Effectiveness of Educational Systems

I attended Catholic schools in elementary, middle, and high school, so I had to take 12 years of religion classes. I don't really like how it's structured, most of the time throughout elementary and middle it was mainly studying the same scripture passages that I've heard every Sunday since I was born, so it doesn't really seem necessary for more than a few years. High school religion classes were much more worthwhile, we spent a year's worth on the actual scripture, most of the religion courses dealt more with the application of Christian values (most notably 11th grade, which dealt with how Christian values apply to social issues such as sex and poverty). Also, in my second semester of 12th grade, you had a couple of options for courses, I took Comparative World Religions which gave a broad overview of the different religions and compared them on several different levels.

I think the only aspects of religion worth teaching in a secular education system are the historical and mythical aspects, and those can be covered in other classes.
 
I think PE is dumb to some degree. A friend of mine would have been a co-valedictorian with me had he not gotten a D on his PE exam for not being able to run a 8 minute mile.
 
8 minute mile.
Click to expand...
Like, no thanks. This is why I'm not a fan of PE like I used to be. Seven years ago, I could run damn near close to two miles in 12 minutes. Now, I'm lucky to get 15 laps in the gym before 12 minutes.
 
I got an 80 in PE, and I did not do anything... I think the fact that I classified as gay and that my teacher was a lesbian was a rather great influence. She hated everyone else and only liked me. We would just sit there and gossip about various people.

I do think PE, as an actual credited, mandatory class, is worthless. It is pointless to have all As and your GPA falls because your grade in PE is unsatisfactory. PE should not count toward GPA at all.
 
Dustin DeVine said:
I got an 80 in PE, and I did not do anything... I think the fact that I classified as gay and that my teacher was a lesbian was a rather great influence. She hated everyone else and only liked me. We would just sit there and gossip about various people.
Click to expand...

Well, is favoritism one of the problems of the current educational systems? XD
 
Dustin DeVine said:
I got an 80 in PE, and I did not do anything... I think the fact that I classified as gay and that my teacher was a lesbian was a rather great influence. She hated everyone else and only liked me. We would just sit there and gossip about various people.

I do think PE, as an actual credited, mandatory class, is worthless. It is pointless to have all As and your GPA falls because your grade in PE is unsatisfactory. PE should not count toward GPA at all.
Click to expand...

I agree. Why should my GPA suffer just because I'm not superhuman? I don't know a single person who can run an 8 minute mile. My GPA should have nothing to do with my fitness.
 
I believe that it should be a mandatory class, but no credit. In Team Sports, we had a cross country runner who was All-State. Our 12 minute runs were his extra credit. In fact, our gym teacher had to do a drastic learning curve. He'd average 43, while the rest usually averaged 18 - 23, so he'd get about 120% each 12 minute run.
 
I think PE should be graded based on your performance relative to your abilities (which they can measure based on BMI or something). For instance, a less athletic person that can run a mile should be given a higher grade than someone who is on the track team.
 
I could rant and talk for hours about schools and anything of the subject. First I'd like to give you some backstory.

I like my school. I hate the system. The setting is Arizona, the state ranked 42nd in Education according to the most recent study I could find, I have heard of others being 50th and 49th, but whatever the actual number is, it's pretty low. Part of the reason for this low grade is for the low amount of funding from the state and from huge amount of school choice and use of charter and private schools, which I believe we are number one in the nation at. Now about seven years ago, my school district, in order to combat the huge number of students going to charter and private schools opened up a small 7 through 12 school that offers a college prep curriculum and classical education. This is where I chose to go to school and in two years I will be a valedictorian of its fifth graduating class and third to go all the way through 7th to 12th grade.

