TIME: How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century

[Graham Donaldson]

Foreword: I hope this is in the right sub-forum. If not, could a mod please move it to where it needs to go? Thanks.

There was an interesting article in TIME this week entitled "How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century". (If the link does not work, please PM for instructions on how to access and read the article. You may have to search for the article, and then agree to watch a short ad to see the whole thing. You don't have to subscribeto TIME to read it.)

I have a few questions for the CD community regarding the article. We read and discussed it in my Honors English 2 class yesterday, and I'd like to hear what you guys think.

For you, in general:

1. What do you think is a global student (after reading the article)?
2. What do you agree with in the article?
3. What do you disagree with?
4. What does your school do to make you a 21st century student?
5. My teacher decided today that we would turn this idea into a project, and propose ideas to make our school more 21st-century. We're going to work on them occasionally throughout the year, and then at the end of the year, she wants to present them to the administration. What would you guys do to improve your school?

And in regards to FIRST: Does participating in FIRST help us be, or even make us 21st century students?

I just thought this was a very interesting idea and article. I'll post what I think a little later on, after some responses come up.

[Eric W. Jones]

First point: I don't think this would be a math and science topic. While it covers the teaching of math and science, it does not directly deal with such topics.

Second point: I can't help but think that you are using CD as a source for cheap answers on an essay. Maybe its just my interperetation of the way you posed your question, but I feel like I'm taking a test in a current problems class and not reading a thread.

Third point: This one's not too deep. It is an interesting article, if somewhat redundant in some respects, about how the US, in general, is lagging behind in educational standards. The only new information I see in this article is some of the ways to curb it (and I'm not counting the "we need to follow x country's example in x subject point. It's getting old. New information please!).

Oh, yeah and the link works, just so you know.

[Graham Donaldson]

Eric, to answer your questions:

1: I did make a note that I was not sure if it was in the right section, and if it wasn't, asked if a mod could change it (can they? I think they can-I've seen it done on other vBulletin forums).

Originally Posted by robotcanuck1676

Foreword: I hope this is in the right sub-forum. If not, could a mod please move it to where it needs to go? Thanks.

2: No. This is not me looking for answers on an essay. It was an interesting discussion I had in English that day and was wondering what anyone else on CD thought. I doubt, if I was writing an essay, I could source any of these posts as legitimate sources. Why I would be looking for help on an essay, I'm not sure. I said directly,

Originally Posted by robotcanuck1676

I just thought this was a very interesting idea and article.

I apologize to the CD community if people feel that I'm dredging up old things that people don't want to discuss. However, when I see threads like "Dean Kamen on the Colbert Report" and "How much do you pay for airfare?" or "Where is your team submitting your Regional Chairman's Award Entry?", I didn't think I was asking that much to start a thread that started a discussion about an article I thought was interesting and relevant to CD. If you don't like it, pound me with negative reps and ask a mod to delete the thread. Again, I don't think it's that much to ask. If it is, PM me, let me know, and I won't do it again. But until I'm told that it's inappropriate, I'm going to think it's OK.

I have to go to a tennis class, but when I'll get back, I'll post what I wrote on the subject to start the discussion.

[JaneYoung]

I have to go to a tennis class, but when I'll get back, I'll post what I wrote on the subject to start the discussion.

Good article, go for it.
Jane

[Graham Donaldson]

Ok, as promised, here are my answers:

1. A global student is one who is well versed in technology and language, and knows how to interact with others. They must be creative, be able to solve problems, and combine the skills they know to solve these problems. They cannot be sitting through lectures all day; there must be interactive class discussion and/or debates on a topic.
   
   
2. I agree that most schools are not in the 21st century enough. Teaching styles and lessons are outdated, and they need to be updated. I agree that foreign languages will be extremely critical for any business (quote-unquote “desk job”) occupation, and that students must be trained to quickly and accurately research and identify information that is good or bad, and use it and compile it into a presentation that is engaging and appropriate, or a report that is well-written and thorough.
   
   
3. This one I couldn't (and still can't) think of anything for, but if I do, I'll post it.
   
   
4. I feel like PHHS (my high school) is on the way to being a 21st-century school. Having the laptops (the district gave out Sony laptops to every student and teacher, which comes to around probably 2,000 people) are a boost, but not enough teachers using them to their full potential. Some teachers do in-class projects on them, which is good. But the majority of the classes where they can be used (history, english, science), teachers just lecture and we take notes on them- exactly what we would do with pen and paper.
   
