[Back To School Event] A discussion on School

[lolguy26]

As the all knowing Wikipedia states 

 

A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students (or "pupils") under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools. The names for these schools vary by country (discussed in the Regional section below), but generally include primary school for young children and secondary school for teenagers who have completed primary education. An institution where higher education is taught, is commonly called a university college or university.

 

Now there are different, kinds of educations, etc etc.

 

What i really want to know about is your personal experience, like your say on the education system, the teachers, the students, the status quo in your school, and anything else you think of.

 

 

 

As most of you know, im in school, specifically, senior year, as ive been constantly reminded, the most important year in my high school life, so what do i say about my current school?

 

Personal experience 

Ive always studied in big private schools, ive never been to government schools, but almost all my family members (parents, uncles and aunts, cousins) studied in government schools, i dont really mind going to school, except a few certain classes that i do bad in.(math for one)

 

Education System

not a big fan, i do very bad in standardized tests and that doesnt help when im applying to college in a few months.

 

The Teachers 

Ive been lucky to have good teachers, or maybe their just good with me, dont know really, but not much to complain.

 

The Students

Majority are good people, with the exception of a few who exist to make life miserable.

 

Status Quo

The best comparison to school would be with a jungle, or maybe like the food chain, seniors are usually high up, teachers not so much, jocks are usually high up too, nerds not that much (except when you need to copy down notes and homework) etc.

 

Im popular, ive been called arrogant quite a few times (from the vice principal once), but i wasnt always like that, not so long ago, i was the quiet the guy, who was practically invisible, ive been with people, i studied with for 4 years, who didnt remember my name, i thought if i changed, id be better, its not that better, the perks of being popular, is that most teachers like me, and that usually means, getting away with things  .

 

Oh and being part of a scholarship program and also having school work, that part isnt fun  

[Guest]

Ive nevre been to a formal schooll; in childhood, th only classroom I was ever in was at most onc a week, somtimes not that often, and it wass for religous instruction and smathering of othet things, such as readin and writing in gaeilge, some natural science...esque stuff, philosphy, history, and mathmatics, thuogh that was all considred religous too for one reason or anothre so dont actualy think of those things as serperate or lesser thann talking abuot the texts. it was only few hours, give or take depnding on who ws teachin it and wht they were teaching, and it was suposed to e compulsory but my fathre cuold sometiems negotiate with themm a reason why he cuoldnt take me one week - prety much if I showd up on average once a month it ws ok. Otherwise I was homescholed - wasnt much tests, not oens that counted for anythng anyways othre than for my mothre to know wher I was, and she just taught me whenevre she felt like it, so infrequent. I had to learn a lot of what I know now on my own as an adullt. 

 

So dont realy have experience with a school in any convntional western/westerniesed culture's concept. My son is homeschoold by me and his mother (who do lot better job than my mother defintly) and he atends same spiritual classes; we wuoldnt send him to th government schools ever, as we view it as inferiorr besids wuold be destructive to my community's culture by immersing our futuer, our children, in an institution taht indoctrinaets them with ideas and valuess of the larger catholic and capitalisttic society. I take that as a sure-fire signn that the larger nation and nationns like it are far friom free and respcting of differnt cultures, as thir public educaton systems are designd to take children regrdless of cultural objctions and force themm to go to their propagandda factories (schools) for most of thier devlopment and brainwash thm with ideas taht perpetuate their majourity and materilistic and self-centred culture, some if not all of suchh ideas might clashh with their native cultuer, and so by doing so thhey weaken the minourity culture and often destroy it ovre time (a good exmple of waht forced education dos to opposin cultuers is th native americans who had much of thier culture destroyd or severly damaged by forcced removal of thir children and taking thm to schools taht shoved anothre culture on them and discouragd their own). It isnt much of a concrn because as I mentiond, the majourity wantts or doesnt mind thos schools becuse its their culture, but theirr is a marked levell of intolerance and cultueral arrogance whn it comes to compulsoryy education of certin minourities who can onlly exist if they are alowed to remain cultueraly autonomous. So I basicaly hate with a passion th modern concpt of education. 