The unfortunate part of the whole situation is that we were first put onto a small campus as an experiment in order to determine if this type of school were something that would be popular, and if it was, we would expand and the district would close another school that had declining enrollment and move us there. So currently our campus' sports and physical education facilities are below even the Arizona state standard, which include a portable locker room without bathrooms and anything a normal locker room would have, a lopsided asphalt basketball court, an ever lessening field that is not even 50 yards by 50 yards, and an elementary school cafeteria from the 70's. In addition, our schedule is determined for the whole six years the moment you walk on campus, there are no electives, or opportunities to move ahead given our small size. So the idea that it was an experiment and temporary was in the mind of everyone who entered the school.

We turned out to be a tremendous success, having the fifth highest SAT scores in the state among all High Schools, (Public, Private, or Charter), being ranked the 28th best High School in the country and third in the state, and producing three classes of graduates who have gone on to get amazing scholarships to amazing schools, including two of the under 90 gradates in Ivy Leagues. In addition, the popularity of the school was so high we had a waiting list the size of the school itself (400 students). So the logical conclusion would be that the experiment succeeded and we would expand to a bigger campus, right? Wrong, this past year a couple of crazy Tea Partyists got elected to the school board and ruined not only the plans for my school, but also for the district.

These members canceled our plans to move to a 60% capacity, declining enrollment Junior High School, ranted about how they were being taxed too much and cut the amount of money being spent in the schools, and initiated committees with members only to provide conclusions that they wanted to see. I almost feel kind of robbed by this board and it's been distracted me this whole year, as I'm on one of the committees as a student body representative and I've been to pretty much every board meeting, if not watched it online.

So the one thing I would say that harms our schools is that the citizens of Arizona don't value public education and only care about the money in their pockets rather than the future of their country. Other than that, I love my school. I'm captain of the High School Chess team which got 6th in 5A state, coach of the junior high chess team, director of the junior high chess league (The district wouldn't pay for anyone professional to do it), Co-President of the Student Senate, Vice President of the Debate Team, and #1 in my class. I don't think there's much more that could be better about it other than allowing for more people and better facilities for athletics and more class offerings for electives. This is my schedule for my High School years: (Everything is Honors)

9th: Algebra 2, Logic, Physical Education, Biology, English, Spanish 1, Music Survey
10th: AP Calculus BC, Creative Writing, AP World History, Chemistry, World Lit, Spanish 2, Music Theory
11th: Calc 3/Differential Equations @ Community College, Service Learning, AP US History, Physics, AP English Lang, Speech and Debate/Economics, Digital Media/ Theatre
12th: AP Stats?, Service Learning, Government/ Philosophy, AP Chemistry, AP English Lit, Theatre, Digital Media

On the subject of Physical Education, I don't believe it should be a required class for graduation, past Middle School I see it as a waste of time as I and I know a lot of people would love to have an extra class period for a real class. In addition, I've never actually done anything in PE I could see myself ever doing again because it's either a team sport or something I don't really enjoy. I think that's pretty terrible to hear that you're graded on your performance in your PE classes, that's stupid, some people just aren't athletic, GPA is supposed to reflect academic knowledge and physical ability shouldn't factor into it. I'm glad that my PE teacher graded us based on improvement throughout the year and participation or our behavior in class.

Well, that probably sounded like a really long rant, but I've kind of wanted to write it out for a really long time now and I've been waiting until I had the time to type it all out and put it in this thread.
 
You're taught logic in Ninth Grade? LOGIC? Really?
Is logic something that can be taught to people? As a viable class, even?
 
Logic was an interesting class. We learned about arguments and fallacies, it was pretty easy, but there was a lot of history rapped into it too. In addition the class was used for learning things for life skills, like how to use Computer Programs, skim documents, behave online, write applications and resumes, and exploring careers. We even had a textbook for Logic class, it was only about small book size, but it was a textbook nonetheless.

EDIT: The course description is: "This course will present the development of a formal system of propositional and predicate logic for the evaluation of reasoning. The general goal is to learn how to differentiate well-reasoned arguments. This course will provide assistance for students in achieving academic success. Course content includes self-management, study strategies, digital literacy, and ongoing development of critical thinking skills."

All in all though, it was a pretty easy class.
 
