What Needs to Change?

[Tranquillity]

In your opinion, what needs to change within a school? Should schools be abolished as they stand now, or should the curriculum simply be improved? Are there methods (Montessori schools for instance) which you think would work better then now? What works now?

And the more important question:
How would this be accomplished?

[Will]

School needs to be non-compulsory. (Isn't scary that people think that compulsory education is a right?)

It's probably impossible to fix all at once because the people who wasted their lives going through the system won't want to let other people get away with not going. The only feasible way I see is just not to going to school, becoming incredibly successful, famous and maybe rich and then advocating ending compulsory education.

[Guest]

1) A societal change in the recognition and understanding of different forms of education. We need people to recognize that the current school system, even if it was non-compulsory, does not work very well for all students. We also need people to recognize that education outside of a school can work better than even the most perfect school.

2) The creation of hundreds of decentralized and democratic schools across the world. They must be run by the community for the community because the impersonal nature of the current school system makes it impossible for schools to change based on the needs of the community and individual students. These schools also need to be linked in an international federation to create solidarity and the ability to fend off political attacks by government school boards and boards of education.

3) More and better research into forms of education that respects students.

[Tranquillity]

Quote:2) The creation of hundreds of decentralized and democratic schools across the world. They must be run by the community for the community because the impersonal nature of the current school system makes it impossible for schools to change based on the needs of the community and individual students. These schools also need to be linked in an international federation to create solidarity and the ability to fend off political attacks by government school boards and boards of education.

This is what makes me nervous. I have a few people, who I hold very dear, who live in farming communities. In these very small towns, they do four things.

1. The farm.
2. They build machines to farm.
3. They fix machines to farm.
4. They eat what they've farmed.

By the community for the community runs the terrible risk of stifiling individual students.

Ask yourself this personal question:
Are you a farmer?
Do you want to be a farmer?
Do you want to be a farmer for the rest of your life?

If the schools are run by the community for the community, then most likely you would be trained in the day to day tasks of being a farmer. There would be virtually no respect for the arts, and you would grow an entire community of repressed people who don't want to be farmers, but only have one choice: To be farmers.

Now, you mentioned the needs of the individual; I will give you that. However, I do not believe that the needs of the community should have an overwhelming priority in any facet of the school. If we are to truly create a society of "Workers of the World", then I believe that schools should focus based on content that the individual students want to learn, as an escape from the needs of the community. Otherwise, you get a lawyer who wants to be a doctor, a doctor that wants to be a police officer, a police officer that wants to farm, and a farmer that wants to be a programmer.

[Guest]

I think you understand me wrong... though it's more likely I didn't phrase myself correctly. Having the community override the individual is not something I was trying to say.

What I mean by "run by the community" is that schools should be run locally and be taught by local people who know what they are talking about. Teachers right now do know their stuff but they aren't active in what they teach. Most English teachers aren't writers and most science teachers aren't scientists. Some of my teachers are always up to date with the latest information in their fields but that is different from participating in it.

Being run by the community also means individuals can actually change a school. Right now to make big changes to schools you have to be part of the Department/Ministry of Education or a legislative body. School boards can change some things but they are still not very approachable. If a school is run by local people you could actually go to their house and have a discussion with them.

By "for the community" I mean for the people in the community. Schools right now do not always meet the needs of social situations. For example, schools in very poor areas teach basically the same things as schools in rich areas. Students in poor areas need different emphasis on skills than other people. They need to learn how to pull themselves "up from the gutter" (I hate that expression). Things like "how not to get shot" should be taught in certain areas and not in others.

Being run for the community also means that schools should not be taught from a curriculum that is based on the (non-existent) average student.

I could have said "run by local people for local people" but I don't like how that sounds.

[PIMP.]

Quote:What I mean by "run by the community" is that schools should be run locally and be taught by local people who know what they are talking about. Teachers right now do know their stuff but they aren't active in what they teach. Most English teachers aren't writers and most science teachers aren't scientists. Some of my teachers are always up to date with the latest information in their fields but that is different from participating in it.

Slightly off topic but what kirby wrote above made me think of something. I remember once i had this ancient history teacher who was really passionate about ancient history. I mean this fat old lady really loved ancient history. She really got turned on by all that Egyptian and Greek stuff. As a result, her energy and enthusiasm for the subject flowed onto the students. Everybody liked her class. We still had to do all those essays and remember all these dates and stuff but it was cool. The same guys that were throwing spit balls at me an hour earlier in maths were now having an intelligent discussion about Spartan society. Or the guy that was making fart sounds in Science was now diligently listening.

I think theres a huge difference between a teacher that loves what they are teaching and thus loves passing on their knowledge and passion to a younger generation than a teacher that just turns up does the job and collects the pay check. Can anybody relate to this and share examples?

I think if we want to change the school system we need only to change the teachers. Its not the building or the subjects or the suburb the schools are in but its the teachers that make or break a school. Teachers have a extremely important role to play in the developing of young minds and i think we can all agree that the caliber of teachers we are currently seeing in our societies are not up to par. In fact 90% of teachers are retards.

So what to do?

[NiteRaidah]

Obviously, a great deal of things must be changed in order to make school "tolerable" or a reasonable fascmile.

-Teachers need to be less of "dictators" and stop believing that they are the be-all-and-end-all of orders, especially when they throw around ridiculous assignments, punishments, and the like.

