It seems to me, being a high school student, that our public schools are horribly %$@#'d up. For example: Our math is taught by memorizing algorithms and abandoning any real understanding of mathematics and the mallibility and relationships of numbers, our english abandons grammer and style, the computer classes are taught, as mine was, by people who think that old files "evaporate into a pool of liquid under the computer," the cliche saying about history repeating itself is ignored as our history classes teach trivial facts filtered through censores of political correctness--any lessons of conflict, war, human rights, or philosophies are shunned. Ask any high school student how totalitarian governments gain power. They will ignorantly say "force" and doom themselves. Our citizens are supposed to be educated enough to be at least intelligent voters, but they are now unable to detect even the most obvious sophestry. Basic logic and analitical thinking are ignored as the need for these skills increases. But it can be saved. My advanced chemistry class is being taught by a good teacher. He has a masters degree in nuclear physics and has made more in a day prior to teaching than since. He's almost sixty years old now and is working for a few months as a substitute teacher for about five dollars a day. He is different--he can actually *teach* us and get us to think. He uses his own strict rules for dicipline. The work is hard, but he'll explain it all. There are NO labs, no extra credit, no makeup assignments, no calculators, and we learn what we're doing. Not only is he the best teacher we've had, he's the only one we can apply the title of "teacher" to. Most importantly, he's abandoned the rule of teaching to the middle. This rule is responsible for most of our educational problems. When you ignore the lower end, they become dissatisfied and lose interest and confidence. When you ignore the high end, they either become restless and cause trouble or they simply lower their standards--going for the best grade with least effort. What you end up with is an incredibly average group of students with minds large and small being stuffed into the same mold. We need more good teachers. We can't rely on a few educated people who've sacrificed decent pay to teach. Our books need to be re-designed--less fluff, less political correctness, less pictures, less irrelevent and mis-guided history, less busy work and more time to think. Our students need some minimal rights. At the moment they have rights comparible to prisoners of war. (How will they respect and uphold rights they've been told they can't be trusted with?) They need a educational system that continually focusses them on more and more specific areas of study as they advance through the schools. Computers are another interesting thing. A lot of money is in computers and a lot of jobs like experience. A lot of poor and minorities want equal computer opportunities. But have you heard about how large scientific projects are sometimes finished earlier by starting later, since technology advances as such a fast rate. If the poor want computers, tell them not to buy them now. They'll be better off if they wait. But they say "I'll be left behind in understanding. It's all happening so fast!" Well, that's the great thing. The longer you wait, the easier it is to start--it just keeps getting easier. But most importantly, we can't just teach past events and say the lessons of history have been transferred to our students, we can't repeat some algorithms and say our students know math, we can't say our kids are good students because they have an "A"--which was reached with extra credit. And we can't say computers will make it all better.
What is the current state of open source educational software? Some things that i'd like to see are: 1. A math program at least equivilant to a TI-92 2. A physics program (modeling, demonstration, etc.) 3. A chemistry program with element info, molecule info, equation solver, etc. 3. Interfaces that allow easy and efficient projector demonstrations. It would be great to use the computer and a projector as the chalk-board.
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It seems to me, being a high school student, that our public schools are horribly %$@#'d up. For example: Our math is taught by memorizing algorithms and abandoning any real understanding of mathematics and the mallibility and relationships of numbers, our english abandons grammer and style, the computer classes are taught, as mine was, by people who think that old files "evaporate into a pool of liquid under the computer," the cliche saying about history repeating itself is ignored as our history classes teach trivial facts filtered through censores of political correctness--any lessons of conflict, war, human rights, or philosophies are shunned. Ask any high school student how totalitarian governments gain power. They will ignorantly say "force" and doom themselves. Our citizens are supposed to be educated enough to be at least intelligent voters, but they are now unable to detect even the most obvious sophestry. Basic logic and analitical thinking are ignored as the need for these skills increases. But it can be saved. My advanced chemistry class is being taught by a good teacher. He has a masters degree in nuclear physics and has made more in a day prior to teaching than since. He's almost sixty years old now and is working for a few months as a substitute teacher for about five dollars a day. He is different--he can actually *teach* us and get us to think. He uses his own strict rules for dicipline. The work is hard, but he'll explain it all. There are NO labs, no extra credit, no makeup assignments, no calculators, and we learn what we're doing. Not only is he the best teacher we've had, he's the only one we can apply the title of "teacher" to. Most importantly, he's abandoned the rule of teaching to the middle. This rule is responsible for most of our educational problems. When you ignore the lower end, they become dissatisfied and lose interest and confidence. When you ignore the high end, they either become restless and cause trouble or they simply lower their standards--going for the best grade with least effort. What you end up with is an incredibly average group of students with minds large and small being stuffed into the same mold. We need more good teachers. We can't rely on a few educated people who've sacrificed decent pay to teach. Our books need to be re-designed--less fluff, less political correctness, less pictures, less irrelevent and mis-guided history, less busy work and more time to think. Our students need some minimal rights. At the moment they have rights comparible to prisoners of war. (How will they respect and uphold rights they've been told they can't be trusted with?) They need a educational system that continually focusses them on more and more specific areas of study as they advance through the schools. Computers are another interesting thing. A lot of money is in computers and a lot of jobs like experience. A lot of poor and minorities want equal computer opportunities. But have you heard about how large scientific projects are sometimes finished earlier by starting later, since technology advances as such a fast rate. If the poor want computers, tell them not to buy them now. They'll be better off if they wait. But they say "I'll be left behind in understanding. It's all happening so fast!" Well, that's the great thing. The longer you wait, the easier it is to start--it just keeps getting easier. But most importantly, we can't just teach past events and say the lessons of history have been transferred to our students, we can't repeat some algorithms and say our students know math, we can't say our kids are good students because they have an "A"--which was reached with extra credit. And we can't say computers will make it all better.
What is the current state of open source educational software? Some things that i'd like to see are: 1. A math program at least equivilant to a TI-92 2. A physics program (modeling, demonstration, etc.) 3. A chemistry program with element info, molecule info, equation solver, etc. 3. Interfaces that allow easy and efficient projector demonstrations. It would be great to use the computer and a projector as the chalk-board.