Education Reform

[CoffeeHorse]

Oldspark had a thread about how bad our schools are, and I started thinking that we need to revive the topic.

My governor just signed a bill to raise school start times. From the headline I thought that would be interesting, but the actual change is that middle school can’t start before 8:00 am and high school can’t start before 8:30 am. I never went to a school that started before 8:00, so it was kinda eye opening. I mean, holy cow things were worse than I even knew. What hellish schools were starting before 8? That was a thing?

I guess the other thing that got me thinking is I still dream about school. It's always in the period between spring break and finals. I have to check the rotating schedule because it's confusing as heck. Finals are coming. Really stupid group projects are coming. I want to just climb the fence and run away. I don't care where. Just pick a direction and go until they give up trying to find me to bring me back. I'd rather die than go back. Apparently that dream just never goes away.

So. Education reform. We all know our school system is broken. Everyone who has the misfortune to experience it knows it's broken. Generation after generation has the same complaints. But then we graduate and it seems like we all just say "Whew. Not my problem anymore." And nothing changes. I want to know if anyone anywhere is actually seriously trying to work on this. Any proposal, however wild, to change how education is administered.

And if some politician has an obviously bad idea, we can talk about that too. This thread can be a catch-all for it. Education reform. Good or bad.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Uh... dude? That sounds like PTSD. You didn't just dislike school, your education traumatized you.

 

[Dekafox]

My old high school currently starts at 7:30, but you get out at 2:30, from what I see of their current schedule. I don't think it was that different when I went, as we got out or got home around 3, and I remember getting up at 6:30 or 6:45 to get ready for school since I'd always watch the 7-something shows on Sci-Fi channel at the time before going out for the bus, which at one point was Ronin Warriors and/or G1 Transformers

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

Uh... dude? That sounds like PTSD. You didn't just dislike school, your education traumatized you.

Sounds like American schooling in general. Which, as a victim of it myself, I am not at all defending. And I got out before active shooter drills were normalized, I can't imagine what issues later generations will be carrying.

 

[Anonymous X]

I remember when we had bomb drills back at secondary school, in case the IRA ever planted a bomb in our school (seriously), but then chances of that actually happening were remote. I despair at kids in the States having to actively practice drills in case there’s a mass shooting, given how often and regularly they seem to happen.

 

[KidTDragon]

My old high school currently starts at 7:30, but you get out at 2:30, from what I see of their current schedule. I don't think it was that different when I went, as we got out or got home around 3, and I remember getting up at 6:30 or 6:45 to get ready for school since I'd always watch the 7-something shows on Sci-Fi channel at the time before going out for the bus, which at one point was Ronin Warriors and/or G1 Transformers

I remember these being my grade school's and high school's hours, too. There's a local middle school that started at 8:30 (probably still does) and that always blew my mind.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

When I was a high school freshman we had an all-day lockdown that was not a drill. The second class of the day just started. We got a very calm announcement that we were on lockdown. We said okay. No one goes in or out. But the class otherwise continued as normal. Then someone from the administration came to check on us and said "What are you doing?. Get under the desks." So we did. It got boring so we turned on the local news. It turned out that a cop got shot right outside the school, and the suspect vanished. Guy was on foot, so he was probably still in the area. So it was real. We sat under the desks and waited. For hours. And hours. Class was canceled for the rest of the day, as was lunch. You'd think the police could have entered the school at some point to make sure we were okay and maybe get the lockdown lifted, but no. Even though the shooting was right outside. Even though their suspect was still missing and they had no leads. They didn't know that he didn't enter the school to hide or take hostages or whatever. They had no idea where he was, except that he was probably somewhere close. But, as we could see on the local news, they were very very busy staring at their feet.

All in all it was a much more enjoyable experience than being in class. And for the next three years teachers weren't required to go over lockdown procedures with us because we'd been in a real one.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

When I started high school, the weekly class schedule went like this.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
1	2	3	4	5
2	3	4	5	1
3	4	5	1	2
4	5	1	2	3
5	1	2	3	4
6	6	6	6	6

Then they changed it.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
1	3	4	5	6
2	2	2	2	2
3	4	5	6	1
4	5	6	1	3
5	6	1	3	4
6	1	3	4	5

Then they changed it.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
1	2	1	2	1
2	1	2	1	2
3	4	5	6	3
4	5	6	3	4
5	6	3	4	5
6	3	4	5	6

This is probably why I still dream that I don't know where I'm going next.

 

[Stepwise]

That's a mess. I've never taught in a rotating block thing like that. I'm pretty sure there's a whole mindset behind it that if kids were consistently late for the first class of the day, or always sluggish and lethargic at specific points during the day, that they'd have a better opportunity to understand some of the content for the class because it'd be at a different time of day.

. . . but . . . it's a dumb idea.

Students need a routine that's way more predicable, otherwise, they spend all their time trying to figure out where they go next - they miss everything that they could learn in class. (I'm not trashing on students here - it's just that I've been teaching for 23 years. I've seen how kids will get absolutely spun up on trying to figure out "where to go next" and they'll miss the bigger picture.)

My district tried something like this for high school kids for a couple years - this was between '95 and 2000, while I was in college. When I came back to teach here, that schedule was long gone and buried in the "bad ideas" bin.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Imagine missing a day or two of school and being out of the cycle, and then having to jump back into it. It's like it was designed to be a dumb nightmare scenario.

 

[Stepwise]

I don't even like a-day b-day block schedules, so yeah, that's just a dumb scenario.

 

[Paladin]

Public schools do not exist to provide convenience or even education; their sole purpose is to mold obedient cogs for the wheels of capitalism.

 

[Stepwise]

Sorry you had such a bad experience.