Students, what is your fantasy education system?

[bk111]

Video games should be a column of our education system. DDR for PE. Age of Empires (RTS's) for history. Halo (FPS's) for physics. All video games for programming classes.
Make computer literacy a bigger part of the curriculum.
Social Science teachers should be more like the one in The Emperor's Club. Music teachers should be more like those in Mr. Holland's Opus. I highly recommend both of these films.
(I'll add more latter, I had some awful luck with two 500 word entries.)

[vaheedr]

i think your idea for video games for the rest of the classes are great.
A great education system for Robotics is that students should not learn from adults but from other students. Our team (599) is 99% student run. The seniors teach the Freshman and other students so when they go to there senior year they can teach the new generation. this system has been working for our team for 4 years. we only have one mentor. and we let the studnets do all the work on the robot. even our programing is done by the students and when we were asked if we should have engineer's teach us we declined the offer. But from my experiance it is easier learning from one of my peers then a teacher. that education system in my opion is great for Robotics students. but for everyt thing else i am not sure of.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by bk111

Video games should be a column of our education system. DDR for PE. Age of Empires (RTS's) for history. Halo (FPS's) for physics. All video games for programming classes.

I thought I would add some more suggestions for this format:
-Alternative history game would be the Cid Mier Civilization Series
-Physics: Sonic the Hedgehog
-Chemistry: Pokemon (sorry if I make someone go nuts, but the games are good. That cannot be said about the cartoon though. lol)
-Literature: anything with massive amounts of text like Metroid Prime, Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross, etc
-Biology: oh, uh, Pokemon and Metroid Prime again
-Math: Magic: The Gathering.

[HyPhire111]

mine would be that school starts at 1:00pm and goes until 7:00pm the only thing is that it could be problematic since many work or would take advantage of school starting so late but nothing fun happens (at least in Chicago) until past 9:00pm so i would love to be able to stay out later and wake up past 12:00pm (or wake up and have a proper breakfast) and go to school well rested in addition to a smalled dinner (more healthy than eating your largest meal at night and going to sleep). just for a point and getting my opinion out there. (~_~)

[dubious elise]

In all honesty, I have never had real complaints with my education until I got into high school. Like many of you previously stated, I, too, was taught largely by my family. Being the youngest of 5, I always had the competitive spirit in me to further my education in whatever direction I could. If my sister could whistle, I would find out how to whistle; if my brother could spell "encyclopedia", I would spell "encyclopedia"; if my sister could do an american twist serve, I would teach myself how to do an american twist serve.

My parents always tried to take us on the most educational trips possible. A summer trip to London was filled with tours of churches, art museums, and historical locations; weekends spent in Chicago are always at least equal parts shopping and touring museums (though more often it is lopsided in favor of the museums) - and each of us read every. last. placard. in whatever museum we were in.

Pre school and kindergarten? Let's face it. I was 5 years old or less. The average human memory actually starts around the age of 5 or 6, anything "remembered" before then is simply your own recollection of what those older than you have told you. I don't remember a darn thing. I'm sure it was grand.

In grade school (K-8), I attended the local parochial school at my parish. Understand, when we learned about the formation of the earth, science and religion classes were still entirely separate - in science class, Darwin was King and in religion class, God's word was law. In our other classes, we were pushed to excel and to be as creative as possible (obviously, within moral boundaries).

High school is also local but public. My own four years have been quite the wild ride, in terms of setup, mind you. Our new administration has been making changes right and left - adding block scheduling, eliminating honors classes, eliminating weighted grades, adding an IB diploma programme, eliminating nearly all tech-ed classes and independent study programs, etc etc.

I've had numerous carbunkles in my own schedule (just try explaining to colleges that you really will have taken 4 years of one language by the time college begins...even though you can only account for 2.5 credits worth of classes instead of 4). My freshman year, block scheduling enabled me to enter a junior-level science class, and sophomore level english and math classes - while holding me back with what can best be described as a banal "global studies" class.

My two beefs, however, are this. 1) force kids to be creative. honestly. in grade school, if we copied a vocabulary definition word-for-word from the textbook on a worksheet or even a test, it was automatically marked incorrect. we had to show our own proficiency in subject matter by, first and foremost, showing our understanding of the material. i cannot even begin to tell you how many vocabulary tests i have "failed" because, though i used a correct definition, it was not the verbatim definition found in the text. and yes, showing comprehension is a means of being creative. if you feel that you don't know enough words to create an alternate definition, think up another way to show your understanding.

2) don't penalize the extremities. by extremeties, i actually am referring to the smart kids. i make no apologies for what i say. please, just take it at face value and don't overanalyze it. my school system in particular has been quite annoying on this point - since the instillation of these new programs at OHS, the focus has started to go towards helping the kids that seriously do not care for the material at hand. i understand, this is a noble effort, but if said students do not feel compelled to work, why should we make them do so?

an idea that i have heard proposed before, and with more frequency now, is making high school more like college. no, not forcing kids to specialize; most kids have no idea where they want to go or what they want to do - heck, all i know is that i want to go into medicine, as for how and when, i don't know. i mean that high school students should, however, be forced to purchase their own books and materials. yes, there will always be the kid that can "buy his way" into whatever class, but for those students that aren't so blessed, they need to make careful decisions and take responsibility for their own actions. this was something that independent study classes allowed students to do. they could invest in their own education, learn about material that mattered to them, and work at their own pace. now, our only options are attending the small local colleges for classes on the high school's bill (which, with today's gas prices, is still very expensive) or going all in and taking an online course (no gas expense, but the high school won't fund it either).

