Every week, I spend 30 hours in school. I'm not totally happy with my school, and I'm not sure that this 30 hours + transportation + homework is really the best way to be learning. Although I like all of my teachers and have a reasonable amount of friends, if the purpose of school is for me to learn than I don't really think I'm doing it in the best way. There are also good qualities of school that I would miss if I went back to where I was last year. Here are my current thoughts on school:
The school I am at definitely has good aspects. My school has a greater diversity of kids in the 100-ish than in the 20-ish at CSCL. The importance of this is arguable. Also, I have a good amount of friends at my school whom I would miss if I left. From an academic point of view, at my school we have a daily Spanish class, where I have a great teacher and am usually challenged. At CSCL they have once-weekly Spanish classes. I also am part of a math team, where I get to see other math-smart kids and compete against the other schools in the city.
The most important problem is that most of the time, the things I learn in school are either not new to me or if they are new, then they are practiced way too much. This is especially true in both of my math classes. The way I am learning just isn't efficient. For example, we had learned earlier in the year about volume and surface area of cylinders. I could have learned the two formulas in 10 minutes instead of the at least one week that we spent on them. I understand that the time spent on this was useful for many of the other kids in my class, but I could have been learning other topics.
Feel free to give me advice,
Max
Dear Max, We have never met, but I work with your mom and have posted on your blog before. I very much believe in public school education. I think learning and collaborating with others is important. Being able to work within a group, but also being able to negotiate to get our needs met, is an important skill that will serve you well throughout your life. I believe we should all take responsibility for our experiences.I know this isn't as easy for a student, because many teachers do not run their class with this in mind. Perhaps you could ask your teacher if you could do some different work from the rest of the class? There is a teaching technique called flipped learning. If your teacher set the classroom up like this, it would benefit you greatly. The concept is basically that the teacher uses videos either homemade, student made, or from some other source, to allow students to learn at their own pace. Students who master a topic can move on. This doesn't have to be done as homework either, it can all be done in class. Here is a little video that explains it a bit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHK_a9SuTIk#t=96 Of course, this is just my opinion. You have to do what is best for you.
ReplyDeleteI hear your frustration, Max. I also wish I'd been more challenged in school--especially in math. I would say that one of the things I only learned later in life is how there are multiple intelligences. You and I happen to be very good at academics. But there's also many other kinds of intelligence:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/education/ed_mi_overview.html
Since school is too easy for you right now, you have extra time and energy to strengthen the other forms of intelligence that will serve you in your life. I wonder if you could test out of the classes that are really too easy, like math, and spend time working on other things that are harder for you--music? art? negotiations? athletics? You could both strengthen your overall skills and feel more challenged.
Good luck buddy,
Love,
Julie
Hi Max,
ReplyDeleteWhat if you didn't do all the homework and thus adjusted the time you are wasting in your school now? This adjustment would cut off some of that frustration.
signed,
an Ex-teacher …