[LilyElizabeth]

School, for me, was many moons ago, but I've watched as things have changed for my children. I detest standardized testing and what it has done to our schools. No longer are children being taught to be educated. Now they are taught strictly so they can pass the dumb test. 

[lolguy26]

yay, so im not the only one who hates the education system, the worse thing about it, is the fact that it isnt flexible at all.

eg.

 

Today i had a big argument with my english teacher, and we were talking about presentations and she said we should use as many complex words as we could to make it sounds fancy (well something like that), i told her that didnt make sense, since the whole point of it was to make people understand, she said its not important that people get it, as long as the people who grade you like it, i told her i didnt agree with her and she told we should discuss this out of the class. 

 

Me, being me, i went to the school administration and asked them to change her, and give us our old teacher (who ftr is better qualified, more experienced and an awesome person), they told me to come tomorrow in the morning, to discuss it.

 

so am i bad person? (i think i was sorta rude since it was her first day teaching us, even tho i tried to keep it as polite and civil as can be) 

[LilyElizabeth]

I think you were absolutely right. My college communications instructor taught us that there are two parts to communication - the speaking and the understanding. If your audience doesn't understand, you didn't communicate. 

 

Although, I think after class was a good suggestion. 

[lolguy26]

eh it wasnt, im sure she would have tried to tell me off, id get pissed, id make her life miserable, not a really win win situation  

[Davrick]

High school was a while ago for me as well.  However I did always enjoy going back to school and seeing the people I haven't seen in while.  I lived out in the country and until I could drive myself I wasn't really able to see many of my friends in the summer unless something was happening. 

 

I am disappointed with how people are treating education here in the states.  They never want to give it the funding it needs, so it becomes bad.  Plus the extracurricular things get cut and makes school something that isn't fun.

[Panchi]

Personal Experience

I have been in the same all girls convent school since kindergarten. And this time of year is time for half yearly exams rather than start of school. School starts in April with one and a half months summer vacation in May-June which is filled with homework, assignment and preparing for tests/exams that take place just after holidays. School goes on till March. March 1-15 is time for final exams and after fifteen days holidays school begins. I don't really mind it except that it has to be so hectic. School used to fine but this year our Principal has got some strange ideas. We need to say a multitude of prayers, sing countless hymns and dance to song like "Its a great day to praise the Lord" daily. No one is much religious in school...except before exams, maybe.

 

Education System

Education system is tough. The board my school is affiliated to, ICSE, is tougher than most. No school has much choice in subjects you can take(maybe choice between two subjects at most, others are compulsary). We have 12 subjects out which 10 are very important and whose marks get added in percentage. Little focus on activities and what they have in form for all round development is hated by all students. Pressure of studies is too much and level of studies is much higher than that of other schools.

 

Teachers

Teachers have been quite strict this year. Things that were earlier taken as jokes now get punishment, usually standing out of class. If a class makes noise or troubles teacher or anything, then teacher refuses to teach that part. More strict checking of uniform, they even check our bags to see that we don't bring mobiles or such. Threats to cut our marks at every opportunity. Not taking trouble to resolve students problems.

 

Students

Most focus on marks. Marks are important. If you get more marks then people leave you mostly alone. Students are at a stage where they have a newfound freedom to go where they want on their own most of the time after school(not something I have or am interestied in). Time when almost everyone is talking about crushes(and I am doing my homework to ignore them).

 

Status Quo

no idea if it exists, probably does but I am not sure. I am the typical nerd girl who no one talks to unless they need help with maths or science or any other subject or need to copy work.

