Oh I agree! There were a handful of students right there with me taking those advanced classes. What I meant about the attitude was that many students were given these great opportunities but decided against them because, in their own words, they were "too hard". However I believe that with a little motivation these students would have done well. I pushed myself, along with help from parents and teachers who took an interest in their students, to succeed. And one of the main points I was trying to make (I don't think it came across clear)--that there are too many schools where these opportunities do not even exist, let alone whether only a handful of students would take advantage of them. And this is where I think that the current system has failed. No Child Left Behind is leaving EVERY child behind.
The evidence from your story further supports this. You and I have had positive influences in our lives because of some teachers who actually wanted to see us succeed. Just having this support drove me greatly as I'm sure it did you. Unfortunately, all the good teachers are leaving because they do not want to put up with the asinine and incredibly backwards demands of NCLB and, in the case of Virginia (and some others), the SOLs. There is an incredible lack of really good teachers in our public schools due to the substandard pay, harsh working environments (some kids today are terrible, some of the stuff I've witnessed), and requirements of the NCLB and SOLs that dictate what they can and can not teach and when these things must be taught. Not to mention the current emphasis on teaching the children today less on how to solve a problem and more on how to take a test. I am nowhere near having kids of my own, but as time goes on this is a topic that I will watch closely. Our future generation depends on it!
I completely agree with you. I am actually a student who had the luxury of having options in my high school for more advanced classes in math and science. I really, REALLY, loved to learn math and science so I aimed high and actually took every single math class the school offered. I took AP Calculus in 10th grade (one of the only students there to ever do that) because I wanted to learn, and I was actually CHALLENGED in this class as compared to my earlier, SOL test-oriented math classes. Here I actually had to work and learn the underlying THEORY and expand my PROBLEM SOLVING skills to apply the techniques I learned to ALL types of problems, not just cookie-cutter multiple choice tests. While parts of our tests were multiple choice to prepare us for the AP test, ALL our tests had a written component where you had to SHOW HOW you got to the answer. Needless to say, these are the questions I performed best on. And we had to do a lot of the problems WITHOUT calculators. This really prepared me for college, and its funny that in my high school AP Calculus class we covered more material and I learned more than in my college Calculus classes.
The same thing happened for me in my Physics class in high school. Barely anyone would take his class because he was "hard" but I took it and LOVED and EXCELLED in it. Rather than just teaching us cookie-cutter solutions to carefully constructed problems, my teacher taught us how to actually THINK about how physics worked and then apply this to ALL problems. Once again, most of the test was written instead of multiple choice. After taking the class I could see why people called it "hard": you actually had to work and think in the class instead of just spewing out memorized facts. Who would think that actually THINKING would label a class as "hard"?
Seeing the current state of education makes me realize how lucky I actually was to have the opportunity to take these classes and learn how to actually solve problems and not just compute answers. Sadly, even when given opportunities like this, most students do not take advantage of them, because they are "too hard" and "too challenging" and have been given only half educations in previous math classes. Our education system is failing and opportunities like I had in public education are rare and becoming even more so as time goes on. For me, and many others, public school was the only option for pre-college education financially and sadly it is becoming not much of an education at all.
I have always loved learning and have pushed myself educationally, and I can say that because of this and the excellent (but rare) teachers I have had I would be able to describe to you a problem on paper when I graduate next year with a Computer Science degree and a Mathematics minor:]. Motivation of the student is also a factor in education, and the current attitude of entitlement needs to stop.
Could these be set up like a traditional light microscope to make a cheaper atom scanning microscope than the electron microscope? This could open an entirely new door in the study of atomic particles.
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Oh I agree! There were a handful of students right there with me taking those advanced classes. What I meant about the attitude was that many students were given these great opportunities but decided against them because, in their own words, they were "too hard". However I believe that with a little motivation these students would have done well. I pushed myself, along with help from parents and teachers who took an interest in their students, to succeed. And one of the main points I was trying to make (I don't think it came across clear)--that there are too many schools where these opportunities do not even exist, let alone whether only a handful of students would take advantage of them. And this is where I think that the current system has failed. No Child Left Behind is leaving EVERY child behind.
The evidence from your story further supports this. You and I have had positive influences in our lives because of some teachers who actually wanted to see us succeed. Just having this support drove me greatly as I'm sure it did you. Unfortunately, all the good teachers are leaving because they do not want to put up with the asinine and incredibly backwards demands of NCLB and, in the case of Virginia (and some others), the SOLs. There is an incredible lack of really good teachers in our public schools due to the substandard pay, harsh working environments (some kids today are terrible, some of the stuff I've witnessed), and requirements of the NCLB and SOLs that dictate what they can and can not teach and when these things must be taught. Not to mention the current emphasis on teaching the children today less on how to solve a problem and more on how to take a test. I am nowhere near having kids of my own, but as time goes on this is a topic that I will watch closely. Our future generation depends on it!
I completely agree with you. I am actually a student who had the luxury of having options in my high school for more advanced classes in math and science. I really, REALLY, loved to learn math and science so I aimed high and actually took every single math class the school offered. I took AP Calculus in 10th grade (one of the only students there to ever do that) because I wanted to learn, and I was actually CHALLENGED in this class as compared to my earlier, SOL test-oriented math classes. Here I actually had to work and learn the underlying THEORY and expand my PROBLEM SOLVING skills to apply the techniques I learned to ALL types of problems, not just cookie-cutter multiple choice tests. While parts of our tests were multiple choice to prepare us for the AP test, ALL our tests had a written component where you had to SHOW HOW you got to the answer. Needless to say, these are the questions I performed best on. And we had to do a lot of the problems WITHOUT calculators. This really prepared me for college, and its funny that in my high school AP Calculus class we covered more material and I learned more than in my college Calculus classes.
:]. Motivation of the student is also a factor in education, and the current attitude of entitlement needs to stop.
The same thing happened for me in my Physics class in high school. Barely anyone would take his class because he was "hard" but I took it and LOVED and EXCELLED in it. Rather than just teaching us cookie-cutter solutions to carefully constructed problems, my teacher taught us how to actually THINK about how physics worked and then apply this to ALL problems. Once again, most of the test was written instead of multiple choice. After taking the class I could see why people called it "hard": you actually had to work and think in the class instead of just spewing out memorized facts. Who would think that actually THINKING would label a class as "hard"?
Seeing the current state of education makes me realize how lucky I actually was to have the opportunity to take these classes and learn how to actually solve problems and not just compute answers. Sadly, even when given opportunities like this, most students do not take advantage of them, because they are "too hard" and "too challenging" and have been given only half educations in previous math classes. Our education system is failing and opportunities like I had in public education are rare and becoming even more so as time goes on. For me, and many others, public school was the only option for pre-college education financially and sadly it is becoming not much of an education at all.
I have always loved learning and have pushed myself educationally, and I can say that because of this and the excellent (but rare) teachers I have had I would be able to describe to you a problem on paper when I graduate next year with a Computer Science degree and a Mathematics minor
Could these be set up like a traditional light microscope to make a cheaper atom scanning microscope than the electron microscope? This could open an entirely new door in the study of atomic particles.
Extensions? No ActiveX? Open Source? And of course, MUCH faster bug fixes!
In other news, Microsoft increases Longhorn's recommended requirements to 7GHz.
We have the technology. We can rebuild him.