fine education. yeah, right.

On my way out

Tara — Sat, 22 May 2010 02:24:54 +0000

Before anyone else reads this, please realize that there are multiple sides to the story and that I may not have all the facts. My English teacher, a well-respected teacher among students (I cannot speak from a teacher’s pov but I’m sure he is well-respected among them as well!), has informed me of different versions of the facts than a few other, well-respected (among the students) teachers’ have informed me of. Perhaps not all is true but the point remains – while some children know from day one what they want to do for the rest of their life, not all children will know by high school. Anyone heard of the undeclared major in college?

Also, not to say as though I have lost my head as it is fully intact, though perhaps a little droopy at such hours in the morning, but all things being said here are not for the disrespect of my school district, rather, a few things that I should have said long ago but only now felt I could voice coherently. Which is ironic becaues my words are anything but coherent.

For the past four years ,I have been attending a school that is losing it’s grasp on the legacy it once had. For the past for years, I have watched as administrators and teachers baby students and force them in the wrong direction. For the past four years, I have been losing my mind. From all of this though, I am convinced that my class, the class of 2010 can rise from the ashes. While on the one hand, I hope that we are the last class that comes out with minimal causalities but on the other hand, I hope that the students left in the decaying integrity of a once proud school can take their education into their own hands and stand up for themselves. What’s happening in this school district, and to school districts around the nation, is administrators and governors hoping to fulfill themselves with winning grant money that rewards superficial success.

Forcing thirteen and fourteen-year-old’s to choose their life paths at a young age discourages creativity and it diminishes their options for the future. Forcing them into academies at a public school, that hardly meets the criteria for ‘hospitality and tourism’ and ‘communication’ academies is certainly not a way a school should go about winning government money. All that is doing is stroking the administrations and state governments ego by saying they have ‘academies’ which sounds so prestigious but don’t amount to anything. None of this is being done for the betterment of the education of America or for the students in the school. If a parent wants their child enrolled in a career oriented academy or if the child wants it his/herself, they can ask for it and be sent to schools that specialize in those areas. Sending kids to a public school is not the option for that. If you want your kid to have ample opportunity to try different things and see what they like, public school is the route one should take. However, academies discourage this experimentation and dabbling in the different subject areas. A kid who thinks he wants to be an artist in 8th grade could later find out in Physics I and II that he has a passion for Physics would have never known this since he was pushed into the Fine Arts academy, consisting of classes one would think are on the polar opposite end of the spectrum from Physics. When, in reality, intelligence is most often seen across the curriculum. Students who excel at English often excel at Math and Science too. Intelligence isn’t usually seen in one subject – though there ample amounts of savants out there, no one will deny that. But studies have shown that intelligence isn’t (only) seen in one subject matter.

For whatever reason, I felt compelled to post this today. I had different intentions, I intended to rant about how the public education system is flawed because there are teachers who rant and complain about students not finishing work on time (work that can only be done in school) but when the students do have the time and go to do the work, the teacher locks them out and doesn’t let them in. Instead, he stares at them from his classroom, vacant but serious look on his face and subsequently perpetuates this lack of finished work and his own anger from the unfinished work. If you want students to finish their work, let them, don’t waste their time.

But because of this, I have recently decided to engage in brutal honesty, something I’ve adopted recently as a senior. I’ve always been the type to be brutally honest with those around me but never my teachers – I always sought to avoid conflict and to appease them. But now, not having a care in the world because I am finally leaving my school, I can be honest. And that is what I intend to be. My First Amendment Rights Don’t Cease To Exist Just Because I Enter A School Building.

Thank you.

We’re not in Kansas (City) anymore…

Tara — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:51:33 +0000

This past weekend, my high school robotics team visited Kansas City, MO for a regional FIRST Robotics Competition. Having been there for three days, though our hotel was on the other side of the state line, we witnessed a not as priviledged city as the one we call home. So, imagine my surprise when I come home from school beacuse I am not feeling well and I get online and at the yahoo homepage, one of the top four headlines in the scrolling ones is about none other than Kansas City, MO having to shut down nearly half of it’s schools to prevent bankruptcy. This adds what I think is an exciting twist in my research. . . which I will discuss later when I compile what research I’ve done since my last post and post it here. But for now, I am off to bed to catch some zzz’s so I have some energy for later.

Right? Or a privilege?

Tara — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:29:06 +0000

Education isn’t a right defined by The Constitution, rather it’s defined by the state.

I had a whole post planned out but this last week has been hectic and I haven’t had much time due to robotics to dedicate to new research. I apologize for that and I will post later this week because robotics ends tomorrow and after that, I will have some free time.

Freedom …bloggers.

