There's a lot of talk amongst worried moms and teachers, these days, regarding standardized testing, the evils of the curriculum, "why are our children stupid?', and all sorts of worrisome scholastic banter, so I decided I would just put in my own little two cents on the issue.
My place in this argument is a unique one, because at this moment I'm in the strange void between teenager and adult. The embarrassment and stress and awkwardness of high school is still steamy-fresh in my mind, but I'm also going in to my third year of education courses at Penn State, and after my various experiences student teaching, I can now see both as teacher and as pupil simultaneously, and I am here to say that, while curriculum learning is important, nothing is more impactful than practicum,
A bold declaration, I know.
Now, I'm not here to back up my claim with citations from fifteen reputable blah-dee-blahs with PhD's in knowing everything there is to know about theoretically knowing about children, I'm just here to tell a little of my story.
To start off, I just want to come right out and say, I went to a big, mostly upper-middle class high school, situated right in the center of what might be more aptly renamed "Affluent White Family of Four -Town," so if you were hoping for a feel-good story about how I defied the odds and worked hard to struggle beyond my means, I'm sorry, this story is not for you. Go rent Freedom Writers or something.
To be honest, I was a bit lazy at the start of high school. In ninth grade, you go into a new school, but you normally still have your same posse from middle school, and not only that, but you still have the inflated ego that came from being at the top of the food chain back in eighth grade. Hubris... nasty business (just ask Caesar).
So, like many eighth graders, I went into high school already knowing everything and I made it my business not to learn anything. Shockingly that didn't turn out very well. Finally when my English teacher gave me an appropriate and deserved yet unexpected verbal smack down about getting my act together, I started to actually *shudder* APPLY myself (and even made it back into honors classes for the next year). Tenth grade presented a whole new set of issues for me and my teachers. It was at this point that I tried my absolute hardest to stick with the syllabus and give my teachers exactly what they wanted. This was a mistake.
There was one time in particular that I remember ending especially irksomely. In tenth grade, I was given an essay prompt to somehow tie together the book "A Tale of Two Cities" and the play "Julius Caesar". I spent HOURS on that paper, pouring over the texts and hashing and rehashing my prose in an attempt to write with both information and style. I turned it in, proud that I finally had taken my time on a paper instead of writing it the night before it was due. This was it. This was THE paper. The pinnacle of my writing career.
I got a B-.
Oh man, hell hath no fury like a tenth grade girl who thinks she's right and anyone else is stupid. You'd think my sixty page dissertation had just been given a failing grade, I was so overcome by that odd kind of grief that somehow only expresses itself as pure rage. Based on the apparent across-the-board mediocrity of our papers, the teacher assigned a one page theme to reflect on what we did wrong and how to fix it in the future.
That was the final straw. In the end, instead of discussing what I did wrong on one page, I handed in a four page paper detailing everything that was wrong with how my paper was graded, and how the MLA format we were forced to use for the five paragraph essay boiled down to no more than a mindless fill-in-the-blank, and grading on that kind of a rubric allows no room for students to explore other important elements like style or emphasis. Thesis, point one, point two, point three, closer.
My teacher ended up absolutely loving my scathing review of "the system," much to my chagrin (I had secretly hoped I would get in trouble so I could plea my case to the higher-ups, but, alas). All I learned from that year and that project, was that I can do an assignment the night before and get the same or a better grade than spending weeks actually trying. So, grades went up, effort and enthusiasm plummeted.
By eleventh grade my sass and my indifference both hit critical capacity. I was bored with books. I was bored with the classroom. I was bored with desks and clocks and SmartBoards. I was disappointed in the passivity of my school system. I would get assignments, and if I knew all the answers, I wouldn't just write them on the paper and get it over with, oh no. I would write little notes on the worksheets, saying things like, "I understand the material and found this homework to be a redundancy, not a review". I never got in trouble for it, I'm not really sure why. Part of me still hopes it's because the teachers knew I was right. Mostly I think they didn't feel like dealing with my made-up "I'm too smart for this" problems when there were students who actually needed attention.
Senior year was a total 180 from that, though. Yes, 180. 360 sounds more impressive but that wouldn't make sense since that leaves you right where you started. ANYWAYS, I digress. But yeah, senior year was fantastic for me.
My art teachers and now-mentors pointed me in the direction of a work-to-learn program offered through Chester County Community College called The Teacher Academy. This was a program that provided high school students with introductory materials and experiences in teaching in order to better prepare them for future careers in education. I set it up with my adviser so that I could spend my mornings interning and student teaching in schools in the area instead of going through a morning schedule of high school classes. The active nature of the experience refreshed my love of learning and gave going to school a sense of purpose for me.
