I am trying to use my brain more, and be more aware of the
world in which I live, so I bought Time Magazine at the airport for the trip
home, complete with Donald Trump’s face plastered on the cover. I learned a lot
about what is currently going on in this world! That led me to thinking about
how I became so ignorant in the realm of the world. I think it has something to
do with my small town America High School education, which brings me to a rant:
If you know me, you know how I feel about PCS. I always get told that I didn't appreciate high school and I need to be grateful about my small town childhood. Yes there are things that I LOVE about going to a small school, but that doesn't mean I received the best education.
Do students these days even learn about current events? I
didn’t when I was in school. And I don’t mean having to submit a one paged
“report” on a current event topic every other Friday (that was the only
exposure that I had to the happenings of the world when I was in high school,
and that was only when I was a senior). Those homework assignments were a joke.
I would do them the period before in the computer lab during study hall. I
wouldn’t even read the article, knowing that I didn’t need to in order to get
an A. My strength is reading, and being able to skim something to pick out a
few key points. I just beefed that up a little and handed it in after 15
minutes of “work” with no clue what I just read, or the implication of the
event had on the world. The problem was… I didn’t have to have an opinion on
what I read. I just had to “prove” that I read it (which is very easy to get
around apparently). So perhaps… that is a little on me. But not having to have
an opinion, allowed me to get away with not knowing the facts.
I remember having “debates” in government class, but that
still doesn’t count for me. I don’t think I was aware of the world until I went
to college. Is that the same for everyone? Or is it another fail in my splotchy
high school education? When we were “told” about an event, it was just that. We
were informed about it. I wasn’t ever asked to form my own thoughts. I was
taught to regurgitate what I was being told. Walking into a college classroom
for the first time completely blew me away. Wait… they just told me something,
and now they want my opinion?!?! I don’t understand… they are the teacher.
Aren’t we just supposed to tell them what they had previously told us?
The thought of having a discussion in a class was foreign to
me. I was seated in a room with students who had been to elite (and average)
private schools. They had been ingrained with the notion that you talk in
class, and support your opinions with facts. For two years, my “social studies”
education involved me walking into the classroom, and staring at 2 white
boards. These boards were filled with writing, and I mean filled. Then, we
would spend 30 minutes copying down the notes from the board. For the last ten
minutes of the 40 minute class, our teacher would then read everything to us
and provide a couple more sentences of insight. Then we would all file out of
the room with a hand cramp and 1 page of freshly written notes.
I think that those points above are the big things that
frustrate me the most about my small town, small school education. The lack of
knowledge/care about the broader world. The closed mind mentality of “We are in
America. Speak English. Why do I need to learn Spanish?” (That is probably my
number one pet peeve by the way. I can’t debate the topic rationally, or
politely for that matter.) The sheltered, unrealistic environment of
conservative, all white people who all know everything about everyone. Then in
school, we were never exposed to the problems, thinking and culture of other
people.
We need to be raising a generation that understands the
global community that they are a part of, and the relationship that every part
of the world has with each other. I know I am a bias ex-student of a high
school that I do not think very highly of, and understand that America’s
education on a whole is not reflected in a tiny Western NY school. I also
understand that teachers get a bad rap from the ones like the social studies
teacher that I described above. Not every teacher is like that, and I am sure
that he is in the minority. It is just incredibly frustrating to think about
what the current students at Panama are not learning. That upon graduation,
they are not necessarily open-minded young adults who are able to think for
themselves. Instead, if things are the same as when I left, they are walking
out of the doors as sheltered, un-inspired young adults who are not used to
questioning teachers, forming their own opinions, have no idea how to think critically,
and are in no way a global citizen.
I have been going back and forth about being a teacher since
I was a freshman in college. I took an education course and hated it. In June I
went to an info session at UTSA about being a teacher, and never followed
though, deciding for the 15th time that I didn’t want to do it.
Teachers are so important. My 5th grade teacher was the reason I
fell in love with history. My 2nd grade teacher taught me how to
have a backbone, and dust myself off after making a mistake. My first grade
teacher made me love to read even more. My Adv. Bio teacher made me love a
subject that I previously hadn’t cared for at all. My 11th grade
English teacher taught me how to find the meanings in the words beyond what the
story was telling me.
But it is the bad ones that frustrate me. It is that group
of teachers that make me want to be teachers. The ones that didn’t teach us.
The good ones inspired me, the bad ones made me lose interest in school. The
English teacher that made us read quietly to ourselves while she shopped
online. The Honor’s English class that our teacher had us making videos “I Am”
instead of reading, and then being mad when no one wanted to take the AP test. The
science teacher that had us watch “Voyage of the Mimi” everyday. These teachers
and classes left gaping holes in my education.
We had an Economics teacher for half of a year who told us
to “Always Question Authority”. Back then I didn’t really get it. Oh I said
what I thought, but didn’t question my teachers. As a senior I had a long
distance learning calc class. This means that hte teacher is remote, along with the
other half of the class. The group at Panama wasn’t learning. We couldn’t hear
over the other kids scratching the mics, and the teacher wasn’t getting the information
across to us. So we brought it up with the administration and were completely
ignored. It was our fault that we weren’t learning. So we kinda rebelled (which
didn’t help our cause) and we all ended the year not knowing calc and having a
crappy grade. (I remember we were sent to the library to wait for class to start
because it was on a different schedule that Panama, and we were too unruly to
be left alone. That wasn’t true until they made us go to the library. We made a
chain with a big paper ball on the end and shuffled to and from the library as
a chain gang. A teacher even helped us out and stored it in her room for us.
The admin hated us… the honors kids who decided to call them out on their crap
in a very passive aggressive way!)
There would be no way in hell that I would send my kids to
Panama. Yes, it was nice being in a small school as you knew everyone. But from
a strictly educational stand-point… nope. Wouldn’t happen. I remember I wrote a
short letter to the local paper entitled “Panama Still Has a Long Way to Go” as
a senior in high school. (I need to find that article) Everyone in the
community was mad at me because I started a controversy… I critiqued Panama and
said exactly what I thought. The school board brings in kids after the first
year of college to hear what the students have to say about how they felt they
were prepared for college. I wasnt asked. :) Neither was my other friend who felt
like she was unprepared as well. They ask students who they know are going to
say nice things. They didn’t want to hear the truth. I wasn’t prepared for college.
I know college is a big step, and perhaps no one is really prepared. BUT I
could have been a lot more ready. I remember the first day of English class in
college… I was frantically scribbling g notes and lost on what the teacher was
asking me to do, and the kids around me were sleeping in boredom. One asked “don’t
you remember this crap from high school”? No… I was never taught it. (Also it
was really hard to conjugate sentences in my Latin class, when I never learned
how to do it in English”.
So what am I getting to in this? No, every teacher isn’t bad,
but there surely are some out there. I know that Education is a hot topic in
NYS, and the crap with the Common Core and teaching to a test. There has to be
a better way to do things. There has to be a better way of FAIRLY evaluating teachers.
And why is there tenure? If I am not good at my job, I get fired. The good
teachers shouldn’t be punished in the evaluation process, and they shouldn’t have
to teach to tests. I don’t know what the answer is, but small town American
school scare me. Perhaps it’s time to start a Charter School?
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