Tara — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:50:04 +0000

A majority of the research I have done has to do with laws and acts passed by the government that generally worsen the public schooling system in America but on my way home from robotics I remembered I owed a post to my blog since it’s Monday and for some reason, I was thinking about inner-city schools. Not only that but the way in which students are influenced in those schools. School to them isn’t a safe place nor is it a place where they are motivated to do better but the schools are set up for them to fail. Much like in movies – Freedom Writers and Coach Carter specifically – the schools set the students up for failure. They have no source of strength inside their schools save for the few people who work at the buildings for the right reasons. If students aren’t encouraged in the one place that is supposed to set them up for success, where are they going to find strength? Life in urban areas – I do not know from personal experience – seeks to build strength in the wrong way. At this point in time, I’m not sure how to say what I mean but I will keep looking into it and post more thoroughly on this later.

I realize that certification requirements for teachers are different across the country but what message is this sending across? If you’re not CEO of some Fortune-500 company or inheritantly rich that your children have to get a subparr education? That’s certainly not right. Children don’t choose to be born into less than well off families so why should they be punished as such?

Changes need to be made. Hopefully this will be a start.

Racing to the top.

Tara — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:19:56 +0000

Obviously the purpose of this blog post is about the Race to the Top funds. Are the plans flawed? Yes. Isn’t everything having to do with education flawed? Yes.

That comment isn’t biased or anything…

In essence, Race to the Top funding is a good idea. Give schools incentive to improve their systems and to keep building upon that but at what cost? How many schools actually qualify for this funding? How many schools are “bad” enough to receive help? Obviously, this is all up to the criteria of Race to the Top funding but when is all this going to stop? When’s the time to stop fooling around and fix it? The public schooling system in America has been in trouble for years but yet, the problems keep getting pushed back and passed off to new leaders. It’s time to stop. It’s time to make a difference.

Let them eat cake.

Tara — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:08:33 +0000

This post will have nothing to do with my senior exit project, I think. This post really has no purpose at this point other than the fact that I’m getting somewhat addicted to checking my blog. It’s rather sad, I know, but that’s ok.

Anyway, I think I have now figured out the purpose of this blog post. Right now, I’m sitting in the robotics lab at school, I just got done eating a Snickers Blizzard from DQ and let me say it was delicious. I have been craving it for all of about five minutes before a-dobe and I decided to go down the road to get some. So now we’re back and she’s sitting next to me and she has no idea that I’m about to wish her a very big HAPPY BIRTHDAY via my blog.

So….

Here’s some cake.

I will bring you a cake on Saturday during robotics. :’D It will look nothing like that though, I have no baking abilities, to be honest. Hopefully there won’t be any pink on it either. So happy birthday and if I forget to wish you one tomorrow, don’t hate me too much. (:

For educational purposes.

Tara — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:42:13 +0000

After debating with myself over two topics, I have finally settled on one. Surprisingly enough, the topic I’ve decided to dicsuss for my senior exit project is not one of the two I orginially envisioned. After a long, interesting tangent in my physics 2 class about the education system, specifically in America and how it’s more or less been ruined (of course we didn’t name anyone in particular or any acts of congress that are about eight years old), I turned around to my friend a-dobe and told her that I had finally decided on a topic – education. So yes, I’d like to thank my physics teacher for probably one of the most influential tangents he’s ever gone on.

Now then, the purpose of this post was to notify everyone that I have finally decided on my topic, even after I spent quite a few minutes e-mailing back in forth with my English teacher about the other two ideas I had. My intentions were to stick to imperialism and I was so convinced that even prior to my physics teacher going off on a tangent, I was telling another one of my classmates about my topic and she even asked if it was related to the book our class is currently reading, Heart of Darkness. But now I’m stuck on my topic and I intend to stick to it, especially since we’re starting our research soon and it’s hard to do research on a topic I haven’t picked yet.

Anyway, throughout my research I am going to attempt to remain as unbiased as possible but we shall see. After all, engineers and scientists need to be spreading the importance of education correctly rather than the case of Presidents and educators mandating everyone reach a certain score on a standardized test, which, if you can’t already tell, I view as the incorrect way of going about this situtation known as the public schooling system.

Inspiration strikes, maybe.

Tara — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:14:18 +0000

At this point, I have no idea what to do for my senior exit project. I keep getting random ideas from time to time but the ideas only interest me for a few second before I completely forget that I had the idea in the first place. For starters, I really want to do something I would be interested in – I don’t want to write a ten page paper on something that doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I also want to do something where I could have fun with it – for some reason I don’t solely want to do a power point to present my project to the class, I want to be able to have some kind of posterboard with pictures and balloons and ribbons [not exactly balloons and ribbons but I think you understand what I mean - something interesting for people to look at while I'm presenting] and maybe have some videos that I made [like a home video or something where I could get first hand experience with it] or something such as that. One idea that stays with me is doing something with robotics because that will be a majority of my life for the next five weeks along with our competitions in late February, March, and then nationals in Atlanta in April. I’m not entirely sure if it’s possible to do something like that but if it would be possible, that would be great. I will greatly appreciate any sort of help you can offer me.

Rather important links and the like will be added as soon as I have a few spare moments.

You’ve got the stars and I’ve got the skyline…

Tara — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:22:08 +0000

Senior Exit Project…

I have no topic yet.

Sadfacesadfacesadface.