[lolguy26]

there is always status quo, its just how life is

 

and your life is awful, 12 subjects , i have 8 main subjects and 1 extra (art), im already swamped cuz i have assignment from my scholarship program 

[Panchi]

I have coaching homework etc(which I don't understand half the time and is quite hard).

 

12 subjects are down from 15 last year. I am happy to leave art and GK behind. It would be good if craft went too(which makes it 13 subjects if you count it). Now they want us to magically improve our crafting skills to a high level. And I still have my craft project left (due just after exams) and no idea what to make

[beanie]

I don't know much about what the education system is like seeing as I was homeschooled with neighbor kids for most of my life x) The last three years I've studied online courses instead where I am the teacher and I am the only student so naturally I think both are great heh. My experience with real teachers and students is limited to the 6 months I went to a public school, which I couldn't stand. The teachers were terrible and annoying and had absolutely no idea how to control a classroom. The students were laaaaazy, no one studied, half of them already knew what was being taught, the other half didn't care. I finally understood why exactly students want to strangle teachers on a regular basis. I ended up arguing a lot with one teacher in particular because he was stupid and I told him so to his face. I didn't get expelled. Also, standardized tests suck. Anyways, studying online is boring and lonely but I love being in charge of my own studies and being able to go at my own pace.

[lolguy26]

well public school students usually don't care, and the teachers are too frustrated with the students, and the bad infrastructure, etc..

 

and telling a teacher that they're stupid (even i havent done that ) 

[beanie]

Yes well it was well deserved and most satisfying :) The fact that he wasn't fluent in English probably helped. And it actually worked surprisingly...he had the last class of the day and after that he usually let me leave early.

 

...also I swear I'm not a terrible student...

[lolguy26]

........totally not......

[_CLOUD]

I'm also not a fan of our current educational system. I mean the current system was invented to meet the needs during the industrialism, and so they teach children from a very young age subjects like mathemetics and languages because those are the subjects that people back in the day needed to know if they wanted to secure a good job. They hardly learn anything about art or music, and let alone drama or dans while those subjects are also essential to us as human beings. Schools simply don't bring up the individual potential that every child has, and creativity isn't valued at all while it is arguably more important than studying mathematics, especially now that degrees are getting very common. I'm not saying that academic subjects aren't important, but I do believe that children also need to be taught to think of their own solutions to problems because that would help not only shape their own future but also everyone else's.

[lolguy26]

So this happened to me in class today

 

Teacher: When solving questions in eng lit. you should write the standardized answers, you can score the highest mark like that.

Me: What if i dont agree with the standard opinion?

Teacher: Your opinion isnt what matters, marks are the most important thing.

Me:       

[LilyElizabeth]

Yeah. Let's teach our kids not to think for themselves. 

[lolguy26]

i really really dont get that logic.

 

"Marks before learning."

 

I mean everyone accepts that, learning is good, but they prioritize marks over it, by everyone is teachers/students/parents. (or atleast the majority)

[LilyElizabeth]

Whatever makes you think education is about learning? lol

[lolguy26]

touche 

[LilyElizabeth]

Education today is only about passing standardized tests. Period. 

[Leelou]

Education today is only about passing standardized tests. Period. 

 

I remember my class was basically a test subject for those tests in MA. We luckily didn't have to pass them to graduate like the following years did, but they were awful. They weren't actually on real things that we learned. I only ended up passing 3 of them: math, science and English. The rest I failed. History was horrible, I'm not the best with history to begin with, but we never touched on what they tested us on in classes.

[lolguy26]

Thats one of the things, if i compare what we take in class and how the exam is, the difference is huge, it would be much better if they teach us how to actually understand the questions in the test. (ie: analysis of the question and etc)

[Panchi]

In those ways I like the place I go for coaching. Our math teacher there would rather waste half an hour to make sure everyone understands and question is solved mostly by students(with little prodding in right direction) than just on solve and question for us. And in case we can't solve it, then he would give hints and if we still didn't then we sit there for 10 minutes just going over the question to see where we went wrong (sometimes after that we end up with tons of other ways to solve the question). This thing improved my math quite a lot. Whereas in school chances of a question coming from outside are little so no one bothers with teaching how the question could be modified, how you can do it alternatively, teach things not given in books etc

[Moon Sedai]

Personal:

I am gonna approach this as someone who has been a teacher, even if it was only as a Student teacher and substitute teacher. I have been in school most of my life, and I pretty much just loved school all the time.