Sure, I rant about my high school a lot. And after how I've gotten it handed to me, of course I feel justified to do so But in all honesty, I wouldn't have taken the option of going to a private or parochial school for these past four years. I could have gone a lot of different ways in those schools - I never would have joined a robotics team, I never would have been able to teach myself 3rd semester Calculus, I never would have met so many different students from so many different backgrounds just within my own school. Besides, high school is what you make of it - the administration can only do so much to block your way if it really is a worthy cause

[psquared89]

I believe this is a topic that just about any student can be passionate about, but there is something we must all bear in mind: While the author escapes, a wise man once wrote that while each man will always seek his utopia, the world will never see a utopian society, for each man's utopia is his own. I have my (rather passionate) opinions about my perfect education and my perfect world, as does every other sentient being. The only problem is that you and I will never agree completely. With that said...

My early education experiance was much like that of Tristan, and like him, I do not wish to come off conceited, I simply wish to explain to you what it was like to grow up in my head. I have read books on my own since the age of 4 maybe even 3. I could add and subtract as well as multiply and divide small numbers before entering kindergarten. As I progressed through elementary school, I quickly learned that not everyone was like me. In fact, I learned that most people were not like me. I owe much of who I am today to my 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade teachers, they taught me not to scorn or dismiss those who were below me, but help them; using the term loosely, I've been tutoring kids since the 1st grade. Despite this, by 4th grade, I had reached a point of despair, as I began to wonder if everyone in the world but me was stupid (Insert another disclaimer against vainity here). In 4th grade, I was in a unique class, designed to offset the unbalanced number of students in the 4th and 5th grades, my class was a 4th/5th grade spilt, half of each, with a (very talented) teacher dividing her time between the two classes. I quickly discovered that nothing in the 5th grade was difficult for me either, in fact, I did a significant portion (all) of their work on top of my own. By this point, most people are probably wondering why I didn't just skip a grade or two, but in my school system, skipping any of the remedial classes is a chore, let alone whole grade(s), more on this later. Thus, by the time I "graduated" from elementary school, I was sick of school not because I didn't enjoy learning (I did and still do enjoy it very much), but because I was sick of not learning. I was sick of having classes move at the pace of the slowest student, and, nothing personal, we had some very slow students.

A small aside here, mostly a disclaimer in favor of my parents. For all of my mental prowess, I was severly lacking in the worldly education, nor was I a particularly social being. I never really told my parents the extremes of my education (or severe lack thereof), and when a little later in life, my mother offered alternatives to the standard public education, I declined them out of fear. I had discovered the hard way that kids aren't kind to the outcast, people don't like to be around others who are out of their league that much, thus the few "friends" I had I was hesitant (afraid) to leave, mostly for fear of never being accepted again, something I couldn't really explain at the time.

Anyway, upon arriving at middle school, I was in for the shock of my life, at both extremes, both how incredibly stupid kids can be (this is middle school, you've all seen it), and that not everyone in the world was a moron. Suddenly the old "friends" that I had feared losing I left, and I befriended those with whom I could hold a real conversation. Since then I have progressed through school much happier with myself and the world around me, but I'll be forever changed by living the first 11 years of my life believing that no one else in the world was capable of thinking. What kind of school system allows that to happen?

I have since found out what kind of system allows that to happen. My school district beat George Dubya to the punch years ago. They began leaning towards a world described by Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron years ago. Apparently, we used to have a program called the "Gifted and Talented Program". It was designed explicitly to take students such as myself and give us a better education, faster, because we could handle it. Then, they came to the brilliant conclusion that they could save tons of money by cutting the program, with the rational that "having these advanced students in the classroom will help to bring the rest of the class up to their level". Let me tell you from experiance, it did the exact opposite, it brought me down to theirs.

Our high school has only 6 hours in its day, and for those who enjoy learning at its finest, 6 hours in not nearly enough to fit in all the classes that you might wish to take. What the district does not tell you is that you have an option for skipping remedial classes that you really do not need (such as Physical Science), where you are taught the same basic science that you have literally been taught since the 4th grade. There is, however, an option to test out of classes, but instead of promoting this as an oppurtunity for talented students to move forward in their education, it is downplayed, hidden. I actually had a teacher tell me, "I know that you're quite intelligent, but it is really very difficult to skip an entire high school class, particularly one as challenging as Physcal Science". While this may sound like reasonable advice, at my high school, the average grade in all of the Physical Science classes or all the freshman who take it (it's a mandatory class) is a 96%. The test out forms are available approximately 3 weeks before their deadline and are only available in the high school counseling offices, and there, only if you ask a secretary to get you one. Why should a student have to jump through so many hoops to try and test out, what's the worst case scenario, you fail and have to take the class?

