What would an ideal high school look like?
My Ideal High School. An Essay in 300 Words. By Fenris
All the teachers would be either kindly little old ladies and men who were filled to the brim with love, compassion, knowledge, goodness, and compassion OR they’d be red-hot mommas who wear white knee-high Go-Go boots and polka-dotted miniskirts. And they’d teach while dancing suspended from a birdcage in the ceiling.
Also, the trees in front would be made from Marshmallow, so if you got hungry in class, you’d step outside and take a bite of the tree. “MMMMmmmm. That’s some GOOD marshmallow!” the students would say.
Arcade games would be a required topic! You’d have to spend at least 45 minutes a day playing. And they’d all be free!
“The Movies of Arnold Schwartzenegger” would also be required!
Actual learning (math, science, etc) would be gained by taking “knowledge pills”. “I need to bone up on my Calculus” you’d say as you swallowed a pill. Suddenly: POOF! you’d know Calculus! But imagine how wacky it would be if you swallowed the wrong pill! “I need to bone up on my calculus” you’d say, but when you got to the test, you’d find that you swallowed a “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” pill! Boy, would your face be red! Ha-Ha!
All schools would have ROLLER COASTERS between the classes! It would be faster AND more fun!
They’d also PAY students to go there! $100.00 a day, because that would teach students all about life and the real world and jobs and money and stuff!
That would be MY perfect High School!
Oh, and everyone would do his or her own homework.
The very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, end!
Fenris
Excellent question.
I won’t go into the entire school to tell what I want, but here is a little something…
For me, the whole idea of critical thinking and knowledge of the scientific method would be a must.
Nowadays we are bombarded with so much nonsense in the form of psychics, Fox television “specials”, new-age poppycock, and untrue ideas/subjects that we really need to have the school system instill a sound scientific background into students to teach them the skills they need to evaluate claims for accuracy. Without this skill, people are doomed to become victims of deception and fraud.
Luckily I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood and the public high school that I attended was absolutely terrific, so I can’t think of much that I’d change. Almost every one of my teachers was excellent or at least highly competent. The school never lacked funding so all of the classrooms were very spacious and modern, we had a great student-to-teacher ratio (our classes averaged around 25-30 students), and we had good art and music programs. My biology class even spent several weeks covering evolution, so the religious fundamentalists apparently didn’t have a strong presence on my school board. The course work was challenging, the environment was, for the most part, very positive, and I felt that the experience adequately prepared me for college. Even the cafeteria food was tolerable.
I’d only change two things.
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I would’ve liked year-round school. Three months off in the summer was way to long, and I would’ve liked my vacation time to be spread more evenly throughout the year. My high school switched to a year-round schedule right after I graduated, so I just missed it.
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The P.E. program sucked. It was geared toward competitive team sports, so all we (the geeks) did was stand around all day on the field and pretend to participate in whatever game was being played while the jocks pretended to let us participate. And the coach just stood on the sidelines and stared blankly into space.
The P.E. program should’ve been geared toward physical fitness. I would’ve liked more calisthenics, weight training, and running. I was overweight in high school and I probably would’ve lost a lot of weight had I actually been allowed to exersize. Not everybody likes to play football or baseball, and kids shouldn’t be forced into it as long as they keep active.
-DP
In no particular order:
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In response to the problems with discipline I detail here, I would radically change the role of the janitorial staff and make them primarily a supervisory staff: school maintaince would become the responsibility of the student body. All students would be expected to spend some time each week maintaining their school, and the main “serious” punishment would be time spent maintaining the school.
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Middle school students would get 100 minutes (a block) of math and English 5 days a week, all year long. English would focus on clear, concise expository writing as the goal, and math class would involve continual drills in the multiplication tables all the way through the eighth grade.
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"A"s would become exceptional again: doing everything the teacher asked and learning all the material would be the “B” point, and "A"s would be reserved for going above and beyond those expectations. On the other hand, B’s would be more prestigious than they are now.
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Overall standards will be raised… Students would be assigned truly difficult tasks in each core subject each year. On the converse, wordfinds, crossword puzzles, and other such busy worked would be eliminated.