I got to spend six weeks student teaching at six different types of schools with eight different art teachers. I built a resume and a portfolio and I was able to begin networking with professionals who I hoped to one day call peers. Through the program I had to learn more practical and applicable skills than I had learned since someone taught me how to read and write. I learned how to fill out governmental paper work to get my clearances. I learned how to email as a professional in order to make connections to set up these internship opportunities for myself. I learned how to manage my own time and, most importantly, I learned that I love to teach.
The program gave me a huge head start in college, because, unlike many of my peers, I had extensive firsthand knowledge that gave actual meaning to the theoretical knowledge we were learning in the classroom.
I think that so many students are given up on because they don't fit into the curriculum, and it's unfair to them. From an incredibly young age, students get the idea into their heads as to whether they think they can succeed or not, and with the focus in schools being placed on tests and homework and books, it seems there's no place for any other forms of success. There are, no doubt, millions of students who leave school thinking themselves failures, and I feel that the dreaded self-fulfilling prophecy of student failure can be alleviated by adopting more hands-on methods of learning.
I look forward to a future when a trade school won't have the negative connotations it does now. That's where the "troubled" kids go. "The bad kids are too stupid to do well in our curriculum-centered school so we shove them into the trade school". That antiquated view of trade gives unfair labels to students who simply have a different way of learning. Students at trade schools are given opportunities to explore their interests in practical ways to prepare them for a future career. Tests prepare students for, oh, let's see, what was it?...oh yeah, next week's tests.
I find it incredible that even colleges fall prey to this strictly theoretical, anti-experiential learning method. Many college majors get absolutely no practical experience in their field of study until they are almost graduated, or even already out in the workplace. This puts so much pressure on choosing correctly the first time. On the email announcing my acceptance into my major, the subject line said, rather poignantly, "NO RETURNS". Though I understand this was in reference to the fact that it was an automated email and no replies would be received, it did have a ring of finality to it.
In high school, I really had the potential to be one of the lost kids, one of those kids who have all the potential but it can't be tapped through books or lectures; one of those kids who thinks they will never be successful because of the numbers at the tops of tests. We need to give those kids a chance to feel empowered and smart and successful. Experiential and practicum based learning should have a place in every school system, not just the schools where we outsource the difficult learners. Let's allow the word "success" to expand to areas other than grades. Let's give our students, ALL of our students, a reason to go to school.
{cue inspirational music}
...
"Ms. M for President!" (just kidding).
My place in this argument is a unique one, because at this moment I'm in the strange void between teenager and adult. The embarrassment and stress and awkwardness of high school is still steamy-fresh in my mind, but I'm also going in to my third year of education courses at Penn State, and after my various experiences student teaching, I can now see both as teacher and as pupil simultaneously, and I am here to say that, while curriculum learning is important, nothing is more impactful than practicum,
A bold declaration, I know.
Now, I'm not here to back up my claim with citations from fifteen reputable blah-dee-blahs with PhD's in knowing everything there is to know about theoretically knowing about children, I'm just here to tell a little of my story.
To start off, I just want to come right out and say, I went to a big, mostly upper-middle class high school, situated right in the center of what might be more aptly renamed "Affluent White Family of Four -Town," so if you were hoping for a feel-good story about how I defied the odds and worked hard to struggle beyond my means, I'm sorry, this story is not for you. Go rent Freedom Writers or something.
To be honest, I was a bit lazy at the start of high school. In ninth grade, you go into a new school, but you normally still have your same posse from middle school, and not only that, but you still have the inflated ego that came from being at the top of the food chain back in eighth grade. Hubris... nasty business (just ask Caesar).
So, like many eighth graders, I went into high school already knowing everything and I made it my business not to learn anything. Shockingly that didn't turn out very well. Finally when my English teacher gave me an appropriate and deserved yet unexpected verbal smack down about getting my act together, I started to actually *shudder* APPLY myself (and even made it back into honors classes for the next year). Tenth grade presented a whole new set of issues for me and my teachers. It was at this point that I tried my absolute hardest to stick with the syllabus and give my teachers exactly what they wanted. This was a mistake.
There was one time in particular that I remember ending especially irksomely. In tenth grade, I was given an essay prompt to somehow tie together the book "A Tale of Two Cities" and the play "Julius Caesar". I spent HOURS on that paper, pouring over the texts and hashing and rehashing my prose in an attempt to write with both information and style. I turned it in, proud that I finally had taken my time on a paper instead of writing it the night before it was due. This was it. This was THE paper. The pinnacle of my writing career.
I got a B-.
