High School Students Forced To Declare A Major

i_like_spam writes "As reported in the NYTimes, high school freshmen at many high schools across the nation are now being forced to pick a major. Starting this Fall, 9th graders in Florida will have to choose to major from among a set of state-approved subjects, while some students in Mississippi will have to follow one of nine designated career paths. High school administrators hope that having students declare majors will lead to greater student interest in school until graduation. College administrators think otherwise: 'youngsters should instead concentrate on developing a broad range of critical thinking and communication skills,' says Debra Humphreys from the Association of American Colleges and Universities."

Comments

Re:This is stupid.

[Jafafa Hots]

When I was 15 in the early 80s, a school guidance counselor was told to talk to me. Having been abandoned by my family, abused, molested, malnourished, etc... school was the least of my worries as I tried to survive and find food. Obviously my attendance suffered.

The counselor (a woman) proceeded to tell me I had better decide right away what I was going to do with my life, what my career would be. "How do you expect to support a wife and family?" she asked pointedly.

That just further reinforced my impression at the time that at best adults were clueless idiots, and at worst dangerous.

Re:This is stupid.

[Caste11an]

Amen, brother.

I majored in Physics in college, only to find that I was exceptionally good at explaining things in our campus planetarium and observatory. After two years of friends, family, and planetarium patrons telling me I should become a teacher, I took the plunge and added Secondary Education to my major.

I met with my new adviser who told me, "You have a lot of ground to cover -- you've missed two years... I just don't know how you're going to make it up in time."

Then I attended my first class. Every test -- EVERY test -- was based on the bold letter definitions in the text book. Hell, in one of my "advanced" classes (500-level (I had to get "special permission" to take it as an undergrad)) the professor handed out the final exam on the first day of class. She said, "Have this back to me by the end of the semester. It's really hard, so I figured I'd give you the whole time. Again, bold-letter definitions and requests to copy and paste -- err, transcribe -- huge segments of text from the textbook into the space provided.

My most memorable experience was coming from a Stat Therm in the morning. The prof in that class said to us, "I realize nobody has the book yet, but the first 10 problems are due tomorrow. There's a copy of the book in the library, so not having the book is not an excuse." I went from that to my education class, wherein the prof said, "Here's a 90-page novella that I think is nice. Please read it by the end of the semester and write a paragraph on what you thought."

I can't tell you how shocked I was when the hands went up and the litany of childish grunts from ALL of the other students began:

• "Do we have to read the whole thing?"
• "Is this for a grade?!"
• "How many sentences have to be in this paragraph?"
• "Does our name have to be on this?!"

These are the people to whom we trust the education of our children.

Ugh.

Re:This is stupid.

[spikedvodka]

I am an educator. I am not a teacher, but I work at a public school to further the education of the students. (I'm the tech geek). My wife is a teacher. I am also a parent, My son isn't old enough yet to go to school, but when he is, I agree with you, If I can afford it, he will not go to public school.

I think there needs to be a distinction between "educator", "Teacher", "Administrator", and "F'n state department of Ed".

The vast majority of teachers really do care about the students, and about teaching the students what they really need to know, and making them well-rounded individuals. As a whole, so do educators... however, as a general rule these days, teachers don't get to teach.

No Child Left Behind (or NCLB as it's known) has forced massive numbers of assessments on the students. There are literally over 5 different assessments that have to be done on the students at the school here, at least twice a year. These assessments sometimes take over a week to do with each child in the class individually. During this time, the teacher is often out of the room, assessing a student, and so can't be teaching the class.

Then there's the "Warm fuzzy shit" that has to be taken care of, because kids just aren't getting it at home.

Then there's the attitude (often "enforced" by administration) that homework is a burden on students, and it takes them away from their social life/basketball/etc. So you can't keep kids after for academic reasons.

Then there are the parents that threaten to sue the school any time their kid gets kept in for recess for slugging another kid (and the school has it on camera)

Please, do me, the rest of the country's educators, and the kids a favor... Be active in education. Find out when your local school board meets. Go to the meetings, inform yourself about the issues, talk with the board members. volunteer at the school.

Don't just worry about taxes, because that's what pays for the schools. Worry about how the school district is using the money. Work with the educators to make the schools better, Please.