This stems from a conversation I’ve been having with a friend.
What would your ideal school be like? Personally, I think current schools are a bit lacking. In both aesthetics and how students are taught. Schools are drab, cold, uncaring enviroments. They could do with, your know, a zen garden or a few bright colours.
Kids don’t as much learn as they memorize. They sometimes don’t even understand the material and get through it by fluke.
So I’m wondering. If you had limitless funding, what would you do to make a school a better place?
As for me, I think more TV could be a good thing. Kids retain knowledge just as well, if not better from television shows at home. If they were able to make interesting programming that was also educational, you could most likely expect positive results. Also, keeping materials like books updated. There’s nothing worse than students learning out of book that are older than they are.
As far as aesthetics, Less brick and stucco. Schools look like prisons. Make them look like homes.
Extra vending machines with discount prices are all good too.
Ideas? And of course, strange ideas from left field are welcome.
Most of my ideas involve breaking down the barriers between the school and the rest of the world. Actually encourage parents and other members of the community to come in and share whatever they have to offer, instead of treating all visitors like potential criminals. Teach the kids how to do something real that involves problem-solving, like cooking or planting a garden, instead of giving them endless worksheets. Let older teenagers out of the classroom (for weeks at a time, if need be) to intern at a business or volunteer for a political campaign – or, for that matter, start a rock band. And, of course, there should be lots and lots of field trips – and a few unconventional homework assignments, like getting up at three in the morning to watch a meteor shower.
People learn and remember more from real-world experiences than classwork; I think it’s almost criminal that so much of our school system is dedicated to depriving students of those experiences for six hours a day.
I would cut out so much emphasis on sports. It’s horribly over-valued here. And I like Fret’s ideas about real, hands-on learning. Students go over the same academic stuff, year after year. It gets dry and boring.
Here’s what I think should be done. Much of education is too compartmentalized. Everything in school should be on the same “track” as it were. I actually envisioned what the “perfect” school would consist of. It’d have to be some kind of boarding school for children in first through the twelfth grades. In the school, you’d learn (for example) Greek history in your history class, while studying ancient Greek in the foreign language class, Greek literature in translation in the English class, Greek cooking in home ec, you’d also study Greek engineering by building a replica of a Greek building using the same methods as the Greeks, Greek science in the science classes, etc., and you’d do this with every subject you study. Kids would not only get a blended education, but they’d also get to experience things in the way that the folks they’re studying did. (Imagine, if you will, learning about Greek history in a building modeled after a Greek school, or Chinese history in a replica of a Chinese school, and knowing that it was students who constructed those things!)
I think that if such a school was to exist, the students it churned out would be remarkable fonts of wisdom and creativity.
I’d make attendance optional. I’d strongly discourage using worksheets and other busywork. I’d ensure homework was essential and relevant to the lesson, not something assigned cause the teacher (or the parents) thinks students should have X amount of homework.
In high school, I think more emphasis should be put on the fact that the high school years are not the be-all and end-all of life. While academic performance can influence your future to a great degree, social status in high school ends up meaning nothing, as do pep rallies and the like. Plus, in the year that I’ve been out of high school, I’ve realized that perhaps the most important part of life is finding your passion and calling in life (which I’m currently trying to figure out). Nerdiness in the sense of being devoted and even obsessed with a few areas of study can pay off in the end. Giving students more experience and guidance in that regard (while still giving them a general education) wouldn’t hurt.
Another thing that I think is wrong with American high schools specifically is the fact that the students are treated like children. An exchange student from Paraguay once told me that “in America, you talk about freedom a lot, but the young people don’t get to have any fun.” Students in high school should be given more responsibility for their own education. While encouraging them to succeed is always important, the system of discipline tends to make students feel powerless. The opposite should be true. Students should learn that their future is in their control. I think it’s ridiculous how high school students in America have to ask to be excused from class, whether it’s to go to the bathroom or just to skip class. As long as they’re not disrupting others, they should be free to come and go (and free to suffer the academic consequences).
Cheerleaders. And a fashion club, and a scary gym teacher who terrorises everyone and a geek who gets the girl anyway, and periods that end as soon as they’ve started and the teacher with the disturbing quirk and bizarre teaching method and lettered jackets and a football quarterback and everyone has their own car and lives in a big nice house where there are never any parents only parties and no-one does any work in English (which is the only subject ever taught) and instead just talks about issues that just happen to be relevant to their personal lives and an AV club and going away for summer and first kisses.