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Every student would have a computer/internet access at home. All teachers would have class email lists set up. There would be a school wide message board such as this one where students could be involved in debates and discussions. It would be moderated, though preferably not by teachers (by parents?). Teachers could insist that students participate in certain discussions as part of their homework. Furthermore, as an English teacher, I just want to be able to insist everything is typed.
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Teachers would be observed by colleagues regularly (once a month?) and exchange written feedback forms.
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All girls would be given depo shots disguised as “vitamins”. Ok, that’s a joke.
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Each year, kids would be given the opportunity to sign a form promising not to do drugs, alcohol, or have sex For that year. I say this mostly because I am sick to death of “chastity” programs that make it sound like their are two options: being a slut and waiting till marriage, and which totally fail to recognize that an unmarried person having sex at fourteen or sixteen is different from an unmarried person having sex at 22.
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Students would be addressed as Mr./Ms Surname.
I could go on, but these are the first things that come to mind.
Partly based on my own experiences at a very good public high school, partly on what I’d like my students to know, partly on pure fantasy …
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Committed teachers are essential – the sort of people who take the time to comment extensively on students’ work when it would be easier just to mark it done or not done, who go out of their way to design creative and relevant lessons, who encourage questions and answer them honestly. (And there should be a few who go the extra mile and take lessons outside of the classroom; one of my most enduring memories from high school involves a history teacher who offered to give one of my classmates the money to see Schindler’s List.)
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Classes should be rigorous and require thought as well as memorization. In an ideal school, every student would be treated as gifted and expected to perform at an advanced level; I suspect that most of them would live up to these expectations without trouble, but tutoring should be readily available for those who have difficulty.
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The curriculum should include:
Humanities (4 years): Literature, but also art, music, theater … basic cultural-literacy material that usually gets shoved off into elective classes if it’s taught at all.
Writing (4 years): Note that this is a separate class from literature. The basics of academic and practical writing, incuding resumes, business letters, and other useful documents. Students should learn how to build an argument and support it with appropriate evidence; to this end, they’ll also practice research skills in several fields.
Social studies (4 years): One year of world history, one year of contemporary world cultures and issues, one year of US history, and one year of US government / contemporary issues.
Foreign language (4 years). If the funds are there, this should include some time abroad.
Science (4 years). The first year should be a foundations-of-science course addressing how science has evolved over the years, what scientists actually do and why they do it, and how to spot fraud and junk science. After that, the standard biology-chemistry-physics sequence is fine, but there should be special attention to giving honest information about sex and reproduction.
Math (4 years). Should include real-life examples and applications, especially for probability and statistics.
Work (at least one summer). In order to graduate, students MUST demonstrate that they have the ability to acquire and hold down a job. The school’s career center will help them with placement; after that, they’re on their own.
- Rather than sitting in a classroom for thirty hours a week, students should spend much of their time learning from the community at large. For instance, students in a US government course could spend a month or so working for a political campaign instead of attending class, advanced Spanish students could do some translating at the local Hispanic community center, etc. (A lot of creative, flexible scheduling would be required here, but I think it would be possible to make such an arrangement work.) If it’s not possible for students to test their skills in the real world, the real world should be brought into the classroom: there should be a steady flow of guests willing to talk about their experiences in World War II or how they use calculus in their jobs. School is preparation for life; it shouldn’t be divorced from life.
Wow, this is beginning to look like a novel, so I’ll stop. It’s rather depressing how far short of the ideal most of our schools fall.
Oh yeah, one more:
- All teachers would have a real master’s degree in their subject, not one of these “cribbed” master’s degrees that so many teahers get these days. That means an M.A. with a thesis from a program where some graduatees go on to get their doctorates. On the other hand, I think we should eliminate the certification process as it now stands and replace it with a summer long workshop and one full semester observing and then student teaching.
