What would you change about pre-college schooling? For example, what classes would you offer prior to college?
Philosophy
Sociology
Game theory
Physics
Business management
Stock market/real estate
Calculus
Computer hardware
Programming
Electronics
Logic
Study techniques
Vocabulary
Chaos theory
Quantum physics
Overview of everything in existence
Name:
Anonymous2005-08-27 14:06
(this page of ranting is all assuming I could file a Sexual harassment suit against Bill Gates at all times and I basically have an endless pile of money and resources to go on. If you're wondering where I'm getting all my rant fodder from I work in a library that's not too far from the middle and highschool. I know what these little retards aren't learning.)
Start from the beginning and work our way up.
For starters. We don't give little kids enough credit. The reason why kids grow up to hate learning and school is because we sit them in a classroom and expect them to just hang out and be calm for 3/4 hour bursts while we teach them the same four things over and over again for the first three or four years of their schooling. There's no fucking reason why it took my teachers an hour a day for two years to teach me cursive, which is a subject we don't even need.
Kids should get electives from the first grade on. They already get the occasional suzuki class but I think we should go a little big further. Give the kids an hour at the end of the day,two or three days a week to pick subjects they're interested in. They can be computers, or animals, or more maths or history or whatever. The classes don't have to last more than a quarter so they can mix things up and experiment, or stick with what they've fallen in love with. We basically need to make it seem more voluntary and less like a chore they're doing because mommy says so.
All schools with bell scheduling get bombed. End of story. That was a stupid idea and nobody can properly learn shit in 45 minutes a day, especially since 20mins of that time is spent trying to get the class to calm the fuck down at the beginning and end of the period. We're block scheduling from here on out. No less than two hours will be dedicated to a subject so people can actually get into it instead of a little reading and handing out an assignment. These two hour classes will be separated with NICE LEASURELY FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAKS that actually allow the kids to stretch their legs and get their books from their lockers so the teachers can make their ridiculous binder demands without breaking the kids backs or resorting to rolling backpacks. (Why? Because I don't like them.) I had a teacher that grew up in China that would tell us every day that she could understand why our schools were in such a shitty situation because we never got any time to decompress in between classes.
Yeah, kids learn algebra in the fifth or sixth grade. Absolutely no reason why they shouldn't, and while we're at it let's stop teaching fourth and fifth graders the names of all the capitals like that's important. It's a pain in the ass for a year of their lives and they forget it a week after the test. Let's just replace all that frivolous education with world governments and possibly current events.
I'm completely revamping the honors program. Where I went to school the education was either remedial or college level. I'm completely abolishing all of that for the most part. From now on we're taking a cue from my local community college. From the seventh grade up there's English 1,2,3,4,5 (etc...) and in May there's tests for each of these. If a kid decided to take a test and gets an 80% or above on all the English 1&2 exams then he gets the joy of English 3. Just about anything can be tested upwards with the exception of a few senior level classes just to make sure the kid isn't playing the lazy genius card. The tests are optional and if you don't take them you just go for the classes in order. This way nobody's wasting space in a class that they don't need to learn.