Specifically what should be in the curriculum? Well, the way I see it, school gets more and more useless the older students get. Elementary school is mostly on the money because reading, writing and arithmetic. We probably need to shake out some of the whitewashing that’s done in social studies class; all the “And then the Indians showed the pilgrims how to plant a fish with the corn seeds to act as fertilizer” shit but I think you get it.
Throughout middle school, they started letting kids choose the electives they wanted to take. For me this started out as “do you want to take Spanish, Band, Orchestra, Chorus or ‘Career Studies’?” There was one period a day that we didn’t ALL share in common. We need to do more of that, cater to students’ interests better. I think high school should have majors like college does.
The best education I find is when the environment simulates or actually is real work. Auto shop class in which real maintenance and repair is done to real roadworthy vehicles, conducted in an environment that simulates a service station is vastly superior to “Here are five random cars the owners abandoned with the school as a tax write off. They were broken when they got here and nine classes before you broke them worse. Take the wheels off and put them back on I guess.” My high school carpentry shop teacher treated us like employees of a general contractor, and we built a house. We would go to the job site, divide into work teams and work on a section of the building, from girder beam to shingles. I came out of high school not only with a head full of theory, but I was ready to walk onto a job site and work because I knew the job.
Shop classes have been disappearing. Students who didn’t take those, who took AP classes and such…what did they emerge from high school ready to go do as an adult?
I’m also of a mind to reject the notion that, you spend the entirety of your childhood and adolescence on school, and maybe even early adulthood if you go to college, and then once you’re done that’s it, no more learning now you work. That’s insane. “I’m in school.” “I’m out of school.” “I’m going back to school.” This notion of everything having to be multi-year curricula that must be entirely completed to earn a certificate and those four semesters of chemistry and physics don’t count because you failed persuasive writing so no future for you…it’s psychotic.
Specifically what should be in the curriculum? Well, the way I see it, school gets more and more useless the older students get. Elementary school is mostly on the money because reading, writing and arithmetic. We probably need to shake out some of the whitewashing that’s done in social studies class; all the “And then the Indians showed the pilgrims how to plant a fish with the corn seeds to act as fertilizer” shit but I think you get it.
Throughout middle school, they started letting kids choose the electives they wanted to take. For me this started out as “do you want to take Spanish, Band, Orchestra, Chorus or ‘Career Studies’?” There was one period a day that we didn’t ALL share in common. We need to do more of that, cater to students’ interests better. I think high school should have majors like college does.
The best education I find is when the environment simulates or actually is real work. Auto shop class in which real maintenance and repair is done to real roadworthy vehicles, conducted in an environment that simulates a service station is vastly superior to “Here are five random cars the owners abandoned with the school as a tax write off. They were broken when they got here and nine classes before you broke them worse. Take the wheels off and put them back on I guess.” My high school carpentry shop teacher treated us like employees of a general contractor, and we built a house. We would go to the job site, divide into work teams and work on a section of the building, from girder beam to shingles. I came out of high school not only with a head full of theory, but I was ready to walk onto a job site and work because I knew the job.
Shop classes have been disappearing. Students who didn’t take those, who took AP classes and such…what did they emerge from high school ready to go do as an adult?
I’m also of a mind to reject the notion that, you spend the entirety of your childhood and adolescence on school, and maybe even early adulthood if you go to college, and then once you’re done that’s it, no more learning now you work. That’s insane. “I’m in school.” “I’m out of school.” “I’m going back to school.” This notion of everything having to be multi-year curricula that must be entirely completed to earn a certificate and those four semesters of chemistry and physics don’t count because you failed persuasive writing so no future for you…it’s psychotic.