I'm seeing a lot of complaints and rants here, which I think is understandable and justified. I was there, too - the High School no one talks about, and I found it to be the same hell that I hear so many others rant about when they finally make it out the other side. But that's another story. What I have not seen a lot of is solutions, or ideas for solutions, or at least ideas for things that might just improve things a tiny bit.
So I have a few I'm going to share.
For students: - Look around for alternatives to the mainstream high school experience. See if there are "alternate" or snail mail schools where you can work self-paced. - Consider dropping out, if you're at the breaking point. Really. If you're planning on going to college, the GED isn't a big handicap (at least at the college I'm in) as long as your SAT scores are good. This isn't easy for most parents to accept, I know. I was blessed with amazingly supportive parents, and was able to take this option when high school became unbearable.
For parents: - Consider home schooling. It's not just for Baptists. I know most parents don't have the time for this, but it's what I'm planning on, should I ever have a kid. I would never want to put my child through the school system I went through. - At the very least, be proactive. You know what high school is like, having been through it. Tell your kids! Warn them! Tell them beforehand that high school may well be the worst time of their life. Tell them early and tell them often, or the media will tell them otherwise, and they'll be bitterly disappointed. - Try to explore alternatives with your kids, and with an open mind. Maybe the mainstream high school, or high school period, isn't right for your child(ren). Keep the thought in mind.
Those are my ideas. They are just that, ideas. I've thought about them, they make sense to me, but I'd really love to hear more, if they're out there.
Me? I'm going to go back as a teacher for a few years. With the explicit goal (in addition to teaching) of doing as much as I can to alleviate some of the problems I saw, while I was there. I won't turn a blind eye to the horrible stuff that's going on, I won't pander to the lowest denominator, and hopefully I won't get shot. Wish me luck.
Glad you liked it! The technology is actually pretty simple - I've written a perl module (WebMunger.pm) which is subclassed from HTML::Parser, which can be used to do web transformations like that. I haven't yet uploaded it to CPAN, though. If you want a copy, let me know (dlowe@pootpoot.com) and I'll mail it to ya. That goes for anyone.
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I'm seeing a lot of complaints and rants here, which I think is understandable and justified. I was there, too - the High School no one talks about, and I found it to be the same hell that I hear so many others rant about when they finally make it out the other side. But that's another story. What I have not seen a lot of is solutions, or ideas for solutions, or at least ideas for things that might just improve things a tiny bit.
So I have a few I'm going to share.
For students:
- Look around for alternatives to the mainstream high school experience. See if there are "alternate" or snail mail schools where you can work self-paced.
- Consider dropping out, if you're at the breaking point. Really. If you're planning on going to college, the GED isn't a big handicap (at least at the college I'm in) as long as your SAT scores are good. This isn't easy for most parents to accept, I know. I was blessed with amazingly supportive parents, and was able to take this option when high school became unbearable.
For parents:
- Consider home schooling. It's not just for Baptists. I know most parents don't have the time for this, but it's what I'm planning on, should I ever have a kid. I would never want to put my child through the school system I went through.
- At the very least, be proactive. You know what high school is like, having been through it. Tell your kids! Warn them! Tell them beforehand that high school may well be the worst time of their life. Tell them early and tell them often, or the media will tell them otherwise, and they'll be bitterly disappointed.
- Try to explore alternatives with your kids, and with an open mind. Maybe the mainstream high school, or high school period, isn't right for your child(ren). Keep the thought in mind.
Those are my ideas. They are just that, ideas. I've thought about them, they make sense to me, but I'd really love to hear more, if they're out there.
Me? I'm going to go back as a teacher for a few years. With the explicit goal (in addition to teaching) of doing as much as I can to alleviate some of the problems I saw, while I was there. I won't turn a blind eye to the horrible stuff that's going on, I won't pander to the lowest denominator, and hopefully I won't get shot. Wish me luck.
Glad you liked it! The technology is actually pretty simple - I've written a perl module (WebMunger.pm) which is subclassed from HTML::Parser, which can be used to do web transformations like that. I haven't yet uploaded it to CPAN, though. If you want a copy, let me know (dlowe@pootpoot.com) and I'll mail it to ya. That goes for anyone.
Enjoy!