   
5. Since I felt there was not enough group work and career-orieented classes, I took some ideas from a private high school I applied to and used them for my idea. Our school at the present has structured 8-period days where every day is the same. Instead, I suggested (or am suggesting) that they modify the schedule so not every class meets every day, leaving a certain afternoon (say Wednesday) open so that students can sign up for a "elective" class which they have to take, but they can choose what they take. You might have business classes, where students would be in groups and have to create, name, and organize a fictional company selling, say, a car. They would design the product, in this case the car, figure out how it will be made, and also decide general things on how the company is run, like offices, utilties, salaries, the works. Students would then at the end of the term present the projects to the teacher for a grade. You could also have engineering classes (of course I was thinking of FIRST here), where you would do projects like building trebuchets, and, during build season, a robot! You get my drift.
   
   
6. As for whether or not participating in FIRST makes us more global students, makes us more 21st-century students, I say a resounding YES! IMHO, if you cannot agree that being on a FIRST team, particularly during build season and competitions, makes you:
   

   Originally Posted by TIME

   • Think ouside the box
   • Research well and identify good and bad info (Look at CD- who hasn't gone on and looked for an answer at some point?)
   • Develop good people skills
   • Creatively solve problems by bridging knowledge from different areas

   Among other things, well then, your experience in FIRST has been much different than mine.

Now that I've posted my opinion, what does the rest of CD think?

[Conor Ryan]

I'm a big fan of TIME, it was an interesting article to read (could of used a cooler cover though)

1. What do you think is a global student (after reading the article)?
   • I attended an International Elementary School in England for 3 years (it's not as different as they say) other than that, I'm involved with FIRST, I worked in a Science Lab, I Science and Technology classes are my best subjects, I am a global student. I am awful when it comes to languages, but you can blame the school system with not introducing it early enough (it didn't start seriously for me until 7th grade).
2. What do you agree with in the article?
   • The idea of Portable Skills - learning skills that can be applied in so many different ways, than again there is nothing new about it, people are always doing it.
   • ETS's idea of a technology/communication skills standardized test, lets hope they get it right and college's then demand it. Technology/Communication capability is as much of a skill as being able to comprehend Shakespeare, understand Fermat's last theorem, know what the Bergeron effect is. The SAT's or ACT's don't test that, I think it should.
3. What do you disagree with?
   • The idea that people read differently now than they did before, they are over analyzing the situation here, every generation has faced the problem of irrelevant information, we just happen to have a lot more of it than our parents did.
   • Math and Reading classes are needed, no more or no less than they currently are, however classes like Technical Writing/Reading, or Applied Mathematics may make more sense at higher levels.
4. What does your school do to make you a 21st century student?
   • People are scared of change, the idea of a "Learning 2.0" system scares the pants off of any Board of Education, what they need is development. Get it down to a science, and gradually grow it. Hopefully it'll evolve.
   • A few years ago we had a major initiative to give every student a laptop, they didn't market the idea as well as they could of, and in the end voters were too scared of it (mostly because they didn't realize how cheap it really was, less than 1% of the proposed budget)
   • Schools need more software on the computers they already have so they can stop students from exploiting the ability of the Internet to not learn what they should be learning.
   • Some genius kids are gonna get together and put all the answers to any open-source education worksheets online somewhere, it's gonna be a problem (see above comment).
5. My teacher decided today that we would turn this idea into a project, and propose ideas to make our school more 21st-century. We're going to work on them occasionally throughout the year, and then at the end of the year, she wants to present them to the administration. What would you guys do to improve your school?
   • Ok, so everyone in school has heard about bringing technology into the classroom, as students you and I know where teachers tend to go wrong with bringing it into the classroom, do something about it.
   • Try to get more options of languages to younger kids, all elementary students in my school take Spanish and English, but what about French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Portuguese these are all languages that are in the world in major proportions, what about them too? Tomorrow's world will have the same problem we face, we don't speak enough of the same languages.

[Eric W. Jones]

I'd like to apologize for my previous post. I was rude. It was an interesting article, and I shouldn't have given you any flak for your wording. You have no need to apologize.