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Unread 24-11-2005, 01:50
Hieb Hieb is offline
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Re: Students, what is your fantasy education system?

First--great topic. It is easy to see that our current educational system has its flaws. At the same time, it's not always easy to see ways to fix.

While I realize this is a "fantasy" system, I do have a few questions/comments:

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007
5. Students should really be able to study towards their major, and only that, when they get to college and maybe even high school. It is just a waste of time to learn something you will not use just because it is required to have such a credit to graduate. What we also don't know is the REAL reason WHY we have to learn useless material that is not towards our major. Is someone up to no good in this world???
The problem I see here is that many, probably the majority, of students in high school haven't had enough experiences to be able to make an informed decision about a major. I knew quite a few people who after their first or second year of college still weren't really sure what they wanted to do.

And while we are not always aware of the reason for learning something (and sometimes as teachers we are not fully aware of why we are teaching something), 1.) it doesn't mean there isn't a perfectly valid reason for learing it, and 2.) can it really hurt that much to learn something new? Perhaps that seemingly irrelevant piece of learning will someday spark an idea that in a totally unrelated field.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007
6. Standardized testing would be rid of, torn up, thrown away, and written out of the history books.
You'll get no argument from a majority of educators. Unfortunately it is politicians, often with no educational training or background, that demand some form of accountability (no problem there) whose answer often seems to be to throw another test in the mix.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007
7. Schools would never block the truth and reality of the world just to make everybody happy, for everyone will need to confront it, so we might as well learn how to handle it from day 1.
Whose perception of truth and reality do we use and who gets to make the decision? As we are learning to handle it from day 1 do we show our kindergarten classes videos of the devastation brought on by a suicide bomber or dead soldiers worldwide? Or do we perhaps wait with such "truths" until a time when the student is more mentally and emotionally mature. After watching a policitical speech do I give share the "truth" as seen from my left-leaning liberal stance, or the opposing "truth" of my colleague (and friend's) very conservative right-leaning stance, or the Green or Libertarian or whatever other "truth" you find.

Wow, that was a bit more than I intended going in to this post. Still, trying to design an educational system that will provide everyone, rich or poor, male or female, motivated or unmotivated,from educated families or uneducated, etc, etc, with the opportunity to reach their fullest potential is a huge undertaking. We may have our flaws, but we also have the desire to continue learning from the mistakes we make in order to provide the very best education possible.

Dan Hiebert
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