-Schools need to teach kids things that will matter in life and/or the lifestyle they choose to take. A good plan would be to teach kids the basics of subjects like English, math, and the like from K-4. Once they enter what could be considered junior high, they should take courses that would be useful in life no matter which path they take (e.g., cooking, phys ed) with electives (which would make up the bulk of their learning) pertaining to the path they take, such as a class about computers, web design, and such for someone interested in computer science, music appreciation/instrumental classes for those who choose to be musicians in the future, and so on.

-For cripe's sake, get better food. This isn't brunch at San Quentin, folks, actually attempt to make a decent meal, otherwise your patrons will choose to bring lunch from home or from the vending machines, therefore loosing the school revenue.

-Shorter classes. And for that matter, start later. Have a schedule from, say, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

-Hire better, less switch-and-lecture-oriented teachers.

-If school is cancelled for whatever reason, such as for a snow day, don't make it up later in the year. At my school, the year is running late as it is before three additional days were tacked on thanks to snow.

[BlackMita]

I have to agree that the kinds of teachers you have are integral to learning in school. The ones that know what they are saying. The ones that are actually interested in the subject they teach. The ones that are involved in their subject directly, if possible. Students of any age will want to learn from interesting adults; they won’t need any motivation.

It should be avoided, hiring teachers whom see the job as a job that needs to be done. That attitude leads one to think that most of what they do is not being a mediator to learning, but to serve as a babysitter, or instiller of discipline. Because teaching and instruction is part of this ‘job’ these kinds of teachers figure they are meeting the requirement simply by giving student lots of content to 'get through' … marks are irrelevant.

The most significant effect school has on young people is keeping them off the job market; because they have to go through these trails which are presumed to make them well rounded (advocating this will give them greater success) entering the adult world. It would be better if they had the freedom to specialize early, learning only what they wanted to, since modern society is general run by a bunch of specialized individuals; not a mass of well rounded people (the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none.” comes up).

But you can’t cold read all teachers to find out how they’ll approach their role in teaching. That could be discriminating. You need to find a way to make the ‘job’ less appealing to the ‘enforcer’ teacher, and more appealing to the ‘I’m just doing this cause I love it!’ teachers. The best way I can think of is to change the nature of the content, and system, and create a totally different, voluntary, type of school (But still keep the old kind of schools, until they fade off on their own).

Cool Schools! What would be some of the major differences besides the ones you guys have already listed?

For one, eliminate mandatory homework. It should be something the student asks for, if they need more time and practice to remember certain facts, or absorb some procedure. It should also be of a fairly high quality; not just thrown together as a mess of rote crap. Give it some context for god’s sake! If it’s math, make it almost exclusively ‘word problems’ of situations that you know… you might actually do in real life. Too much homework is counter-productive for anyone with ‘higher learning’ capabilities, or those who don’t have an appropriate environment to take work home.

Secondly, eliminate grade levels. I don’t even get why they exist. Well… I do get why they exist, but class would be so much cooler with more age variety, and senior student could be helping out their younger peers, while the younger student are also learning to learn from each other. Reinforces the whole “everyone can teach you something” philosophy. This also eases things up on the teacher, since anything covered doesn’t have to be answered by them, since the student are more prone to getting together productively.

I have a few more less thought out things that could work, but I can’t articulate them now. Great thread.

[No shit, Sherlock]

I think one basic fact we have to look at here is this: the human being wants to learn. I swear, everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY has a love for learning about something be it sport, maths, stamps, button collecting I don't know, but EVERYBODY is interested in something. Schools should be designed to harness that instead of forcing people to try and learn things that they will never remember in the long run because They Are Not Interested. Beyond basic essential mathematics and reading and writing skills, pupils should be able to choose ot study what they are really PASSIONATE about-THEN they will learn. Also at the moment I swear the job/wage-orientated authoritarian teachers are multiplyig while the passionate lively intelligant teachers are dropping like flies in a strangling system of teaching a syllabus neither they nor their students are inspired by, and unable ot 'waste' lesson time on going into depth on a particularly intersting area of the subject.

My favourite teacher of all time-a fabulous English teacher with so much passion and fun in her is desperate to leave the teaching world not because she doesn't want to teach but because she is trapped doing lessons from text books that were used in (i kid you not) 1980s and earlier, and teaching kids that hate english when she could have the class that im in now who used to love the subject but now despise it and mess abotu because we have a droning unethusiastic teacher who disocurages speaking out and varying the opinions.

meh. jsut my thoughts.
thankyou and goodnight!

[Doc Johnson]

NiteRaidah Wrote:-Shorter classes. And for that matter, start later. Have a schedule from, say, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

I would add to this, that schools should allow people to take MORE time for the stuff they actually get off on. Auto shop open late and on weekends. Theatre, to serve as needed. Writers' workshops. 24/7 access to computer labs. Open the campus for free expression and exploration, and hire enough supervisor/mentor types to keep parents from freaking out. There's a lot of possibilities once you reconceive the school as something else besides sitting in desks for X hours a day, achieving "standards" or whatever other BS is the order of the day.

[Darthmat]

you are all independent thinkers who want to make schools a better place and therfore make students futures and the world a better place! but that means change and that the governemnt wont have a hold on all of are minds!! AHHHH!!! *runs away while sucking thumb*

waht u guiys r saying er great but something i think taht could be fixed fast and easy is for people to stop turning thier heads and realize the bully jocks for what they really are. stop giving them special rivileges and kick them off of the team if they terorize or bully students. this really teaches them that they can be rewarded through bad behavior and in my opinion taht will create future criminals. also it will create tormented souls and people with low self esteemif you are on teh other side of teh bullying.