Question:
This is how I play every single day of my life:

6:30 get up
7:30 catch the bus
8:45 School Starts
4:05 School Ends
5:00 Start Homework
9:00 Get Ready for Tomorrow
10:00-1:00 Crash

Here is my health history since leaving Homeschooling back in 7th grade:

7th Grade: Perfect attendance
8th Grade: 3 days missed for mild illness, some orthodontist appointments but those don't really count.
9th grade: Missed entire week of semester one finals due to flu from hell. Cause: freezing temperatures and dirty school. Missed four days second semester
10th grade: Missed twelve-and-a-half days year round-diagnosed with ovarian cysts and stress illness (it got worse as I missed more school and got further behind)
11th grade: Missed two days already, collapse continuously from abdominal pain, have been put on birth control to reduce pain, but this causes fever, nausea, and emotional stress on top of the strain the BOREDOM is putting on me.

Here are the things I have been TRYING to do with MY life:

Write the rest of my trilogy
Work Out and rebuild my health
Advance in music
Advance in Languages
Advance in Art

and so on...

Here is what I think of my "education"

IT'S BULL.

Today was the FIRST day I learned something new this year. I spend my WHOLE day doing work I've done since first grade-algebra isn't new, physics isn't new, etc. I see this about schools:It's no longer about learning, it's about passing.

Schools are just babysitting centers. No humam, especially not the disinterested teens I sit with all day, have an attention span of 8 hours. The teachers are cranky after lunch-I have to wait so long I can't eat lunch anymore because my stomach shrinks to stop the hungry feeling and can't hold food lest I throw up. I'm not challenged in class, I'm not learning, I'm wasting my life in a dirty, boring school. My stress level is not caused by overwork, it's caused by LACK of NEWNESS,

I. AM. BORED.

I can't focus anymore because I'm so busy daydreaming about how I could graduate by Christmas if I was homeschooled again, how I could be doing so much more, being productive. Instead the law requires I sit in a room all day long and PASS. What about LEARNING this stuff?

My proposition is shorter school days and shorter breaks. Ex.

Class goes from 8:45 to 1:30. We get 3-day weekends and a two week summer break instead of 2 month. Give or take something from the main frame.

Why? This is what I've noticed about our scheduling that seems to cause trouble:

Students forget everything over long summer breaks, don't retain anything after long school days, their attention span isn't that strong.

Students have no time left in the day to do things during the school year which is why they know of nothing productive to do during the summer. We could tackle obiesity as well if students who wanted to work out (like me) in our spare time HAD spare time.

I really am sick of this worthless, flawed system and the "No Child Left Behind" -or rather "No Child Gets Ahead"-Act. We could help no one get left behind if we managed our time better. I could even work during the school year to pay for a car so I wouldn't have to wait at the bus stop and get sick when it drops sleet on me, or have my friends who are richer than I am be unknowingly snobby by the fact I have to use public transportation.

Do any of you agree that we should have our education system reformed? Please post pros and cons, I really want to research this some more.

And please, no one tell me to just go back to homeschooling and stop complaining-if I could afford homeschooling again I would sooo have stopped going to school after freshman year. DULLLLLL!

Choices:
Yes
No
Yes, but not like that...
Who Cares?
What's School Again?

 

well go on then, I don't think a semi-related topic is bad, i might get more ideas.

It's off topic, but semi related.

I dunno what this school ranking relates to but what is it, at the risk of killing my own thread?

This conversation is finished...has been talked about @ lunch..lol

quote:

Originally posted by benje309:

quote:

Originally posted by mac123:

quote:

Originally posted by benje309:
My school has no class ranking.

Lucky for you.

Thats enough....what a stupid remark.

Stupid if you don't have a sense of humour perhaps. Relax a bit.

We don't have class rank either, but I still find the idea stupid (especially when colleges put an emphasis on it and I don't have one)

quote:

Originally posted by mac123:

quote:

Originally posted by benje309:
My school has no class ranking.

Lucky for you.

Thats enough....what a stupid remark.

WorthWaitingFor, ok glad we got that cleared up, sorry for being so snappy, I'm just real ticked about school so I'm not mad at you or anything.

quote:

But it would be a disadvantage to the rest of us who have always gone to public school to have to take even more accelerated classes than we are already taking. And an hour early? Please...the buses at most public schools get you there, at the most, 20 min. early. In fact, buses are frequently late.

I'm afraid we use the same buses for elementary and high school-we get there an hour early. They drop off the poor younger kids and immediately get us. Don't get me wrong, many buses are late-because even though we spend God knows how much buying a new fleet, they keep breaking down-and that's teachers salary cuts and class eliminations going into big Vogon Constructor Ships that don't even do their job.

And as for kids being disadvantaged at our upgrading-I'm not SERIOUSLY thinking of changing curriculum on the kids already stuck in this system-it would start with the newest kids, the youngest grades, high schoolers would stick to what they've got because changing it on them would probably kill them. I'm not that much and evil psychopath *unsuccessfully kides evil cackle* ok anyway sorry...

