Re: Which School Course Will Make The most Impact?
Posted by Crono on Tue Apr 13th at 11:19pm 2004
Yeah, English is incredibly important.
But, sadly, they try to teach certain legistics too early on. I think you should learn a bit more math (since lower math is much easier then writing properly) then learning the interworkings of sentence structure.
I mean to be honest, the only way I learned how to really structure my sentences properly, proof read or not, was in college. The concept of the pieces of a sentence were discussed early on in my education and I don't even remember them, really. Then about 8 years later, I was expected to regurgitate them for the instructors pleasure.
I just think that certain things in lower level courses need to be sped up, others slowed down, and above all, make sure the student understands what the hell you're talking about.
I always felt it odd that in lower grades of school, I never got a pre-test. It was just "BAM, test time". And I'd totally screw up. And then the teacher, or whoever, would basically form an opinion of my intelligence based on my score, which is amazingly unfair. I'm not saying life is fair, but, to someone under the age of 12 to 15, You don't fully understand these concepts and you can't understand why you were singled out and so on.
It really just needs to become fair and balanced. If anywhere, in lower grades.
Also, I wish that my lower schooling had better art/media/english programs. I remember art, even though it was mandatory, was bulls**t. The teacher didn't even know the standard technique for drawing a figure (I'm talking about 6-8th grade, about 11 to 13) So, these idea's you'd fully understand and such. But most of the time, entertainment is looked down upon (Movies, Games, comics, etc.) and I don't understand why.
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Re: Which School Course Will Make The most Impact?
Posted by Crono on Wed Apr 14th at 1:55am 2004
I see.
The only difference here, besides the forgotten promises of politicians, is that, the people who REALLY control what happens in schools is the school board, not the government. The school board is made up of citicens, politicians, and other individuals. There's also 'pta's' which are for each individual schools, and people usually run for board leader and such from those groups. However, this is where the problem lies. The individuals who are on the board usually do not really know what needs to be done in the classrooms to help the learning factor, since whenever they sit in on classes, the teachers practically bribe students to be on their best behavior so they don't get in hot water.
I think something that would basically help here is the mind set of the teachers and the board members. First off, they don't give children enough credit. They automatically think they're slow and stupid and if they don't understand something immediatly that they have a learning disorder, it makes absolutly no sense. It would help if most people on school boards were college educated. but sadly they aren't. (no offense to people whom are not college educated, but, lets face it, you learn a s**t load of stuff in college, such as major issues in your community and so on). I'm just saying it puts them at a disadvantage also in the fact that, most college majors are now geared toward critical thinking as well as basic knowledge. You need to be able to analyze something and becoming as little involved as you can. And what tends to happen on these boards is that, one parents will have a driving force in the group and they'll get only the actions that their child presents them with through, it's very weird, to be honest. We just need, as you said, Gwil, better monitoring and better control. Also, school shouldn't be a place in which you learn how to be quiet. It should be a place where you learn how to do things. I think if instructors and parents alike looked at it this way, school wouldn't be hell for the majority of children, because, it really is. Its basically a day care where you learn sometimes, when talking about lower grades.
A couple years ago for a class I was taking, we had to go out in the community and do some volunteer work and write a paper on it and such.
And so my group went to a elementary school (Kindergarden through 5th grade, or 5 years old - 10 years old).
We went into a 1st grade class. And, dude, these kids are smart. I basically had to help them read a book and sound out vowels and stuff like that. However, I found that the way their teacher was teaching them was rather ... inneffective. She used special rules that were only in that class room (such as comparing a sound to an animal of somesort). While this may work durring that class, when they go on to another teacher, they're going to be at a disadvantage since they learned a non-existant standard.
But anyway. I found that these kids were very perceptive to my tone of voice, the way I sounded things out, and they were rather interested in the subject. And when they got comfortable, they became rather playful, in a speech sense. All I had to do was ask them to quiet down so we could finish the book.
There was one kid, I think his name was Alex, and he was sort of acting out, just a tad, but he was still following along. And when we got to that point, the teacher came over and basically yelled at him when he was doing nothing wrong. I exclaimed to her that I had it under control, and she said something to the effect of "not with him". This is the sort of s**t I'm talking about. Maybe he's just hyper, so what? He was still learning the material, and doing a rather good job at it too.
I also found that the children were more perceptive to my speech then the instructors. Since I didn't talk down to them or make weird ass sounds to envoke certain reactions in them. I also at no point gave them the answers. When the teacher came over to 'check on me' she basically told them what all the answers were. And I could see the kids suddenly NOT care about what they were doing. The factor of confusion and wanting to solve the dillemma was keeping them 'captivated'.
I'm not saying this woman is a bad teacher, but I see this all the time, I also remember crap like this from when I was going to school. It makes you feel like a damn morron when someone inturupts your line of thought and rationalazation process and tells you the answer, especially when you didn't want them to. And I think in this situation that is valid, because when you first learn something, really, the best way to learn it is to struggle with it. Now, by that I don't mean suffer, I mean that they should jump in, try it out, and ask questions. All the kids I had a chance to work with did all of these things without a que from me, while when I saw the instructor work with them, they didn't get a chance to ask questions because she wouldn't stop talking, in her babified manner. I don't understand why certain teachers think little kids need to be talked to in that way, I really doubt that their family members speak to them that way in a general situation, so why would you when you want them to learn? Part of the problem is they don't feel comfortable.
Anyway, bah. It's not like I can do anything about any of this, so, what's the point?
[EDIT]
Wow, sorry about the length of the post ... if you read through it all that is.
[/EDIT]
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Crono
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