Isolating and encouraging gifted kids is a neat idea. Some schools already do this. ALL schools already provide special services to kids who require it (special ed); it’s the law.
Unfortunately, this idea tends to come under fire fairly quickly. You see, MOST parents tend to think their kid is something special, whether test scores or abilities justify this or not. Therefore, if your kid is not in the GT program, then plainly this must be corrected. If the school REFUSES to put your kid in the GT program, then pressure must be applied.
Ultimately, your kid winds up in the GT program because administrators are tired of fading the heat. Your kid can’t do the work, becomes bored and/or frustrated, and becomes a “problem child,” thus distracting the GT students and drawing off the teacher’s time and attention to dealing with HIM instead of doing his/her job…
…and when you have enough parents pulling this stunt, you have a GT program that’s pretty much just like any other class.
Unless the schools somehow gain the autonomy to tell the parents to go to hell, this will continue.
robertliguori: You are quite correct in point out that adulation of athletes is part of the American culture and as such would be very hard to root out, but schools play into it and that’s what bugs me. When we have pep rallies, are we parading out the staff of the school newspaper? What about the literary art magazine? Schools need to regard academic activities as equally valid and important, and show it by their actions.
Also, athletes should be under more stringent standards for academics and behavior during season, not less, as is the case. I had a star track athlete spit at me-- TWICE!-- and not even get after-school detention for it because “that would prevent him from going to a meet.” What kind of message does that send to a kid?
I also had a student who was the center of the STAC championship basketball team. He was coddled by everyone; his mom would sign him out for half-days on game days so he could get his hair done, so he missed English. Well, he went on to a college where freshman did not start games, period, and he got so angry that he dropped out of school, and now he works at a carwash.
That’s just one example of why I’m against the favoritism athletes get. It undermines the purpose of school, as I see it. It certainly undermined my authority.
I enjoyed the post from many people on this site that gave their input and not simple comments or insults; however, if you notice from my original post: suggestions (these are possibilities and not my own choices). For an example, I would not remove sports either. I was trying to open the options for changes in a public school.
Here is my (opinion) solution: (Remind you; The school corporation I live in has 7 hs and several private schools. Smaller school corporations would need to modify my solution.)
There are public high schools and then there is a juvenile detention school. The public high schools are the same (I am assuming) like the ones across America. Scholarly students mixed in with discipline problem students. The juvenile detention school houses students that have been destructive to people or themselves. Also, the juvenile detention school watches their moves closely in classroom and interaction with other students. There is no median for the two different levels of schools. Discipline problem children and failing students (students who fail at classes but do not cause problems) do not need to be mixed with eager learners.
This median school I will refer to as MS. Before students attend high school they need to pass a standardized test in eight grade. If they fail the standardized test they will be forces to attend MS. MS will concentrate on re-teaching and solidifying the students learning. Discipline control can be the main focus at MS. At MS, there will be no athletic or other activities. MS will focus on getting the students ability up to standard. Once a student can show they have improved to higher ability, they will then be allowed to attend a regular high school.
While MS is concentrating on re-teaching and helping students to a better education, the high schools can focus on higher education with out any interruptions or slowing down for the least gifted students. This school will run and operate like a modern high school.
There are many detail items I am leaving out because I do not want to bore you. This is just a possibility. Many improvement could be made to my solution.
Under my Educational Overlord reign, this is what would happen. Whenever a parent comes in complaining about their kid having to read the official books on the reading list/teaching of evolution/not being in the Smart Kids program when they tested Average/getting a C/etc., the administration would listen politely and nod sympathetically and then, when the parent was done, the official just points to a picture of me doing the Uncle Sam “We Want You” pose, only the text would be “Tough Shit.” That’d be official administration policy.
I just had to second GMRyujin’s sentiment that school starts far too early. It is really too much to ask that teenagers be ready to do algebra or speak French at 8am. Starting at 9am would be a vast improvement for them and me!
Though your points are well-taken, I haven’t found this to be true. The parents that give teacher the biggest headaches, in my experience, are the ones who will not believe that their child could possibly be blowing off assignments, not studying, cheating, screwing around in class, etc. They also try to tell the teacher what punishment THEY want us to implement, and will go to the principal if they don’t like what we decide. By their actions they deny the fact that I am a trained professional and actually know more about the situation than they do; thus, they undermine my authority with their kids, and this helps no one.
I find that I have to coddle the parents more than the children. This is not to say I am completely unsympathetic to them; after all, this is their baby we’re talking about, but a little perspective goes a long way.