RE: Physical Education: In Illinois, you're required to have physical education every year from kindergarten through senior year of high school. There are even some requirements as far as what things need to be taught (such as square dancing and line dancing, yes, for reals, this is set by the government). However, you are graded based on effort and involvement, not on skill. If you show up to class and put absolutely no effort in (slow-walking a mile, chatting with your friends instead of participating in a group sport, etc), you'll probably get a low passing grade, the same way you'd be likely to if you showed up to a regular class and hardly participated. However, so long as you were willing to *try*, you would do fine. I'm not the most physical person in the world (I actually used to be good at running, and I'm decent at some gymnastics, that's all), I have terrible coordination and poor eyesight. But I kicked soccer balls (even if they weren't good kicks) and ran miles (even if it was more like jogging) and grape-vined to Achey-Brakey Heart (albeit it with very little enthusiasm) and got good grades.

When I was actually in school, PE was definitely my least favourite class, but now that I'm older, I can see the value in it, especially considering the rise in obesity in recent generations. I think it has more value in getting students out of a desk and active for an hour or so a day than anything else, a bit of a break from staying sedentary the entire day at school, and then going home and sitting at a computer or doing homework. Grading based on skill is just BS, though. I would have failed so hard. >_>

Also, logic courses are awesome, and if you haven't taken any, you should. It might seem like a weird thing to learn, but it helps you with reasoning skills and is probably more useful in real-life applications than most of the courses you take in high school or college.
 
Wow, I never thought Greece was actually good in something. As I said before, PE doesn't count toward your GPA.
Logic is an optional lesson one can take here. Personally, I never thought logic can be taught (just check people around you) but I never took it, so who knows, it might help.
 
Being that my step-father is a marine, my family moved a lot. I ended up going to nine separate schools (three elementary schools, three middle schools, and three high schools). Out of all these schools, my favorite is and always will be my final high school I attended.

The school had over 4,000 students (when I graduated and is getting bigger every year) and there was very much school spirit. Because of how huge the school is, you were able to meet so many amazing people. The school also had a No-Bully policy which was somewhat strictly enforced. We had several school security guards who would stay in their designated area and keep the order. The security guards had access to all of the computers the office uses, and it was highly common for the popular kids to befriend the security guards and potentially use them to do their very whim. They would have the security guards get them out of detentions, Saturday schools, and even clear truants on your attendance. They even stooped as low as getting the security guards to dislike you because they don't like you.

That was the single most thing I hated about that school, and let me remind you, I love that school. Just the fact that the school hired these security guards and they get easily manipulated to do what pleases the popular students. I was a TA my senior year for a class for those who were learning English as a second language so I was in the office constantly taking paperwork back and forth. Every time I came to the office, the security guards were gossiping about the latest news about this student, and how this other student was involved with another. They even picked on other students. How can the school have a No Bully policy and act like they enforce it 100% but allow these people they hired act the age of those they are supposed to be protecting and such?

Because the No Bully policy was partially enforced, there was many cases where student's own well beings weren't the first priority. MANY cases of bullying were pushed aside even when many were closing in on being serious. Where were these security guards when all this goes on? This high school is outside, like most school in California so there is nearly nowhere where you are not seen by plenty of eyes. I'm not saying all of the security guards weren't doing their job, but out of the 25, only 3-5 were actually doing the work they were paid for. The rest? Acting and blending in with the thousands of high school kids around them.

I started attending that school April 2009 and graduated June 2012. I can't say if the school has or even is attempting to fix the problem but that was the one major flaw in my school's system. Other than that, I had a pleasant experience, and my graduation ceremony was phenomenal. Around 850 fellow students graduated alongside me and we chose where we sat instead of it being last name order. Both bleachers, and the area around it were filled with possibly two thousand people there to celebrate their student's achievement. It ended with a firework show and that one cheesy graduations song playing and I ended up in tears of happiness while I tried to find my family in the giant crowd.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top