Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Education-09/19/07
After class today I went back to my room and thought about what education meant to me. For me it has always been about a goal. A goal to learn, to aquire knowledge and turn that into a career one day to make money for myself and for my family. Since I was three years old I knew I had to go to school in order to succeed, I never even questioned it. I came from Plainview high school, which Kozol mentions in his book. He says "black and hispanic students make up only 1% of enrollment while 97% of students at the school are white" (Kozol 33). Througout high school I was always aware I was lucky, I knew I had opportunities and I knew I had choices. I was in all AP classes my senior and I took it for granted. Learning and reading about all these other impoverished schools seem so foreign to me. I can not believe children don't have playgrounds or gyms. I do not see how children can learn if they can't play with one another. Play softens children, it makes them understand the world and it helps them gain knowledge of people. Knowing how people interact is such a useful life tool. People and situations become predictible and then you learn how to advance. If these kids don't play or interact they will not be able to perform tasks or jobs which involve interactions with people because they don't know how. Not giving children play seems to limit their opportunities for the future. I really liked the idea of charter schools because I think all children should have something to look forward to at school each week. I decided rather than looking for an article, to look into charter schools more. I thought it would be more beneficial for the class, for those who came to my blog, to be able to learn more about Charter schools since they were only briefly discussed in class. http://www.uscharterschools.org/pub/uscs_docs/index.htm. I really learned a lot about what these schools have to offer and the history behind them. I find it really interesting and hopeful that there are people out there who acknowledge the problem we have with our educational system and who are attempting to fix it.
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4 comments:
Thanks, Shanna. I hope most people will see the info on Charter Schools.
We've talked in class about AP programs, but I wonder how beneficial these are -- especially when attending public colleges like the SUNY schools. Do you really think your AP classes were a benefit to you and to how well you do in college? I ask this because I have friends who took advantage of several of the AP programs, yet they are not doing as well as I am in college, and I came from a school that maybe had one or two AP classes, which I took but did not take the tests because the classes did not sufficiently prepare me for the tests. I did not learn more from being in those classes.
My school offered an A.P. Calculus class, but it did not offer "regular" trig or calc classes; the school offered geometry, algebra 1 & 2, pre-calculus, and AP calc which is probably why the class wasn't sufficient. The other was A.P English which focused more on literature. Both, I think, were poorly designed and didn't deserve A.P designation which is probably why I wonder about how beneficial AP classes are, in general. Which also makes me wonder whether the resources used for these classes could be better used elsewhere -- or maybe even used to better the small curriculum of classes offered.
Another thing that bothered me was that our school was considered the "richest" school of the poor schools because they had a swimming pool installed, but I thought a few of the other poor schools "better" because they offered more classes such as trigonometry, calculus, more foreign languages, advanced chemistry, etc. Just another look at resources and how money is used. I think it's interesting that students at other schools thought we were "richer" b/c we had a pool when some of us thought they were "richer" because they were offered more classes. (But, I guess sports programs almost always win out because they can bring money back into the schools -- the pool was the only one in the area so it brought in a lot of money in the summer.)
i feel as though my school was similar to yours. i dont consider my school to be "upper class" and it was not used as an example in the Kozol reading, but we too had a lot of opportunity and an overwhelming number of honors and ap classes available to us. i think ap programs are very beneficial, because although they may not quite be the same as an actual college course, it is great to be earning college credits while still being in highschool.
i thought it was very interesting to read about charter schools. i think i have heard of them before, but i never really knew what they were. they look like a great idea and seem as though they would help a lot of children. i dont think that there are any charter schools in my area, do they only offer them in cities?
Before coming to this class I didn't really know what charter schools were, so thank you for bringing them up again. I think that they can be beneficial if used properly and the leniency of the government isn't abused. I'm actually amazed that we seem to just be experimenting on our youth's education. I mean I guess I can see the positive side if we find a different way to foster a better and more equal educational experience. However, at the same time, I feel like we could be totally screwing up the futures of innocent children who did not sign up for this and are just being used as guinea pigs. I suppose as they become more widely used we will see what their true effects will be.
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