For a high school classroom setting (English or history, for example): Class size should be about 100 to 150 students. Each class must be video taped.
A Master Teacher prepares the lesson plan and teaches the class – providing materials, instruction, lecture, questioning, discussions, etc. This teacher should be selected by a team of four or five other teachers:
Four or five other teachers supervise the work of the students – checking desk work, sitting in on groups, grading papers, and calling parents. They will also be in charge of assigning makeup work.
One disciplinarian will supervise student conduct. She or he should be well-trained in martial arts, or something similar, and in adolescent psychology.
One clerk should take care of record keeping, fund raising, lunch tickets, filing, typing and copying materials, averaging grades, writing excuses, writing hall passes, checking attendance.
Individual parent-teacher meetings must be by appointment only. There must be a bodyguard present and the session must be video-taped.
Teachers must be notified when a student convicted of a felony is placed in their classrooms.
Students may be permanently banned from a classroom by majority vote of the teachers. With a disciplinarian present, this measure should not happen frequently. Separate provisions will be made for these students and increased pay will be made for those teachers who choose to work with them.
Students may submit anonymous complaints and suggestions to a Student Advisory Committee consisting of 3-5 students selected by other students in the classroom. The SAC will meet with the entire classroom team once every two weeks or more often when needed.
I am in total agreement that foreign languages should be taught in elementary school. And life skill courses should be the number one priority class. It should include assertiveness training.
Forget making schools smaller. My school is ~1600 students, my graduating class (6 months and counting!) is over 400 students. Big schools greatly reduce the amount of intensly clique-ish behavior. There will be loners and rejects, yes, but there will be more of them, so they form their own group.
Keep gym class. Add (bring back?) shop and home ec. as required courses. Home Ec. should teach practical things, not cookie baking: How to manage money, how to cook basic, practical meals, how to hem pants, etc. Keep shop practical (at my middle school, they switched it to an AutoCAD program): how to use a hammer, screwdriver, basic tools.
Get teachers and administrators who care about students. Teachers do not teach a particular subject, they teach students. “No longer motivated” should be a valid reason for firing a school employee.
Seperate classes into tracks even in elementary school. Even very young, there are differences in a class of 25 in academic ability. Grouping everyone together results in both the most and least advanced students suffer.
Give public schools more money. Teachers need to support their families. If they’re buying 3/4 of their classroom supplies out of their pocket, that can be hard. Buildings need to be kept clean and not-falling-down.
Keep libraries up-to-date and accessible. The newest version of an almanac should not be from 1998. This, again, requires money.
I second the idea of college-like scheduling. I get to school at 7 AM because one of my required classes for IB doesn’t fit in the regular schedule. Then, homeroom, and first period, in which I’m an office aide. Then two classes in a row. Gym. Fifth-8th period (about 11:20 -> 2:30) are all academic classes. Allow students (and teachers) a universal mid-day break.
Abolish standardized tests, grades, GPA, and class rank. If you want to know how well a teacher is teaching, drop in unannounced to observe a class. I’ve learned more in classes that I’ve gotten a ‘D’ in than in classes I’ve gotten an A in. Class rank is just stupid: colleges should care about how much you know. Not how that compares to 400 others. It says nothing about the student.
Honor codes, and give SGO’s more power. If students are shown respect in the form of the administration saying: “We trust you to do the right thing,” a lot of that respect will reciprocate.
Make schools comfortable. Students spend about a quarter, if not more, of the hours in a day there. Keep the building clean and nice-looking. Let students do murals, etc.
Administrators and teachers need to understand that school is a social place for most students. At my school, we always have teachers complain that students have the nerve to talk to their friends in their desks while waiting for the bell to ring to start class. This is when we see our friends.
I think that’s all for now; I’m sure I’ll have more after school tomorrow.
They’ll set some other arbitrary standard, which is why I kept standardized testing in my system. I agree with “no longer motivated” being a legitimate reason to fire a teacher.
Also, I’d like to give kids some time off. Maybe institute a Year Off program where you can go do whatever you want, though I’d like to have programs for that, too. You can spend it sitting around playing Playstation or you can spend it in London or something.
I’d also like to make a media studies course, with an explicit focus on consumer psychology, mandatory. Call it “How to read advertising.” Once you learn how people are going to try and influence you, you’re going to be more skeptical. Considering the amount of marketing we’re forcibly exposed to, it’s only fair to give our kids a defense.
