<p>The description.</p>
<p>We, as CC-ers, are most fond of decrying our schools and teachers. So, how would you plan on fixing them?</p>
<p>Go!</p>
<p>For my take:</p>
<p>I think we need to raise the standards for teaching. Usually education programs are populated by less driven individuals and have low standards for entry. I think there should be greater separation by ability and interest. How often are good classes ruined because of obnoxious students?</p>
<p>this was one thing aaron swartz said, lol.</p>
<p>[Stanford:</a> Day 3 (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog)](<a href=“http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001421]Stanford:”>Stanford: Day 3 (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog))
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<p>I think we should take placement tests for AP classes. So it shouldn’t matter what grade you’re in; as long as you do well on the test, you’re good to go.</p>
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<p>Well, we can start by losing the superiority complex. There needs to be a plan for what to do with the “obnoxious students” too. </p>
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<li><p>ALL classes should be either academic classes or non-fluffy electives. Mastery should be expected in art and music classes. There shouldn’t be any ridiculous contrived classes designed as places to shove the low-achieving kids. </p></li>
<li><p>Either completely redesign or get rid of standardized tests. I want to feel like my school is different from other schools and that my teachers design their lessons somewhat autonomously because they care about the individuals in their classes. I don’t want a McDonald’s education, where everything is exactly the same no matter where you go because of standardization. I want to have a culture and a background. I don’t want my education to be exactly the same as everyone else’s. </p></li>
<li><p>Kids who don’t care for academics should have the option of going to trade school part-time during their last two years of high school.</p></li>
<li><p>Teachers and teaching should get more respect. This will draw more qualified people into teaching.</p></li>
<li><p>Get rid of those God-awful fill-in-the-blank worksheets and guided notes.</p></li>
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<p>Homeschool.</p>
<p>Get skilled educators to publish free resources on the web in higher quantity and quality.</p>
<p>Phase out schools in favor of independent tutors.</p>
<p>Khan Academy, in more competent use of multimedia, and in more subjects.</p>
<p>I wish work was more independent. I don’t really have any ideas to go share, however. I just dislike the group projects and whatnot. I don’t need a lecture on how working with others is beneficial. I am capable of doing so, but I love being able to do things my own away. I like to think about my work when I’m by myself. I think that’s when I work best. I could honestly not care any less about class size as long as I get a good lecture. Don’t know where I’m going with this, but basically I think there should be a few tweaks to cater to more independent students.</p>
<p>Live lectures are a royal waste of teachers’ time. Record a lecture so anyone in the world can consume it at any time, then be available to converse about the subject.</p>
<p>And all the time spent drawing on whiteboards, taking breaks in class, etc. really adds up. An hour long semi-impromptu lecture given from notes could probably be converted into a 40 minute or shorter video lecture in which every word is important.</p>
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<p>I don’t mean it in an offensive way, but it’s annoying as heck when you’re trying to learn in AP Lit and people are surfing the web, making random comments and so forth. And AP Lit is an elective at my school - it doesn’t even count as official English. These students chose to take it. I think we need to find a way to separate out students of different ability quickly and place them in ways that best suit their needs. Kids that are highly academic can take T1 classes that have less busywork, more intensive reading etc. Kids who are less inclined and just need to graduate can have the option of taking a lower track that teaches more practical skills or is less intense. </p>
<p>Actually, my province DOES do this- offer different levels in English/Social studies, but my school, because of its mandate makes all the classes ‘track 1’. I think we should do this tracking for all classes. I don’t think we should go to specialized schools for this special tracking (because situations like the one at my school happen), but just make it a feasible option.</p>
<p>I agree with:</p>
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<p>This is interesting. There’s often a lot of teaching to the test at sub-par school which may, ironically be exactly what they don’t need. I would take this approach further and advocate for personalized education for each student.</p>
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<p>I agree entirely with this. </p>
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<p>The public perception of teachers is quite bad, in that people say unions frequently resist any movements to reform education and dislike competition in the form of alternative types of education. I think you could make this argument for many professions in a larger sense that people are overly materialistic and fail to appreciate jobs that provide little renumeration.</p>
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<p>Worst.</p>
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<p>I like live lectures because face-to- face interactions provide more opportunity to ask questions et al. However, I wonder why teachers couldn’t do both - give the lecture and also record it. That would possibly prevent bad subs from wrecking a lesson- just play the tape!</p>
