We all win when the middle is properly served
An article in the Cincinnati Enquirer, here, warrants a response. This post is something of an open letter/opinion piece in response.
In the opinion of this junior in a private highschool, the main faults of the education system deal with quixotic subjects that should either vanish or drastically change, scheduling of the school day and year, lack of real-life applications of the subjects taught in school, and inabilities to focus on a specific group of students in a school.
I firmly believe that the human mind is shaped and developed by the person who uses it, rather than by genetics – give or take some rare circumstances. Additionally, science and common sense indicate that the most important stages of development occur at a young age. For example, the portion of the brain believed responsible for the learning and use of languages is most active in pre-teens, probably because children of such ages constantly learn new words and refine their grammar. This is why Hispanic immigrants often fail to learn english, but their children may become fluent in as little as 6 months. Thus, for schools to be successful, they must focus on mental development in kindergarten and elementary school. This means that schools should drop two subjects: spelling and geography. Spelling is progressively less relevant in the age of computers, and much of the real knowledge (knowledge which can be applied to other things) can be learned through life in general. There are few reasons to keep spelling as a year-long class that persists through all of elementary school, as proper spelling depends on an understanding of a language, rather than memorization. Geography is very similar – no person needs to memorize the exact location and capital of every state in the US, and no one in their right mind will memorize every nation in Africa. The class depends memorization, and does little in the long run.
Schoolday schedules are designed to accommodate parents, and the schoolyear follows the requirements of the 19th century. For biological reasons (mainly the chemical which, among other things, makes eyelids feel heavy and prevents sleep during the day), school should start at or after 9:15 AM. That aforementioned chemical causes children to stay up later and wake later than adults, so it is detrimental for the schoolday to start before or at the same time as the workday, because children are less capable of learning when their biology prefers to sleep. Additionally, the schoolday should be longer to allow more work to be done at school, and away from the distractions which plague homework. Homework should not be eliminated, but it also should not be a continuation of a class which ran out of time. The purpose of homework is to practice a concept in order to clarify and solidify understanding, not to glare at new topics that the teacher has to explain and re-assign later. The two-month break between schoolyears allows most students to forget everything and enjoy laziness, and thus should be eliminated. Many one- or two-week breaks throughout the year have proven far more efficient. The only benefits of summer vacations are the possibilities of summer jobs, remedial classes for underachievers, and additional or college classes for those who excel. Jobs and classes can easily be converted into, and often are, after-school activities. I, for example, held a job at a distribution company from a week before Christmas until shortly before exams at the end of the school year; I decided to leave the job and not work over the summer because I despised my co-workers. Shortly after I left, the company developed a turnover rate comparable to that of an insomniac attempting to go to bed early. Only one of my five co-workers did actual, commendable work.
Most students who look for jobs end up with no-skill, entry level positions that do not teach the importance or applications of education. At my job, I learned an inefficient method of organizing merchandise and to stay on my toes whenever I heard the electric cart (some co-workers had a habit of driving quickly and recklessly). I would rather hold a position in which I can learn a trade but get paid nearly nothing than work somewhere with decent pay, demotivation, and no prospects. Few such jobs exist; however, computer programming shows promise, as many good programmers are self-taught teenagers. One of the reasons blogs are so prevalent is that highschool and college students are eager to exercise their minds freely, an ability they rarely find a job for.
Many low-performing schools have significant numbers of Hispanic students who have yet to learn english, but those students sit in classes where the teacher speaks english. The only thing the Hispanic student can possibly learn, unless he or she has an exceptional math teacher who can explain through diagrams, is ADD. Schools with many students who only speak Spanish should either develop classes taught in Spanish or put those students in an english class that will occupy most of the school day, and in which some of the other subjects can be taught to prevent the students from falling far behind. Attempts to teach the same class in two separate languages, or to incorporate an interpreter in the class, usually fail because more time is spent translating than actually teaching. Additionally, the average student should not be in the same classes as those who perform extremely well, for the reasons stated in your article. Often, politics prevents the separation of students based on their abilities and needs, because many voters will blindly follow rhetoric decrying segregation and proclaiming the equality of every student. Politics have already introduced extreme political correctness to textbooks – to the extent that owls are left out of some biology books because one Indian tribe believes owls are evil.
