ways than I can even imagine. I believe whole-heartedly that the reason I have good grades in school lies in their efforts. The only problem with concentrating on parental invlolvement rather than school reform is that you have to ask the question "How?" and more importantly, you have to be able to answer that question. I can tell you how we improve school systems but I can not tell you any sure-fire way to MAKE parents be... well... better parents. To be totally honest, most problems in the world today could be solved by better parents raising a more capable, understanding generation, but how do you make that happen? I guess that's my question to you. How, specifically, do we get parents involved with their children's education?
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Jay DeGrandis
Joined: Aug 15, 2008
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Re: American Education
August 22, 2008 - 11:56 PM
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4portswitch wrote:
I think that there are two main reasons why education in the US is failing. Firstly, it is much too easy to become a teacher and certain programs such as tenure mean that the expectations of what a teacher must be capable of have dropped. Also, it's pretty well shown that the majority of teachers became teachers because they had no other real path;Today's teachers are the C students of yesterday.
Another reason the education system is failing is because, quite honestly, the classes are no longer thought provoking. Whether that's the result poor teaching or something else, I don't really know. I think chances are it's the teaching.
What we really need to do, is channel more funds into our school systems. Raise the salary of teaching along with the requirements to become a teacher. Obviously, we must allow current teachers to continue teaching.
The problems we are experiencing will take a while to be solved but the goal is that over time, we will gradually improve our education process by providing students with a more aware and thought-provoking environment. I firmly believe that the best way to secure a brighter future for this country is to first begin producing a more aware generation of citizens.
Hardly. The American system is failing because of it's dictatorial structure, lack of societal respect [and compensation] for teachers, over emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing (and de-emphasis of life-long authentic learning), and the cycle of poverty.
"A delegation led by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) recently toured Scandinavia in search of answers for how students in that region of the world were able to score so high on a recent international test of math and science skills. They found that educators in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark all cited autonomy, project-based learning, and nationwide broadband internet access as keys to their success.
What the CoSN delegation didn’t find in those nations were competitive grading, standardized testing, and top-down accountability—all staples of the American education system."
Source: e-school News
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Raine
Joined: Jan 25, 2006
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Re: American Education
September 20, 2008 - 11:47 PM
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wow, Julia. i wish i had went to your school. i had some good teachers, but your school sounds like it has much better methods. can you post on my "perfect school" thread?
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