And one afterthought:
- Although I’ve divided my curriculum into fairly traditional subject areas, in practice the boundaries should be fluid. E.g., a Japanese class would give some attention to Japanese politics, culture, and art; students would learn how to interpret statistics in government as well as math; ALL classes would incorporate writing. This would not only allow students to see the relationship between subject areas, it would permit more flexible scheduling for out-of-school projects. It would, for instance, be possible for a student to attend two or three classes in the morning and then spend the afternoon interning at a laboratory – with the understanding that she’s also doing a great deal of math and writing in the course of her internship, which can replace a few months of formal instruction in these subjects.
Manda Jo, don’t you think students will get bored getting drilled in multiplication tables when most are quite cabable of working on algebra problems? I stopped getting drilled in the “times” tables in the fifth grade, and thank God for that. I would have killed myself if I was in the eighth grade and still chanting “one times two is two, two times two is four, three times two is six…”
My ideal high school would have Sprite coming out of the water fountains. And I also think PE should be optional rather than required.
Required physical education, although not competitive sports to be optional. For those not choosing the latter, compulsory health and fitness classes – not just limited to actual exercise, but including general advice on healthy lifestyles and the potential consequences of not doing so.
Classes in civic participation; a broad overview of economics, media literacy (i.e. identifying bias and reading between the lines), how government works and how it works in other countries. I’d like to see students who understand, at least roughly, how government works at a central and local level, and have an idea of the pros and cons of various forms of government. I’d also like students to be able to interpret the world on their own terms by seeing through obvious media bias (in any direction). Critical thinking in any subject is a must.
Do you have any idea how many 6th graders can’t do their multiplication tables? it’s sickening,and I have a theory that it is the core of the problems people today have wiht math. Learning hte later stuff is frustrating when you have to stop and pull out the calculator or hte chart to find out how many times 8 will go into 63. However, I’m not suggesting that math stop at the times tables until after 8th grade: I am just suggesting that those drills should continue, along with the algebra, until every singl fucking kid has them all on total automatic.
First off, I’d like to see teachers adequately compensated for their work. Salaries competitive with comparable positions in the business world would take some of the element of sacrifice out of the decision to become a teacher.
Then I’d very much enjoy seeing an incentive program for teaching excellence, which would be strongly influenced by input from students. I’ve noticed that frequently, teachers singled out by administration and school boards for recognition aren’t the ones spending extra time and effort teaching, they’re the ones spending time and effort impressing the administration and the school boards. Give the students the ability to reward the teachers they consider to be excellent, and not only will the teachers benefit, but the students will assume more responsibility for their education.
I’d also like to see an independent study program implemented, supervised by teachers, which would require each student to choose a field, gain an overview of it, define required goals for class completion, and research and complete a project during the course which would demonstrate his or her knowledge of the chosen field. This would be more parallel to work assignments in the real world than most course work, while allowing the students to explore areas in which they’re interested, and expanding their ability to do research and think independently. It would also foster an appreciation for how some of the academic skills they’ve acquired can actually be applied after high school.
And I’m in complete agreement on the phys ed thing; after all, how many of us go on to play basketball after high school, vs. the number of people who do weight training or aerobic workouts to stay in shape for the rest of our lives? Another idea would be to encourage kids in physical activities outside of school by offering phys ed credits for such things as martial arts classes or swimming clubs; bring in your class attendance schedule, and get credit towards that many hours of gym. Bring in enough, and get your next year’s PE requirement waived.
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No more keyboarding classes. We have reached an age where almost everything is required to be typed. Kids are learning how to use computers at much younger ages, keyboarding should be taught in elementary school, not in high school.
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Enough funding for every extracurricular activity. This way each activity can reach its full potential without spending their time fundraising.
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Transportation home for after school activities. Some students can not participate in after school or extracurricular activities because they have no way of getting home afterwards.
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Phys. Ed. should be mandatory, but students should be able to choose what type of course they take. This way they still get the exercise, but don’t have to learn country line dancing or sports if they do not want to.
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All activites are fully supported by the school, not just sports teams.
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Students should be allowed to learn their major while in high school. This means taking advanced courses to get them ready for their career. If there are history classes that are needed for their degree, they can be taken in high school instead of the normal history classes, excluding government. Also the school will allow trips to different businesses and organizations so that the students may understand what the job entitles.