And it wouldn't be disadvantaging them to upgrade anymore than they've already and always been disadvantaged by the current system-which says less than you're able to do is okay, effort is not necessary. I mean, you need to be concerned when a high school junior can't even spell "school" or pronounce "thoughtfully" properly. Those are so elementary.

I admit, my brother has been classified as "genius" on a public level, my sister will have no trouble with private or social life, and I'm not just a pretty face myself-ok so I'm not EVEN a pretty face, but I can draw one, among other things. Perhaps we are a bit more adjusted to harder tasks. I understand that. But the thing I hear most when I ask kids what the most annoying thing about school is this:

"We don't do anything"

So why not shorten the time they do "nothing" at least, so they can be free to do "something?"

Although I also think putting correct spelling requirements and moderate neatness back into grading would be a good idea-no one gets better if they go uncorrected, you know. Then what good is school?

And it's not like kids would HAVE to go home after school, extracurricular classes, lunch, sports and other things could still be there for those who wanted them, but we would not be required to paste together and 8 hour schedule with things we didn't need to graduate, but needed to fill the hole.

I know that such reforms would not happen while I was in school-I've got this year and next year. That's it. It's not really for me that I'm doing this-I'm thinking "if all kids go through the hell my friends and I are going through and come off cheated of a real education, what's going to happen to our future generations?"

We're going to fall behind in the world-our education-or lack therof-will deprive us of what we need to keep up with fastly advancing countries. Not that they shouldn't get ahead and shine, but as the last superpower nation in the world we should at least be useful to it.

quote:

Originally posted by benje309:
My school has no class ranking.

Lucky for you.

My school has no class ranking.

quote:

but they shouldn't be as important as class ranks

no no no. class ranks aren't important. Being 1st at my school could be equal to being 25th at yours.

The SATS are more of an intelligence test than anything. All of the hard-workers who can't think independently do poorly. I think that the SATS are important, but they shouldn't be as important as class ranks, college essay, ect.

The guy with the highest SAT scores in my class is really smart but he's a total slacker. He never does his work. He probably will continue to slack in college.

quote:

They honestly don't measure anything except for your ability to take tests.

I disagree to a certain extent. You cannot do well without a certain base of knowledge, but I do agree that with any standardized test it's partly test taking ability.

School, in general is a waste of time. I learn so little, but sadly that's what I have to endure to go to college. At least in MA, schools are trying to standardize learning. We have rubrics for writing essays. Basically, teachers are more concerned with the format than the actual content. Its sort of depressing.

quote:

Originally posted by benje309:
Im a soph and all I hear about is college...college...SATs...tutoring..yada yada yada

Where from? I admit, I'm dazed half the day and don't listen but I still don't hear any of this.

The SAT's are pretty stupid IMO. They honestly don't measure anything except for your ability to take tests.

quote:

Originally posted by caerat3:
WorthWaitingFor, I think you missed something very important: I can't AFFORD to be homeschooled anymore.

quote:

Did I mention homeschooling itself is pricey?

Well, then, that's all you had to say. Yes, apparently I did miss that originally. I'm sorry about your financial troubles but please don't think I just ignored them. I just missed it that you couldn't afford homeschooling anymore. Sorry.

quote:

I'm not the only person who is too poor to go to private schools or be homeschooled so the crap the government chooses to give my overactive brain and my peers' isn't enough.

People who go to public school aren't dumb. There are such things as honors and AP classes and the like. They still may not be challenging for some but they are for most. And why should the public schools conform their curriculum to fit the few who have been in a more accelerated program before as opposed to fitting the many who have always gone to public schooling?

quote:

We shouldn't be disadvantaged because we can only afford to get on a big yellow bus that gets us to school an our early

But it would be a disadvantage to the rest of us who have always gone to public school to have to take even more accelerated classes than we are already taking. And an hour early? Please...the buses at most public schools get you there, at the most, 20 min. early. In fact, buses are frequently late.


The thing about this whole situation is this: There are kids who have once been a part of either homeschooling or private schooling and therefore find public school curriculum to be slow if they are ever "forced" into joining a public school. Understandable. But those kids make up a very small percentage of the student population. Most students are homeschooled or privately schooled or publicly schooled and have been all their lives as opposed to experiencing one and having to switch to another. So the public school system is not at fault - it can't be expected to conform to such a small percentage of students because it has to be fit for the majority.


As to what benje and clpo are saying - I agree with that. My friend and I discuss this regularly. I learn more from him in a two hour conversation on a bus ride home from a band event then I learn in 3 out of 4 of my daily classes at school.

Im a soph and all I hear about is college...college...SATs...tutoring..yada yada yada

It would probably be a hell of a lot better.

quote:

Originally posted by clpo13:

quote:

addip thats not true with the public schools of richer more high class towns, such as mine.

Public school has one goal in mind and one goal only: to equip people to get a job/go to college after high school.

I was just thinking about that. What would school be like if I didn't have the pressure to go to a good college and just learned to learn, not to get a good grade and forget the info in a few weeks...