Reflection on
Fourth Reading
For EdPsy 487
Darren Loschen
Another couple
chapters in Learn & Live and more great stories to read that have to
make a teacher feel good. I have really
enjoyed this book. I think one of the
ways our school district tries to ensure high standards is the graduation
requirements; they don’t differentiate between college bound students or those
that will enter the workforce. Our
grading scale also differs from some 93-100 A, 84-92 B, 76-83 C, 70-75 D, below
70 F.
As for the
business-school connection, being in a small rural area doesn’t provide too
many opportunities. Our school does
participate in a countywide job-shadowing day for all of our sophomores, and a
countywide career fair for our freshmen.
We also allow some seniors to earn some credit by working for half of
the school day. The students take two
classes and work for the other two class periods of the day. This is a great opportunity for some of our
seniors that have met their graduation requirements, but the places they can
work are limited.
As for
reinventing our school, that will be a little harder which I think most would
agree for a majority of schools. We are
on a block schedule that has four 80-minute periods each day. Students have “A” classes and “B” classes,
and we alternate “A” and “B” days.
Teachers do get a say in how some policies are put in place as we have
several that serve on a discipline committee along with some community members. The curriculum committee works close with
the school board and administration to ensure our students receive a quality
education. This committee contains
teachers, community members, an administrator and a member of the school
board. I guess our school is trying in
some ways to reinvent, but we do have some teachers that have been in the
profession for a long time and are hard to change, so it could take a long time
for change.
I think Bob
Tinker has some great ideas. Open
source for all software would be wonderful.
That would save schools a lot of money and help some of the poorer
districts stay on the same playing field as a rich district. The worry about when to upgrade and the cost
would no longer be a hassle, as the open source software would probably be
updated frequently. I think technology
needs to play a bigger role in education, but the teachers need the proper
training to help integrate technology.
I believe there will be more on-line classes, but greater bandwidth will
be required and this is still too expensive for some areas. Even with more on-line classes, there will
still be a building that we will call a school. Students need the social interaction, and don’t forget about the
extracurricular activities. The school
years may be the only chance a student has to play basketball, volleyball,
baseball, softball or golf or in an organized way or a chance for a student to
be president of student council, computer club, or another organization. The friendships built at school through
participation in athletics or other extracurricular activities are great. A great school gives a community pride and
when the community can come out and support the student athletes in
competition, everybody wins.