Basic psychology and sociology, why people behave the way they do, would also mandatory. Also critical thinking and logic and basic research. How to verify facts. Who/what is a trustworthy source and who/what isn’t. Basically, I’m trying to reduce the Willing Herd Looking for A Leader phenomenon, though this would probably result in my overthrow as Education Overlord. Hoist by my own petard!
I agree that school size is not the issue if funding is commensurate with size. However, class size should be reduced to 8-10, IMO.
In the three schools where I’ve worked, all had gym, shop, and home ec. All of these tried to teach practical skills (and though cookie baking isn’t a major life skill, cooking IS and it requires following directions, careful measuring, and attention to detail, which are useful skills and do need to be taught).
I agree that teachers should teach children foremost, and their subject area second. The teachers’ union makes it hard to fire someone for such an abstract reason as “no longer motivated.” You’d have to demonstrate egregious incompetence and blatant disregard for student welfare, which is not easy to do. I’d say this is treating a symptom of the problem, not the cause, which is that low salaries and poor treatment do not attract high quality applicants to a field.
But in the real world, people of all kinds need to deal with each other. If you separate the very bright and the very challenged kids throughout school, what happens when they have to deal with each other in real world settings? A good teacher will be able to reach kids of many levels in the same lesson. That’s the kind of thing we’re supposed to learn when getting our degrees in education.
This is a biggie, and often overlooked. School libraries vary widely in quality. I’d also add to this that schools should have up to date technology, such as working computers, access to academic databases, and instruction in how to use these sources.
This seems like a good idea in theory, but as I said before, the Powers that Be need empirical, quantitative data to sort students, select people to accept into colleges and specialized high schools, etc. I doubt standardized tests will ever go away, even though most of them are a racket and don’t help the education process.
Teachers are observed both formally and informally throughout the year, even when they have tenure. I think it’s pretty easy to tell if a teacher is doing a good job.
GMRyujin: I like the idea of a Year Off, but I don’t think a kid should be able to spend it playing PlayStation (most of them spend years doing that anyway). Interning in a career field they might like to pursue in the future, doing a multifaceted project in a group or as an individual, volunteering in a meaningful charity, traveling abroad with a scholastic exchange program, intensive language immersion study, or spending time as an apprentice to a tradesperson would all be a great way to spend a year before, during, or after high school. I wish such a thing did exist.
This thread has been a lot of wishful thinking for me…
I agree with you, sort of, but the slackers are going to take it and do as little as possible anyway and then we’re just wasting our money and the time of whoever they’d be interning/working with. My goal is to provide a minimum, basic education for the slackers, while providing the “extra” resources to the people who actually want it. Maybe I could institute a Worthwhile Requirement. Like if you have a job lined up, want to travel, want to intern, want to volunteer, work-study, whatever, fine. If what you want to do is worthwhile, great, have at it. I’d like to emphasize travel, too, since so many people get locked into their own little world. And get the kids away from their parents, but still keep them closely supervised.
Ultimately, I want the people who want to be there to be there, with the people who don’t want to be there out learning/doing something useful. Maybe the serious delinquents and such can go into a military-style Shape Yer Ass Up program run by my Undersecretary of Motivation, R. Lee Ermey.
The idea stems from my own experience. I graduated high school and went straight into college, then dropped out after 2 years and spent the next 3 or so working and Out In The Real World, which I found invaluable. So many kids get school-focused tunnel vision, because that’s the only thing they knew. I want to force these people to realize there’s more than school, while showing the kids who are miserable in school that there’s more out there, and I also want to show them that yes, this all has something of a point to it. There is a LOT to be said for applying the stuff you’ve actually studied.
It’s like Petty said, “The world would swing, if I was king.”
GMRyujin: Maybe if a kid wanted a funded Year Off, he’d have to write up a proposal? Kind of like applying for college, but accessible to kids of all ability levels. Like, if you wanted to be an apprentice, you’d have to do the legwork to find a master craftsman who wanted your help to write a letter for your application. Or if you wanted to study abroad, you’d do a bit of research and find the program you wanted, and include that with your application; if doing a project, a prospectus on what you plan to do, a timeline, budget, etc.
Then, throughout your Year Off, you’d have to work with an advisor and send him progress reports. If you were writing a novel, you’d send chapters; if doing research, send briefs; if an apprenticeship, photos of your work and letters from your master craftsman. This would discourage slackerhood and would also give the kids a record of what he did to look back on later.
I think this is a capital idea and wish one of us were King of the World so we could implement it.
