http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-10-05/can-virtual-reality-improve-education
https://xqsuperschool.org/whoweare
These two websites talk about the differences in the world and the new technology that has been introduced since the early 1900s. But that high schools are still the same. My favorite line from the video said something along the lines of "teenagers have the best BS detectors on the planet." We talk about how young people need to love learning and love their education when we are just trying to make ourselves believe that fact as well. The point of this is that "American public schools have failed to keep up." Having a foreign exchange student while I was in high school, I saw this first hand. He already knew everything he was learning in classes here because he had already done that material back home.
The video also talks about how we want to shape the youth to become innovative thinkers and intellectual human beings but the school system teaches from a packet. "We want self-reliance but we force them to sit prisoner, in the name of learning." I believe, in my own opinion, that high school does not prepare you for the real world or for going off to college. I have never been taught to do my own taxes or to do other tasks that I had to very quickly get the help of other people outside of school.
These articles talk about the need to re-model the high school norm. If we are able to successfully change the way high school teaches its students, they will be able to remodel the workforce and make it more competitive and at the level of other countries. They can also change the poverty rate, the incarceration rate, etc.
"Let's teach to the subject not to the bell"
Haley,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that high school doesn't prepare you for the real world or going off to college. This is concerning because some students in high school have to face the "real world" even before they are graduated. I think if we were to remodel the high school norm, that we could benefit a greater amount of students, who may choose other paths than just higher education. I find your favorite line from the article to be so true! High schoolers most definitely have a very good BS detector. If something doesn't apply to them in the classroom, a lot of times they are going to check out and not care about the subject.
Hi Haley,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, here in the US we are often very calibrated toward the short term. Public schools are often no better than daycare centers at this point in many areas, particularly low SES ones. But the money that it would cost to re-model the norm is astronomical, and even more so when the fact that the communities themselves need re-modeling to truly make a change in the lives of the students. While making these changes would likely yield more informed, inquisitive, and successful students in the long term, I have a hard time believing that anyone would be willing to take the risk.