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Students who misbehave are no longer suspended from school, but forced to stay and do manual work.
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Also, those students who excell greatly in their academic studies can choose to either start college early, or take advanced courses, which would be more abundant in the high school. Students are no longer forced to take courses that do not challenge them.
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Higher wages for teachers and stipends for those who spend time after school hours helping students or heading activities.
As a current high school student this is my ideal high school
- 500 kids, me and 499 hot girls
Mr. Visible said:
Gonna have to disagree with you here: in my experience students are very poor at making judgements about the quality of their own education. At the university lever, I see a great many cases of “fun” teachers getting the hghest esteen from teachers, whether or not they actually teach anything: the coach who cracks jokes and tells stories nAd goes over precious little history looks like a better teacher to students than the one thatmakes them study and write and asks questions that do not have obvious answers.
The best people to evaluate teachers are other teachers (not administrators). How you set up a system to do this, I don’t know.
How about a system that awards those teachers that are judge from both other teachers and their students to be an excellent educator?
Manda Jo , I accept that many students make poor judgements about their teachers. However, there are those that have better judgement and know how to recognize a valuable teacher. I despise a system that awards teachers based on the judgement of other teachers, who don’t take classes with that person and may not know first-hand how good he or she is.
It seems to me that that attitude is pervasive in high school, and that it’s a major part of why most of the student body is detatched from the curriculum, and unaffected by any change in regulation, policy, or staffing. The assumption that students don’t want an education, and that given the opportunity to change how they’re educated that they would choose no education at all, seems to underlie our educational system. It also seems patently false.
I was bored in high school. Bored senseless. The teachers I respected were the ones which challenged their classes, gave tough assignments, and expected us to excel. The idea that I’d rate my (PE coach and) health teacher, who goofed off during forty minutes a day of excruciatingly mind-numbing “fun” stuff higher than my (speech, drama and) English teacher, who expected us to learn things, and to express what we’d learned cogently, is laughable.
Maybe I’m giving more credit to high school students than they deserve, but it seems to me that the assumption that teenagers are incapable of dealing with their educations responsibly, and that giving them input into the educational process is a fruitless endeavor, has had tragic consequences on our methods of education. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems to me that giving a student some control over how they’re educated would be a way of really engaging students in their own education, and getting away from the “factory” approach taken by most high schools, where kids aren’t being educated, they’re being processed. Sure, there’d be some goofs who’d vote the lazy teachers the best, but I’d bet large amounts that the teachers who really made a difference in their kids’ lives would get rewarded much more frequently.
See, kids can tell when they’re being taught and when they’re being pandered to. I’d rather err on the assumption that kids want to be responsible and well-educated, than on the assumption that you need to drag everyone, kicking and screaming, to a generic education, whether they like it or not.
Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts regarding the ideal high school. Monday, I will be sharing your thoughts with my colleagues. I will print your responses and encourage them to read your posts. Our mission is to write a vision statement for our high school. We have encouraged input from the entire faculty. We have given everyone an opportunity to be part of the “visioning” process. Our charge now is to draft a statement that describes our collective dreams in a compelling way. My hope is that this statement will keep us on the right track and inspire all of us to be our best selves each and every day. If any of you have been involved in writing a vision statement for an organization, I hope you will share your insights with me. There will be 15 of us doing this. We are a pretty diverse group and I think this will be an interesting process. BTW, I am not familiar with message board culture but I plan to spend some time here in the future. Very interesting and helpful.
I’ve never heard of “chastity” programs. What’s in it for the students… do they get graded on how well they keep their vows? What if they don’t sign?
Why does a high school need something like this, anyway? High school students who want to have sex or use drugs aren’t going to be influenced by signing a contract.
IMO, the school isn’t there to teach or judge morals at all. Ethics, yes - no lying, stealing, cheating, or bullying. But to reward students for promising not to have sex or use drugs? What’s next, having them promise not to have abortions or gamble?
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