Oh man, hell hath no fury like a tenth grade girl who thinks she's right and anyone else is stupid. You'd think my sixty page dissertation had just been given a failing grade, I was so overcome by that odd kind of grief that somehow only expresses itself as pure rage. Based on the apparent across-the-board mediocrity of our papers, the teacher assigned a one page theme to reflect on what we did wrong and how to fix it in the future.
That was the final straw. In the end, instead of discussing what I did wrong on one page, I handed in a four page paper detailing everything that was wrong with how my paper was graded, and how the MLA format we were forced to use for the five paragraph essay boiled down to no more than a mindless fill-in-the-blank, and grading on that kind of a rubric allows no room for students to explore other important elements like style or emphasis. Thesis, point one, point two, point three, closer.
My teacher ended up absolutely loving my scathing review of "the system," much to my chagrin (I had secretly hoped I would get in trouble so I could plea my case to the higher-ups, but, alas). All I learned from that year and that project, was that I can do an assignment the night before and get the same or a better grade than spending weeks actually trying. So, grades went up, effort and enthusiasm plummeted.
By eleventh grade my sass and my indifference both hit critical capacity. I was bored with books. I was bored with the classroom. I was bored with desks and clocks and SmartBoards. I was disappointed in the passivity of my school system. I would get assignments, and if I knew all the answers, I wouldn't just write them on the paper and get it over with, oh no. I would write little notes on the worksheets, saying things like, "I understand the material and found this homework to be a redundancy, not a review". I never got in trouble for it, I'm not really sure why. Part of me still hopes it's because the teachers knew I was right. Mostly I think they didn't feel like dealing with my made-up "I'm too smart for this" problems when there were students who actually needed attention.
Senior year was a total 180 from that, though. Yes, 180. 360 sounds more impressive but that wouldn't make sense since that leaves you right where you started. ANYWAYS, I digress. But yeah, senior year was fantastic for me.
My art teachers and now-mentors pointed me in the direction of a work-to-learn program offered through Chester County Community College called The Teacher Academy. This was a program that provided high school students with introductory materials and experiences in teaching in order to better prepare them for future careers in education. I set it up with my adviser so that I could spend my mornings interning and student teaching in schools in the area instead of going through a morning schedule of high school classes. The active nature of the experience refreshed my love of learning and gave going to school a sense of purpose for me.
I got to spend six weeks student teaching at six different types of schools with eight different art teachers. I built a resume and a portfolio and I was able to begin networking with professionals who I hoped to one day call peers. Through the program I had to learn more practical and applicable skills than I had learned since someone taught me how to read and write. I learned how to fill out governmental paper work to get my clearances. I learned how to email as a professional in order to make connections to set up these internship opportunities for myself. I learned how to manage my own time and, most importantly, I learned that I love to teach.
The program gave me a huge head start in college, because, unlike many of my peers, I had extensive firsthand knowledge that gave actual meaning to the theoretical knowledge we were learning in the classroom.
I think that so many students are given up on because they don't fit into the curriculum, and it's unfair to them. From an incredibly young age, students get the idea into their heads as to whether they think they can succeed or not, and with the focus in schools being placed on tests and homework and books, it seems there's no place for any other forms of success. There are, no doubt, millions of students who leave school thinking themselves failures, and I feel that the dreaded self-fulfilling prophecy of student failure can be alleviated by adopting more hands-on methods of learning.
I look forward to a future when a trade school won't have the negative connotations it does now. That's where the "troubled" kids go. "The bad kids are too stupid to do well in our curriculum-centered school so we shove them into the trade school". That antiquated view of trade gives unfair labels to students who simply have a different way of learning. Students at trade schools are given opportunities to explore their interests in practical ways to prepare them for a future career. Tests prepare students for, oh, let's see, what was it?...oh yeah, next week's tests.
I find it incredible that even colleges fall prey to this strictly theoretical, anti-experiential learning method. Many college majors get absolutely no practical experience in their field of study until they are almost graduated, or even already out in the workplace. This puts so much pressure on choosing correctly the first time. On the email announcing my acceptance into my major, the subject line said, rather poignantly, "NO RETURNS". Though I understand this was in reference to the fact that it was an automated email and no replies would be received, it did have a ring of finality to it.
In high school, I really had the potential to be one of the lost kids, one of those kids who have all the potential but it can't be tapped through books or lectures; one of those kids who thinks they will never be successful because of the numbers at the tops of tests. We need to give those kids a chance to feel empowered and smart and successful. Experiential and practicum based learning should have a place in every school system, not just the schools where we outsource the difficult learners. Let's allow the word "success" to expand to areas other than grades. Let's give our students, ALL of our students, a reason to go to school.
{cue inspirational music}
...
"Ms. M for President!" (just kidding).