Sorry, I didn’t read everything, but something caught my eye: the parents. A school should be a community, not just a place that the parents send the kids to for a day and then forget about it. When you have everyone invested in the school, it works in a way that testing students and ‘improving’ teachers cannot. No, not every parent is going to get involved, but with luck many or most of them will. It makes an enormous difference.
I also think that team teaching is an excellent idea. It’s not strictly necessary, but having two teachers in a class of 25-30 greatly improves the environment for students and can make an enormous difference in the quality of learning for a student. Two teachers - think about it. With two teachers, students can recieve individual attention twice as quickly. If a student doesn’t get something that one teacher is explaining up in the front of the class, the other teacher can help them out ‘one on one.’ There’s simply no disadvantage (except for a possible loss of total coherency if things are not planned well).
Finally, most importantly, how about teaching students HOW to think and not WHAT to think? Cramming a head full of soundbites (when was Plimoth Plantation founded, where was Jamestown, what were the exact words of Monroe Doctrine) is worthless without context. Why is this important? What does it mean to us? What significance can you take from this apply to your own life? Invert and multiply, but ask why. I think one of the biggest crimes of schools today is that they don’t teach students to ask questions, and I mean REALLY ask questions, not just “what’s the answer?” If you know how to think, to reason, and to ask questions, you can keep learning for the rest of your life. That’s what’s important.
This reminds me of something a favorite teacher of mine said once, that I always thought was a great idea. Talking about unmotivated students, she said “Why keep them here when they don’t want to be? Let 'em go! Just let them come back later when they’re ready to get an education.”
In addition to strengthening vocational training, I would institute a policy where students are entitled to a certain number of years of public education, and set up ways people could complete them by the age of say, 25. For example, extension classes could be held at community centers or schools at night. Students who aren’t inclined to go to college and want to get out into the real world would be able to do it, without dropping out for good or wasting years of their public education.
I would also increase the number of school counselors available, and restrict the time they spend on administrative tasks, rather than actually helping students directly. I wouldn’t treat the counselors as disciplinarians.
Revamp school funding. Too many kids get little to no education because their schools are crumbling and the district can only afford to hire emergency credentialed schlubs. All schools should be funded to a basic level - safe environment, adequate facilities, qualified teachers. After that, communities can pitch in whatever the like to hire and buy extras.
Revamp teacher credentialing. Raise the testing standards on general knowledge, subject area knowledge, pedagogy, and child psychology/development. Give test takers a limited number of chances to pass the test - say three. Require a lengthier amount of student teaching with a panel of teachers, administrators, parents, and students deciding if they’ve earned a credential. Once they’re credentialed, they’re good for life.
Totally change teacher compensation. Teachers should be paid by skill and knowledge, not the years in the classroom. This would dissuade those who’ve “lost motivation” from staying in. Pay extra for difficult to fill spots - math, science, special ed, and bilingual. Pay LOTS extra for “danger” jobs, like working in poor districts, high crime districts, and racially diverse districts.
Create a nationwide standards-based graduation equivalency. That is, publish a list of things a person must know and be able to do to earn a high school diploma. It’ll be a long list, including everything from “solve for X in a binomial equation” to “compare/contrast themes in period X literature” to “explain the significance of historical event A and how it influence country B.” Once a student has met all the criteria - regardless of their age - they graduate with a high school diploma.
Instead of issuing grades, use that set of graduation standards to measure how the student is doing. If a student spends a year in school and only checks off three things, something is terribly wrong. If a student wants out of high school as soon as humanly possible, they can study up and check off those boxes as quickly as they like.
Stop treating college as the apotheosis of education. It’s not. A high school diploma should mean that the person has learned enough to hold down an entry level job in 80% of the fields out there. Certainly, further schooling is a good idea, but for most people that need not be anything more than a six month vocational/trade school program.
Change the way middle school and high school classes are offered. Make attendance optional. Teach classes on a seminar basis so that students can choose the topics they need extra help on. Assign each student a teacher that will help them determine what they will study, what they will test on, and where they might need to seek extra help. Offer class from 7 a.m. through 9 p.m. so that students and teachers can choose times that best suit them.
Radically alter the way standardized testing is handled. Instead of norm-referenced testing, which only tells you how one group of students compares to the reference group (which took the test ten or more years ago in a completely different part of the country, made up of kids with totally different socio-economic, racial, linguistic, and cultural background), use benchmark tests. Can the student do A? Can the student do B? If they can, great. If they can’t, boo.
