I have noticed that most high schoolers these days would rather not be in school and find it a waste of time. Personally I love school and don't fall into that category so I have a hard time understanding how these people think.
I think this could be changed if the structure of high school learning was changed. If it became less rigid where the students could specialize in a certain area that they are interested in. This would be kind of like electives but more in depth. While students would still have to take the required math, english, history, and science classes, those classes would be specialized towards what career they want to work towards. For example if a student wanted to be a journalist they could study the history of journalism for their history requirement.
This could prepare students even more for college and life beyond college. This would also add more creativity and flexibility to the students schedules.This seems like a very good idea to me as a high school student who aspires to move on to college in a year. This would help the students, the schools, the country, and even the world as a whole. This could even cause students to like school more than they do now.
I like you're thinking... that would better prepare students for what they will take in college, I think.
-Amanda-
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I'm down. The whole education system needs to be drastically reformed... that includes college as well.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/jloigman
What you describe sounds like the Open School movement. A bit like it, anyway. In open schools, kids get to choose what they study. Instead of grades, they complete a portfolio that demonstrates mastery of their "major." It's pretty cool, when done right. The problem is, open schooling got kind of lazy, and when NCLB came along, the format was incompatible with standardized testing.
If you are interested in school reform, and really would like a school experience like the one you described, look up the writings of John Dewey. He was the inventor of the progressivist education movement. He believed in problem based learning, constructivism, and student choice. It's dense material, but veeeerrry interesting.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
That sounds pretty cool, but the only problem i see is some classes would be way to small, and some interests that students have just wouldn't be popular enough to be there, so people would be left out. I i had my say, I would just have your few classes you need (IE science, math, English) but require less credits from them, and have more electives so you learn whats truly important to your field. I would also make homework optional. If you don't need to do it, then you shouldn't have to.
I like the no homework idea, too. It would better prepare high school students for college.
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I disagree. We had optional homework assignments in biochem, and most people wouldn't do them because they were optional, but the questions ended up being similar to those on the exams, which our grades were based on.
Allowing homework to be optional in high school sets up a bad standard for study habits. Better to have homework graded and get into the habit of actually doing the work, then get to college and do the work even when it's optional than have it be optional all the way through and end up screwed in the end because your study habits were lacking.
~C
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I like your idea too and you have a good point that some classes would be too small. But maybe there could be self study courses designed for students who can't take a specific class at the school they are in.
I like your idea. I think that students need more of a hands on approach rather than just sitting in a class all day listening to a subject that they don't find very interesting. If schools want to see the drop out rate decrease, they need to consider what is better for the student rather than what is better for the school. Many students want to learn through experience; students learn in different ways and school boards fail to realize that.
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