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<p>This is what academia and research companies should be like. But there’s no way to really test for smartness and passion. It can be faked. I know adults on this website seem to place lots of faith in adcoms at top schools, but since adcoms have to judge on achievement rather than aptitude, I think they inadvertently admit some less than stellar people. Some kids I know that got admitted to/attend HYPSM schools copied HW and resubmitted it and were just jerks. One of them failed out, I think. If we could design a test that effectively measured aptitude and used that to place people in schools that fit their needs, I think we would be better off. But it’s probably impossible.</p>
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<p>This might be a good general idea. I think sometimes people put a lot of emphasis on socialization of children but if you’re really advanced, what’s the point of spending years learning stuff that’s too easy? This is especially unfortunate in elementary/middle school, when students have to basically stay with a class or team of students for the entire year. But in general, I agree with you on AP.</p>
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<p>I think the fluidity of homeschooling can be really useful. Sometimes, the structure seen in normal schools can make work a chore and hurt a kid’s attitude towards learning. I think this happened to me. What’s the point of doing annoying outlines or filling out those guided notes when they’re not really useful?</p>
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<p>This is in progress, no?</p>
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<p>I remember reading that some famous academics in France during some war basically taught each other’s children in the various subjects they were good at: chemistry, physics, math, history etc. That sounds so cool. Independent tutoring would probably be helpful for many kids but it’s not really affordable.</p>
<p>Complete segregation of students in classes by proficiency for every class (not just by subject, or level but even AP classes have different tiers). This will serve as motivation to those in the obviously lower tiers to strive to be in the upper tiers.</p>
<p>Perfect system.</p>
<p>Also, pie. Pie in class everyday.</p>
<p>^^^ Except some people don’t have a strong desire to do well. As long as they can graduate and get a job at McDonald’s or work with their dads in construction (my school) they don’t care. There is a guy who got 4.8% in physical science & and people that have GPAs under 1… I swear it’s not even possible.</p>
<p>Honestly? I think we should do away with the traditional first, second, third, etc. grade system. It leaves such a gap between students who are promoted with As and Bs and those who are barely making Ds, even when the latter is brought down a level for the next class. They’re left playing catch-up for a while, because though they passed, they missed over 30% of the material.
I imagine that students would placed in classes based on current proficiency, and are taught in that level of a subject until they have come up to a certain benchmark (some sort of leaving exam system? I dunno). To effectively graduate, you need to complete X levels of certain courses to demonstrable competency. Some students who either tested into higher level classes or who put the time in to surpass the minimum competency could earn a higher-tiered diploma.
I hope that didn’t ramble too much, lol</p>
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<p>I agree. I think if everyone was based on skill level regardless of age the educational system would run much smoother. What is age really? What does it say about your intelligence or majority level? Nothing. I mean sure a 5 should be less mature than a 15 year old. Although, I’m not even sure if that’s even true with the druggy, careless, and “bad” construction workers to be at my school.
How do you decide what the cutoff is? Now I think they kick you out of HS at 21. Taking age out, how would you determine when a student isn’t capable of graduation? It might also displease parents to put their young “gifted” kids in classes with people of any age.
I wish that was the education system. I really don’t understand why your class rigor is determined by age or when your parents want to send you in.</p>
<p>I think you people need to have more compassion for the low-achieving kids. Many of you seem to view these kids as inherently worthless and unmeritorious, but there are many reasons why people don’t do well in school. Learning disabilities, family problems, uninvolved parents, needing to work after school rather than do homework. Keep in mind that many people are not as privileged as you. </p>
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<p>The vast majority of parents would completely screw this up (contrary to popular belief, teaching is not something everyone can do), unless you mean something different than I think by “homeschool.”
Also, what about kids with abusive families for whom school is the only escape? A lot of times abuse is discovered by teachers and other people in the school. </p>
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<p>But non-smart people should be able to get a university education too, if they want to. I think we need to stop pushing people into four-year colleges when they don’t want to go, but I don’t think you have to be smart to be academically-inclined and interested in getting an education. </p>
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<p>This kind of competition would be harmful and not at all conducive to learning. People would be far more concerned with their place in the hierarchy than with learning. We already have too much of that in our current system, as evidenced by the kind of stuff that gets posted on this website (people ask if their GPA is good enough, rather than if they’re learning what they should be learning). Let’s not make it worse.