Those are my suggestions. BTW, I teach eighth grade Writing and English, as well as middle school and high school Art.
That sounds nightmarish. What kind of in-depth discussion can you have with 150 students? You could only lecture, and we all know how fascinating day after day of lectures are. The best classes I’ve ever taken have been small seminars with around 10 people in them. I would make high school classes smaller, not larger. With 10 students, it’s possible to have discussions in which you explore subtleties and implications and come to an understanding of why an event happened the way it did. You can engage people in small groups in ways that you can’t in a lecture. It’s also pretty obvious when 1 student in a group of 10 is slacking, not so obvious when it’s 1 out of 150.
Like GMRyujin, I can’t seem to stop posting to this thread, which though it started inauspiciously, has become quite interesting. I am pleased to be someone’s Undersecretary of Good Ideas.
We already have pretty bloody high standards for general knowledge, subject area knowledge, pedagogy, and child development. Without becoming too pissy, I have to point out that I have already posted extensively on the requirements set forth to teach. We have to get MASTERS DEGREES and our starting salaries are well under $40,000. We have to take at least 3 standardized tests (it varies from state to state) in general and subject area stuff as well as school procedure and child psychology. What more do you want? Aren’t the criteria as stringent as they are for other professionals, if not moreso?
Student teaching, which, ahem, UNPAID, cannot go longer unless we are, how shall I say this, PAID! It’s not fair to expect people to quit their jobs to work for free for longer than 4 months.
How would you measure this knowledge, more tests? What other career are professionals tested regularly to see how much they know and how motivated they are? Why aren’t people saying this about doctors, who have people’s very lives in their hands? Seniority is a standard way of increasing people’s pay and I don’t think you’re going to come up with a better system.
This is done on a statewide basis with the Regents. I don’t think the federal government can mandate this sort of thing on a nationwide basis; setting these standards is a power that the states have, and I imagine it’s a Constitutional issue.
Kids can graduate early if they can take the appropriate number of credit hours. I have a friend who got out of high school a full year early by busting his ass. It can be done.
What bugs me here is the idea that high school is useless, teachers don’t have anything to offer beyond rote knowledge, and kids should be able to test out of classes. Instruction is valuable; even if you have more raw intelligence than your teachers, which does happen, they still have specialized education and training and can probably show you something. Students should take harder classes, like APs, if they think regular classes are too boring.
What you are advocating here is sweeping change on a societal level-- tell employers not to care if an applicant has a college degree. See if that works.
Clearly you are living in fantasy realm. Some assumptions you’re making: that kids know what areas they need help in and are willing to ask for it; that if classes were optional anyone would attend, especially on warm, sunny days; that each kid can be assigned one teacher when the student/faculty ratio is 20+:1; that you could get teachers to work until 9pm and that you could get kids to school and home in a safe way (bus drivers frickin’ RUN our school schedule).
In public school? I’m kind of surprised, based on some of your suggestions.
Mrs. Kunilou has been teaching in public schools for more than 25 years, as well as having taught in private schools before that, so I have to preface this by saying my ideas are not necessarily her ideas.
More teacher aides/assistants in the classrooms. The school in which Mrs. Kunilou works currently has about 20% of students who receive special education assistance. Since federal l;aw mandates that these students be taught in “the least restrictive environment” that means classroom teachers have to slow down to make sure those students are keeping up with the rest of the class. More aides would mean more assistance for students who have trouble keeping up.
More resources. This has been touched on by other posters. It’s ridiculous that textbooks are in short supply, that library materials are old and that teachers are paying for supplies out of their own pockets.
Bigger schools, smaller classes. If we want students to have foreign languages in elementary school, more vocational classes, etc., schools will have to be bigger to get a critical mass of students large enough to justify the new programs. I’d balance that by making individual classes smaller.
Flexible scheduling. Not every class needs 50 minutes per day, five days a week for an entire semester. Some, particularly interdisciplanary classes should be longer, others could be shorter.
GED and out. Currently (in Missouri) a student can drop out at age 16, but can’t take the GED equivalency test until age 18. If they really think they’re smart enough to leave school at 16, I say let them be allowed to take the GED and prove it.
As for what Mrs. Kunilou wants, I can say that she’d trade a lot of her wish list if all parents made sure they got their kids to school, made sure homework was done, and actually came to parent-teacher conferences. Nothing like having to sit in your classroom until 9:00 p.m. on conference nights and having no one show up.