Be warned, I'm struggling to find some topic, some news article, some thing to blog about. While skimming newspapers and the Internet as I nurse a cold, a few unrelated topics have begun to congeal in my mind.
I had the opportunity to watch a rerun of the Colbert Report interview of Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education. He was on the show to discuss lengthening the school year. It's about 15 min 35 seconds into the video. Duncan made some very good points about student retention, or lack of, over the summer break. During my years as a math teacher I know a large amount of time is spent reviewing material from the previous year.
Next point; IBM and Google have gone back to college. they have joined with universities and the National Science Foundation to provide students with access to huge computers handling petabytes (= 1 million gigabytes) of information. Their complaint; students don't have the skills or experience to handle the enormous amount of data available. One example that caught my eye is Facebook uses 1 petabyte just to store pictures.
The global perspective; it doesn't appear that the amount of time in school varies as much as what students do when they aren't in school. it does seem that in countries where students surpass US students on standardized test students are participating regularly in tutoring or activities that enrich academics.
The Gap year; it is becoming fashionable for US students to take a year off between high school and college. The premise is that they can partake in activities that enrich their life experience. The Gap year may be a year of volunteering or simply "seeing new places." All good things if the student will actually go to college after that year off.
Here's where it begins to jell. It seems to me there used to be such a thing as prep school meant to help prepare high school graduates for college. Though prep school was focused on making up for shortfalls in one's high school education why not revamp an old idea? Extending public education 1-32 years could be focused on one's area of interest, incorporate higher level instruction or apprenticeships. Yes, this would mean students won't graduate from college until age 25 but they would possess more skills, be more mature, and perhaps have gained some work experience.
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I'm glad that I am not the only one having a difficult time finding topics. When I graduated from high school in 97' a friend of mine applied to MSUM. She was accepted to their school for students who did not meet the criteria to be admitted to their college(I can not remember the name of the program). She took courses in math, reading, English, science etc. The classes she took prepared her for her college classes. These classes did not go towards graduation. After successfully passing all the classes, she was admitted into the college.
ReplyDeleteI looked at MSUM's web page to see if they still have to program. On their web page(http://www.mnstate.edu/admissions/requirements.cfm) under MSU Moorhead admissions they have other admission options. It sounds like they still use the same concept. I hope more colleges and universities offer this choice to help those students who want to attend post secondary school, may struggle to meet their admission requirements.
Allyson--
ReplyDeleteI agree, finding topics is becoming a larger and larger task!!
I agree that so much of our school year goes to just refreshing the students on what they have already learned!! In addressing this problem, some viable solutions that have been presented include lengthening the school year, extending high school and others. My opinion is that so much is lost over the summer months--where to students, the point is to do nothing academically. The solution? I'm not sure--but it will be interesting to see what public education looks like in a few more decades!