I am not teaching now- I doubt I will ever be able to find a job in a classroom or if, with my anxiety issues here lately, that I could handle it.

Education System

Texas high schools have seven one-hourish class periods. Unlike where I grew up (Georgia), students in sports take one class period to be in that sport, and get PE Credit. Marching Band also counts as a PE Credit (that made me mad- I wish my band class had counted for PE). This means that teachers who are coaches have one hour a day when they can't teach their core class, because they are coaching. They also get a conference period (a class off for planning for core class) and a coach's conference period (a class off to plan for their coaching class.) This means of 7 hours in a day, they are only teaching the core class for 4 hours.

And they get paid more than standard teachers.
Oh, and Most of them are men. (even for girl's teams).

As a Student Teacher, I didn't get paid. As a sub, I was paid per diem. So if I had a day when I didn't take a class, I didn't get money.

 

Teachers
Teachers talk with one another. During lunch period, when students are eating, so are the teachers. And if two teachers share a common student, guess what they talk about?
Hey- do you know what Timmy did yesterday in my class? Does he do this kind of stuff to you? How do you handle it? Any hints on how to help Jane through this crisis she's having?
Teachers have a lot of pressure on them to prepare students for testing. Many of (us) them at one time had a passion for it, wanted to teach grand things and do amazing things in the classrooms. However, many of them lose it after a brief period. Principals and school boards have high demands for student performance. Student behavior can tear an otherwise nice teacher into shreds. Lack of jobs and multiple people vying for teaching jobs make it difficult for teachers to leave if they are mistreated.

Students
There are very few students who are there to learn, or actually want to be there. To get students to do work is like pulling teeth- you have to painfully rip an assignment out of almost every one of the students in a class room, every day. Even in the "Pre-AP" and "advanced" Classes.
Students are disrespectful, ill-mannered, loud, obnoxious, and spoiled. If you take their cellphone away per campus rules, they will throw a fit. If you tell a student to stop talking off task during the Pledge of Allegiance (a common occurrence in my experience. Personally, I don't care if a student says the pledge or not, just don't talk during it or any of the announcements) they act like they have no idea what you're talking about. They turn in lazy, copied off their classmates work (We notice this stuff, as teachers).

Students have all the power. They can do what they want, pretty much, and it is okay. Because Mom/Dad will call the school and complain that their baby child could not possibly have stolen test answers, told dirty jokes in class, mouthed off, texted in class, acted like a total crap bag of awful, whatever.

 

And if Mom/Dad is a teacher, a member of the faculty, part of the school board, it's even worse.

 

Teachers often have to be strict on "unimportant" stuff like dress code because it creates an illusion to students that they will be strict about other things. If you harp on dress code in a class, students are less likely to act up (that is the theory, anyway).
 

Status Quo

 

Oh yeah, there is one.
Teachers don't necessarily group together as departments. They might eat together during lunch, or share lesson plans, but there is a clear status quo amongst faculty members.
Coaches are at the top. Especially here in Texas. And there is a hierarchy of coaches, as well. Football reigns supreme.

Teachers get cliquish just like students do. As a student teacher, I fit in better with the Foreign Language teachers than the Social Studies ones, but I did get along with the other Social Studies teachers.

Bottom rung are subs and interns. They have zero support from regular teachers, principals, or staff of the school.

 

 

Anyway, that's just from my limited teaching perspective. My husband had similar issues when he was a substitute teacher.