Last year a teacher applied to start an AP Biology class, our school has (for some unknown reason) never had one. He was denied, and the funding for the class went to an "Introduction to Forensics" class (aka CSI 101), which did not generate enough student interest and was dropped. This year myself and 57 other students (enough for two full classes) signed a petition to get an AP Bio class, with the backing of the teacher who applied for it last year, we went to the school board to ask for the class. The board is still "considering" the class. I fail to see what there is to consider, there are students willing to take the class and a teacher willing to teach the class, what else needs to be "considered".

One of the biggest downfalls to our education was a proposal passed several years ago now. It locked the allocation of funds for about 12 districts in the Metro Detroit Area. It was designed to help inner-city schools solve issues with misappropriation of funds, but it has severly hurt our district and several others. The problem is that the proposal covered school districts in inner city Detroit (which hasn't been doing so well financially for the past 40 years-ish) as well as Oakland County, which at one point was the second richest county in the US (although proabably considerably less now that the auto corporations aren't doing so well...). Our district has remodeled or built additions onto almost every existing school. It has built a new elementary school and a new high school, and it still has more money in it's Building & Improvement Budget than it knows what to do with. Meanwhile, the Operations Budget is strained every day to cope with the strict funding guidelines.

While I realize that this post so far may have lost a little focus, I feel that it's important that people see where things are coming from. In my feasible, perfect school environment, block scheduling would become the norm after kindergarten. For as much as I dislike standardized tests, combined with human input, they can be a useful tool. What if in the first week of August, every year, students took a test in each of the major subject areas (math, science, english, social studies [it's importance being a different argument for a different time], and whatever else a school deems important). Using these tests, a student is placed in whatever class is appropriate for them (ex. for all 13 years of school, students could pass from Math I to Math XV), thus each student progresses in each subject area independantly, allowing a student to excel where they may. As many people will argue, standardized testing isn't perfect, but that's what teachers are for. My freshman year of high school, my French II teacher brought me aside and told me that I didn't belong in the class and moved me the French III. I am forever grateful that she had the wisdom to do that for me. Thus the testing is not a rigid system, but a rough guess of where you should be, free to be adjusted by teachers on a case-by-case basis.

I also feel that students need a large voice in school policies, classes, etc. Our Student Council sends one non-voting member to school board meetings, this member stays for the first 15 minutes of the meeting, gives a quick "school report" (the boys basketball team is 2-1, grils volleyball 3-0, boys swimming 1-0...) and then they go on their merry way. Last year, in the face of the refused AP Biology class, a dedicated body of students formed what we call the Student Union, our own small political movement with the crazy notion that we should have some say in our own education. In this endeavor, we have been surprisingly successful, we (hopefully) have brought about an AP Biology class, and in our finest hour, we fought hard against book banning in our schools and won. (Interesting side note: In surveying our high school, not a single student favored book banning, the only people in favor were parents, mostly of younger children who weren't even reading the books in question for several years. For those curious, two of the big problem books were Monster by Walter Dean Myers and Push by Sapphire). In my perfect school system, students would elect voting members to their school board to ensure that they have a say in their own education. A problem that would still need to be worked out with that, however, is how to avoid turning the elections into a popularity contest and ensure that the represenative speaks for the school.

Having spent more than too much time writing this, I suppose that I'll end about here. Before finishing, I'd like to remind people of my opening comment, as I think it's particularly important to this debate: no man's utopia is the same, and therefore a utopian society will never exist. However, our current system is far from any man's utopia, and in serious need of reform. I'd like to thank the author of this thread and all those who read this for giving me a chance to vent many years of frustration as well as (hopefully) contribute some meaningful ideas to the discussion.

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

To all, I'm not going to be offended if you didn't feel it necessary to read all of that. Like I pointed out, as catharsis, it's as much for me as for you. And Ken, if this kills your thread, I'm sorry, especially because I obviously thought the topic was a good one....

I think you are underestimating just how much we care about this topic, even though we don't write as long as you do, well, not yet anyway. I read the whole thing, even if I had to look at the main points of each paragraph and skip over some of the details. You points are well taken. Would've been nice, though, if you had an outline for your points ;-). But what you've writen is completely fine.

I am not ready to write a detailed version of my thoughts on this subject, so instead, I will give a short outline and let you guys think about that for a while. This outline is still work in progress. We will also see when I managed to put the whole thing down in writing...


I think a good education system should be all about the following things:

Learning, thinking, motivation, inspiration, application, mind-opening, exposure, diversity, understanding, experience, foundation, initiative, journey, and empowerment.

Just as important, I think that education and learning should come from the following places, and not just school by themselves:

Self, Friends, Family, School, Culture, Government, and the World.

Don't have time to elaborate that yet, so I will let you guys think about it.

[eiii]

In my fantasy system, the first few years (preschool, kindergarden) would be mostly logical thinking, social skills, and more logical thinking. After that, the rate at which the kids could learn would probably be a lot higher.