In the opinion of this junior in a private highschool, the main faults of the education system deal with quixotic subjects that should either vanish or drastically change, scheduling of the school day and year, lack of real-life applications of the subjects taught in school, and inabilities to focus on a specific group of students in a school.
I firmly believe that the human mind is shaped and developed by the person who uses it, rather than by genetics – give or take some rare circumstances. Additionally, science and common sense indicate that the most important stages of development occur at a young age. For example, the portion of the brain believed responsible for the learning and use of languages is most active in pre-teens, probably because children of such ages constantly learn new words and refine their grammar. This is why Hispanic immigrants often fail to learn english, but their children may become fluent in as little as 6 months. Thus, for schools to be successful, they must focus on mental development in kindergarten and elementary school. This means that schools should drop two subjects: spelling and geography. Spelling is progressively less relevant in the age of computers, and much of the real knowledge (knowledge which can be applied to other things) can be learned through life in general. There are few reasons to keep spelling as a year-long class that persists through all of elementary school, as proper spelling depends on an understanding of a language, rather than memorization. Geography is very similar – no person needs to memorize the exact location and capital of every state in the US, and no one in their right mind will memorize every nation in Africa. The class depends memorization, and does little in the long run.
Schoolday schedules are designed to accommodate parents, and the schoolyear follows the requirements of the 19th century. For biological reasons (mainly the chemical which, among other things, makes eyelids feel heavy and prevents sleep during the day), school should start at or after 9:15 AM. That aforementioned chemical causes children to stay up later and wake later than adults, so it is detrimental for the schoolday to start before or at the same time as the workday, because children are less capable of learning when their biology prefers to sleep. Additionally, the schoolday should be longer to allow more work to be done at school, and away from the distractions which plague homework. Homework should not be eliminated, but it also should not be a continuation of a class which ran out of time. The purpose of homework is to practice a concept in order to clarify and solidify understanding, not to glare at new topics that the teacher has to explain and re-assign later. The two-month break between schoolyears allows most students to forget everything and enjoy laziness, and thus should be eliminated. Many one- or two-week breaks throughout the year have proven far more efficient. The only benefits of summer vacations are the possibilities of summer jobs, remedial classes for underachievers, and additional or college classes for those who excel. Jobs and classes can easily be converted into, and often are, after-school activities. I, for example, held a job at a distribution company from a week before Christmas until shortly before exams at the end of the school year; I decided to leave the job and not work over the summer because I despised my co-workers. Shortly after I left, the company developed a turnover rate comparable to that of an insomniac attempting to go to bed early. Only one of my five co-workers did actual, commendable work.
Most students who look for jobs end up with no-skill, entry level positions that do not teach the importance or applications of education. At my job, I learned an inefficient method of organizing merchandise and to stay on my toes whenever I heard the electric cart (some co-workers had a habit of driving quickly and recklessly). I would rather hold a position in which I can learn a trade but get paid nearly nothing than work somewhere with decent pay, demotivation, and no prospects. Few such jobs exist; however, computer programming shows promise, as many good programmers are self-taught teenagers. One of the reasons blogs are so prevalent is that highschool and college students are eager to exercise their minds freely, an ability they rarely find a job for.
Many low-performing schools have significant numbers of Hispanic students who have yet to learn english, but those students sit in classes where the teacher speaks english. The only thing the Hispanic student can possibly learn, unless he or she has an exceptional math teacher who can explain through diagrams, is ADD. Schools with many students who only speak Spanish should either develop classes taught in Spanish or put those students in an english class that will occupy most of the school day, and in which some of the other subjects can be taught to prevent the students from falling far behind. Attempts to teach the same class in two separate languages, or to incorporate an interpreter in the class, usually fail because more time is spent translating than actually teaching. Additionally, the average student should not be in the same classes as those who perform extremely well, for the reasons stated in your article. Often, politics prevents the separation of students based on their abilities and needs, because many voters will blindly follow rhetoric decrying segregation and proclaiming the equality of every student. Politics have already introduced extreme political correctness to textbooks – to the extent that owls are left out of some biology books because one Indian tribe believes owls are evil.
posted by Chris at
11:13 AM
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