Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Graduation Requirements
If you are a Hunterdon Central Regional High School student then you will know that to graduate high school you must complete 15 credits of math and science, 20 credits of English, and 10 credits of world language. The reasoning for this is to prepare the students for the "real world" and to explore their interest which lies in the other required 60 credits of mixed electives and art classes. Another reason for these required classes are due to the demands of colleges and universities. However do these classes actually help prepare us? Ask around any high school student body and you'll find that most students hardly retain any of the information forced on them throughout the years. Students don't retain information because they find the subjects they are forced to learn to be boring or without use in the real world. Although it can be argued that many professions and skills in the real world do require such skills it does not change the fact that students are unwilling to learn. The problem is that although graduation requirements are split into different fields such as math, science, and english, the classes that the students are required to take are very specific to a field such as trig, chemistry, and physics. Students can remember general information such as "what is an atom?" but when the classes start to focus on the specifics such as VSEPR models and oxidation the students become lost. It is a combination of lack of interest and lack of available information that keeps students from retaining these facts. Because in higher education many of the fields such as physics, chemistry and biology are so heavily intertwined by teaching them separately the students only get part of the puzzle, this mixed with an already present disregard of wanting to learn in the first place leads to no information gained.
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I feel like if students know which direction they are headed they should be able to take more credits of class's which they feel will benefit them and less credits of class's with no significance to there future path.
ReplyDeleteHigh schools should be run like colleges, pick the classes that will help you make it somewhere in real life, the only thing HCRHS prepares us for is getting yelled at for stupid shit like what we are and aren't allowed to wear, At the beginning of freshman year they should allow us to pick something that we want to major in and then give us classes that are based around that
ReplyDeleteDo you think schools do this because they want to help you find out what you would want to do in life? Having such broad subjects helps students make decisions on what they might want to do in life. I agree with what you saying and i think there should be some change in the schooling system.
ReplyDeleteI think that is not important that people know how to do all the things that the school forces us to do and try to learn because most of the things that we learn we can't remember what they are or we won't need them when we actually are trying to find a job.
ReplyDeleteI really love what you say about combining classes because they are so interdependent. You should check out some different school models and look into what's called 21st Century skills; I think we're starting to see big changes in education. The U.S. forces a lot of science and math now because we're really falling behind countries like Japan. You should check out Finland too, since they're a pretty cool model and have been very successful.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you when you say that the requirements we take are a waste of time. Along with others out there I can clearly see how a lot of students do not care about what the classes they are in. They say high school is supposed to prepare us for college but in reality most students go to college ill-prepared and that is why the graduation rate for many school is below 50 percent. Obviously these kids weren't prepared for the "Real World" at all. Another point is that making kids take courses they do not want to do anything with is another mistake that the education system makes because not only does the student not get anything out of it and the school wastes resources, but it effects the kids GPA because even though he or she is doing well in other classes a couple of math classes that they hate and do bad in will significantly effect their GPA. This not only hinders the kids chances of getting into their dream school if they feel that college is the right choice for them but also tells the kid that they are not worth anything. I would definitely check into other school systems around the world and see how they still out rank the US in math and English.
ReplyDeleteI seriously agree with this topic. Pretty much High School dosen't feel completely close to real life with all the minimalist classes students take. Look at all the careers in real life, they look more active, more productive and more professional. Many students want to be in this position they are into and not waste loads of time figuring out what is two plus two or read chapters one to five.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to retaining information in classes i agree completely I just finish and algebra class, I could tell you the basics but if I took the final right now I would get under a 50% and that is fine because the whole time I was in the class it was clear I would never need it in the real world.
ReplyDeletei agree that this is pointless to teach us things we dont want to learn, if we want to be a rocket scientist then we will take the classes to do that but if we want to be a farmer then why do we need to kno all the other stuff. its is just pointless
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