Okay I understand now.

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And then they take away the only courses that keep these damn kids in school! Like art, and music and theatre!! And keep the most idiotic classes like sports. My school had maybe ten different sports classes, all specific programs, like cabaret, but did they have ten different art classes? No, we had to fight for the one.

Oh geez. I completely agree.

Ah, then that's not what I'm talking about. Alternate is not advanced. Some kids can't learn with the system. They just can't do textbook learning. I could, thank gods, but my brother couldn't, and he suffered every day in school. He's super smart, maybe more so than I am, but he just thinks differently. He thinks too abstractly for them to teach him figures and formulas. They need to reevaluate their methods, and find a way to teach the same things in different styles so everyone can learn. Kids aren't getting dumber; it's the teaching methods that aren't working. And then they take away the only courses that keep these damn kids in school! Like art, and music and theatre!! And keep the most idiotic classes like sports. My school had maybe ten different sports classes, all specific programs, like cabaret, but did they have ten different art classes? No, we had to fight for the one.

They are all bascially advanced classes.

What are the first two? I've never heard of them. As for the last two, they're advanced classes, for people who excell at the system at hand. What I'm proposing is a slightly skewed system.

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or to specific classes within their existing school that teach in their learning style.

Some schools already have that, GATE, Accl, AP, Honors, ect.

Ah, yes. It would be giving up on them, wouldn't it? Maybe we should design a school system where the first thing they do, after the basics are covered ( and I say that word losely. Basics meaning 0-5th grade, or maybe less ), find out what learning style the individual has. And then we either send them to a sepearate school for that specific learning style ( which, I admit, would cost lots of money ), or to specific classes within their existing school that teach in their learning style.

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Originally posted by LoveTheRainbow:
Those who want to learn will learn no matter what the learning enviorment is like.

I generally agree with this, but I think it's only true to a point. If the school is a true madhouse (i.e., bears any resemblance to the middle school I went to), students really will be too preoccupied and afraid to learn.

That said, a separate school for the kids who "don't want to learn" is a terrible idea. Giving up on large populations of kids before they even finish their schooling? Come on.

Those who want to learn will learn no matter what the learning enviorment is like.

I think that they should. I know when I went to government schools, sometime the teachers would spend half the class period just trying to control one or two of the students. And sometimes the students would raise up against the teacher and dare the teacher to do anything to them.

A lot of time they will put them in an alternative school, but once they start doing right again then they are back in the class and sometime they start doing as before.

I know where I live a lot of the schools are separeting that boys and the girls. So I don't know if that will help out or not, maybe it will.

i feel the same way

You may be over-simplifying the issue. Poverty, stress, a generally dangerous life, poor early education, bad nutrition...the list of factors at work here go on and on, especially when you're thinking about inner-city kids.

I think our society just has a mentality that isn't very conducive to intellectual growth.

Sorry I had a vallid point in there some where, and it was related to the topic. I have a tendancy to ramble. The point I think I was attempting to make is that the disiplinary actions the schools tak aren't good enough which allows the kids to get away with anything, like disrupting other students. I beleive that if the school or more importantly parents were just better at disiplining their children this wouldn't be an issue.

Yes, yes, the bad kids get worse.
That isn't the point. If they stay in a normal school, they drag everyone else down with them. Not that I necessarily support separate schools.

There were two seperate schools right across from my high school, One was the Radio Station Rd. Acadamy, this was set up for the "problom" kids the ones who were on probation or had been expelled from the high school but had to attend classes as part of their probation.

The other was the Gwen center, which was the school set up mostly for troubled teens, some who attended were mentally handicapped or had mental disorders such as bipolar disorder or turrets.

Now I had no problem with the Gwen center becuse I had a freind who went there , they allowed her to work in an enviroment that was safe and non jugmental, she was able to get along with most of her classmates and even participate in a n after graduation life skills course where the school set her up with a part time job and minor college classes.

But the radio station Rd. kids were another story. The Radio Station school was basicaly set up as a place to house bad kids who NEEDED to be in school as part of their probation but werent welcomed back to the high school. They weren't really taught anything over there, it was basically a place to keep them from 7:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. to insure they stayed out of trouble.

This was absolutly pointless in my opinion because they always came back worse than they were before because they knew the system wasn't going to do anything. If they mis behaved they got suspended but because it's mandatory , by law to attend school untill you graduate or are 16 with parents permision they get dumped back into radio Rd and then come back to the high school as if from a vacation.

In order to make some thing like that work, it needs to be harsh. Almost like a prison in the sense that you know you F***ed up royally and that now your in for a hell of a semester. Because other wise it dosent mean any thing to them except that if they do this , you do that and if you do that then they get sent on a two or three week vacation.

I personally like the Japanese school method of going to school year round and haveing Sunday the only day off. After junior high you either go into the real world and get a job or you compete and try to get accepted into high school after which you try and get accepted into college.

While the suicide rate may be higher I garantee you they dont have factions of the school rednecks and Gangsta's setting lockers on fire two or three times a year.

They don't need a seperate school.
they need a reality check!!!
those hard to learn with kids, must have other personal issues that need attention outside of the classroom.
if being educated isn't their #1 priority, then they should run the f*** out, and come back only when ready.

hahahahaha...lollipop guild....

The problem (as I experience it, at least) is that students, for whatever reasons (not all their fault) are not interested in learning and stop interested students from getting an education. I have amazing teachers, but in all the chaos and violence, they cannot teach. Their students scream to drown them out, they assault them, and they freak out the real students so much we all have nervous breakdowns and end up hiding in the corner clutching books and calculators. There are students who will learn no matter where they are, who really really care about getting an education, but we cannot expect all students to be that way. We need to find a way to fix this problem, and I feel totally at a loss as to how.

I don't like the idea of putting "bad" kids in seperate schools, but when things are this bad, it's hard to envision anything else.

And how in hell would we go about doing that, Sydney?

Or not. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be forced straight into the workplace after high school. It's bad enough I was forced to take vocational classes at my high school, even though I was already intent on heading to college.

The whole school system needs to be revamped anyway, it doesn't prepare kids for the reel world. I think we should scrach it and go back to having guilds.

I like the educational systems they have in Scandinavian countries. School is mandatory up until what would amount to half way through an American high school. Then, you get either more secondary school if you want it or technical training if you don't. I think college is free, too.