Sunday, October 07, 2007

Schooling

I just stumbled upon this story about a parent and their experience with their 7th grade sons science class. The man was driven to take up home school teaching of science the next year. I am a little surprised at how long it took the man to actually find out why his son was getting a C-, but when he did find out it was because 80% of the grade was having an "organized" science notebook. It also seems clear that the teachers main goal is to prepare the students for the state wide standardized test. Well, you can get the whole story from his post.

I am very thankful that most of my teachers throughout my schooling experience were very good at what they did. The ones that were excellent and engaged me are very memorable. I would visit them after class, and be involved during class. I didn't realize then just how lucky I was. The ones that approached the poor teacher described here I grated under. Assignments that were silly and lessons that were insipid drove me nuts. In middle school and high school I never got any Cs, but I did get at least one D because I just couldn't stand the teacher and the pointlessness of the assignments.

I kind of dread the school system I will have to deal with as a parent. If nothing shakes up the current system, who knows what it will be like in the future.

1 comment:

Jim said...

Education has been popping up a lot in conversations and such lately... the current school system needs to be re-worked, it seems. I look at the statistics of Japanese students (hardly any illiteracy, 90% highschool graduates) as compared to the U.S.'s and just shake my head.

L.A. Unified School District has got to be one of the worst, and "No Child Left Behind" hasn't helped a bit.

Almost makes me want to go for an Ed.D. rather than psychology.

Almost.