The lower-achieving kids would probably just devolve further into mediocrity anyway, when all their classes were full of people just like them. They’d view their placement as some kind of divine judgment and not as something changeable, and they wouldn’t make any effort to change it. All the good teachers would go to the classes with better students. </p>
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<p>I believe testing out of classes and accelerating quickly based on tests is a bad idea in many cases. I tested out of physics at my high school by watching online lectures and reading from textbooks. I got a 92% on the final and I remember absolutely nothing.
Self-studying is just the blind leading the blind, and it should be used as a last resort only. </p>
<p>And for reasons I think are obvious, I don’t think large numbers of people should go to college and live alone before they’re eighteen. Obviously we’ll always have a few outliers, but I don’t think it should be a common thing. </p>
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<p>Quite a lot, actually. Kids are kids, no matter how intelligent they are.
I mean, I was significantly less mature three years ago than I am now (I have lots of melodramatic poetry saved as evidence of this), though I was presumably just as intelligent as I am today.
Gaining maturity takes time, and you can’t really accelerate that process. I think we thwart it and screw it up when we accelerate kids through high school too quickly. High school has purposes other than just transferring information.</p>
<p>Here’s a debatable idea I saw on the Physics Forums regarding AP calculus. However I might try to argue to extend it: get rid of IB and AP courses. Hopefully I present the idea good (I’m a sloppy writer) as did the thread on the Physics Forums did. Anyways:</p>
<p>What tends to annoy me the most are the kids, who are fairly smart, who take lots of HL IBs or APs in subjects their not even interested in. They just do it for credit or something. In my AP calculus class we have dumb kids allowed in of course (which is ridiculous) but we also have smart kids who are just bad at math and actually hate math. Why are you in calculus then? Well just cause its AP and it’ll make them look smart would probably be their answer. These kids who aren’t interested in the subject and are thus not good is why some AP courses move so slow (AP calculus coming to mind again).</p>
<p>If AP Calculus wasn’t an AP course, it would rid all the kids taking it for more credit and just contain kids passionate about math. </p>
<p>Now I think this would work the same way extended across the board. If there were no AP classes students would ultimately take what interests them and as a result probably get into colleges that match their passions better. And maybe instead of AP tests if class finals were used? This would eliminate teaching the test, as already mentioned on the thread, and colleges could still give credit similar to how they do on an ap test. (On finals: A = 5, B = 4, C = 3, D = 2, F = 1 just to illustrate)</p>
<p>Another point I agree with, already mentioned on this thread, is to have tests before taking advanced classes such as calculus, physics, and even humanities I guess. This would rid the dumber kids. I can’t stand having a kid in my class who could give a fudge about the class.</p>
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<p>They’re not taking it because it’s AP or because they want credit. They’re taking it because it’s calculus and they heard colleges like calculus.
My school has non-AP calculus (and no AP calculus), and most of the people in there couldn’t care less about math. </p>
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<p>Most high school students don’t have passions, and even the ones who do usually end up changing them.</p>
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<p>I don’t see how it would eliminate teaching to the test. Teachers would just teach to the final instead.
And the important thing about AP tests is that they’re standardized. Why should we give the same credit to people who took a bunch of different finals that might not include the same stuff? Better schools would have harder finals. </p>
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<p>Being able to pass a test doesn’t mean you actually care about the class.</p>
<p>lol why is everyone in this thread so serious?</p>
<p>Perhaps we need to remove the stigma of being ‘dumb’. People have no issue saying that they suck at sports or are mediocre at art.</p>
<p>And I’d say we should focus on aptitude when admitting fo high school programs and achievement in grad school and undergrad. </p>
<p>Anyway, I think Schwartz’s point was that a lot of people at Stanford weren’t truly brilliant- just normal and good at working thru the system . Maybe these are the qualities you need to get ahead; however at the upper levels of study, I think only aptitude and creativity should be rewarded. There are people who write fantastic grants and get approved for predictable and dull projects when people who are less wavy yet better at science get rejected. Anyway, getting a grant usually means lobbying to groups that have special interests. </p>
<p>I think we should give everyone options in HS, but to access certain options, you have to be able to test into them. Those who are less academically inclined could access classes that are less simple. Internships with tradespeople could be set up. For instance, one school I attended had kids test into accel math in MS. There were options for honors (basically covered the course and half the next year’s course), regular, basic etc. This school had a 99% grad rate and 98% went on to post secondary. </p>
<p>I think people believe that smartness determines their self worth, which isn’t true. I don’t know how to change that.</p>