On Behalf of All Students

     So today I was going to talk about another topic that was graciously prompted to me once again by our Blog Consultant (that's what you are now officially MF, okay?), and I promise I will blog about that topic, just not today. Probably tomorrow. See, throughout the course of the day, ANOTHER interesting and infuriating topic kept coming up: it was mentioned during Orchestra and lunch, and then when I got home from school, my brother and I discussed it some more. What I'm talking about my friends is the corruption of the Educational System in America, specifically in my county.
Because I'm kind of angry and fired up about this topic right now, I'm going to break it down into organized sections to make it a little easier to talk about and less rambly so here we go.

Crappy Scheduling
     At my school, we high schoolers have been made the experimental guinea pigs of a little project known as the Six Period Day, or as I like to refer to it in my head and not out loud because I'm a goody-two shoes, the Sh*t Period Day. Now the Six Period Day was not brought up to students until after it was already a set in stone scheduling system for the next year. What that means is that the Board of Ed decided to wait until they'd already decided that they were going to implement the Six Period Day to tell the actual students and parents who were going to be effected by the SPD about it. Pretty much they were like "Okay, we're going to give you this new and supposedly improved schedule that's never been tried before and you can't do anything about it because it's already approved. Any questions?"
     Let's back up a little bit and talk about why the SPD is such a problem. So before the SPD the schedule went like this: In the morning you'd have two forty-five minute classes, both of which lasted all year long. These classes were usually band/orchestra and English. Then after those two classes, you had three semester long classes that were each an hour and a half long. That schedule makes a lot of sense considering that to graduate in our county, we are required to earn a bare minimum of 24 credits. Now, with the SPD, we barely meet our 24 credit graduation minimum, and in order to do so, must give up language credits that would seriously help out on college applications, and put arts on the backburner because we simply don't have space to take them. Here are some charts I made to help you understand how radical the reduction in classes there is. We went from being able to take 8 classes of our choice, to taking a measly TWO classes of our choice.

 

RED= Required Courses

BLACK= Non-required Classes (ie, arts classes, extra electives, extra AP classes, Periods you can leave school and go to community college for, etc. )

 

THE EIGHT CREDIT YEAR, Sample Schedule

Freshman Year	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class
Sophomore Year	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class
Junior Year	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class
Senior Year	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class	Semester Class

 

 

THE SIX PERIOD DAY, Sample Schedule

Freshman Year	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Semester Class Semester Class
Sophomore Year	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Semester Class Semester Class
Junior Year	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class
Senior Year	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class	Year Long Class

     Needless to say, students and parents were furious. So when the meeting came for students and parents to ask questions (questions which of course were totally futile because they would have no impact on the already implemented SPD) the administrators were all like "Well we really feel that this is what's best for the students." Which brings me to my next topic.

Making Our Choices

     There's an upcoming Board of Education election, and for the past few weeks, signs of all shapes and colors have been showing up in our school yard with the names of middle aged men and women that are all fighting for the position that I like to call "Grown Ups Making Teens Decisions For Them". The people on the board that make all the decisions about things like school lunches, standardized testing, and grades are all people whom I've never seen before. Even though they're the ones who are making decisions about MY SCHOOL, I have never once seen them in MY SCHOOL and I doubt they really know all that much about MY SCHOOL at all. I think that the people who should be voting for representatives to make decisions about our school are the students and parents-of-students from our school, and not a bunch of random people from all over the county who really don't care much at all about our school. It doesn't make sense that the people who are mandating specific schedules, and specific meal plans, and specific testing are people who've never experienced the hell that is the Six Period Day, never eaten the nasty lunch food, and never been forced to take standardized benchmark tests every single marking period. We, as students, seem to have no voice on decisions that directly effect our education. For example, in The Newb's English class, they took a benchmark test at the beginning of the year, and were again given the same exact test a few weeks ago. The Newb and some friends in his class voiced their confusion and distaste for this, saying that there was no logical reason for taking the same exact test twice as they'd already proved their knowledge when they took it before. So, Newb's English class wrote up a petition, got lots of students to sign it, crafted a very professional letter voicing their opinion, and sent both documents to our home school administration, and our county's board of education. Not only did they never hear back from the board of education, but the next day the administration from our school came into the English class and told the students that they had only two choices: either take the test like required (even though, let me remind you THEY ALREADY TOOK THE EXACT SAME ASSESSMENT), or not take it and get a 0% for a grade. And that was it. No rational discussion of the reasoning behind the re-assessment. No faculty support behind the beliefs and opinions of the students themselves. Just a pass or fail ultimatum.

Let's go all sixties and storm the sidewalks with
signs and protest chants.

     Needless to say, my brother did not take the assessment and took the 0%. When he took the test the first time, he received an A.

Our Lazy Generation
     If you're between the ages of zero and 25, by now you've probably heard at least one person saying that our generation is "lazy" or "has no work ethic" or "is consumed by technology". Let me tell yous something people: at my school, there's yet another guinea pig project called SALT, which stands for "The Student Academic Leadership Team" and what the school faculty do is they choose from a bunch of applications the 30 or so students that they deem to have the best leadership skills, put them all in the same classes, (isolating them from their fellow students and removing all kids that have leadership skills from the rest of their grade, therefore creating one huge class full of nothing BUT leaders, and the entire remaining grade full of no leaders whatsoever. Makes so much sense), add on to their already crowded and stressful high school work load by requiring SALT students to take AP classes and do summer assignments and SALT Leadership workshops and assignments, and to top it all off, give these kids free iPads. Now I kind of have the inside scoop on the SALT team because even though I'm not in the SALT program, I have a class with the SALT kids (due to, of course, my wacky messed up scheduling issues) and let me just say that the kids have used their iPads in that class for actual school work probably twice. That doesn't mean they don't use them though, just that instead of using them as educational tools, they use them to play 2048 and Flappy Bird during class.
     The point I'm trying to make here is that we've had technology shoved down our throats for the entirety of our school career. I remember in KINDERGARTEN we had a computer in the classroom, and everyone got a turn on it if they finished their work quickly. So naturally we all rushed through our required work in order to play "educational" computer games. Then in Middle School, a bunch of teachers were given Smart Boards, and were required to use them as teaching tools, but really, we ended up just using them to play mega hang man on after class was over. And now in high school, they give us iPads and Kindles (I got a pity kindle since the rest of my AP US class got free iPads) that they never actually incorporate into our learning? Of course we're going to be lazy, have no work ethic, and be consumed by technology when it's our elders and teachers that are the ones consuming us with technology.

     Okay, that's all I have to say for now. Obviously this is a topic I feel really strongly about, so sorry that this post is so long and angst filled. It's just that in my opinion, with education going the way it is, I sincerely fear for my children and the children of my peers. Please, if you're a student and you're unhappy with your education, speak out, go to meetings and assemblies and voice your opinion. The only way to make the Board of Ed listen is to give them a taste of their medicine: Shove what they're giving us right back in their laps. Show them how unhealthy and disgusting and unsatisfying the school lunches at your school are. Explain to them your position on the illogicality of the standard tests and the corruption of the board's hierarchy. Seriously, we need to demand our rights as students. We are the future. We should be the most well educated people in the world if we want anything good to happen when WE'RE the ones in charge of politics and economics and the workforce.
     All righty, I've said enough.
                                                                  -VaughnDL
       

Give students rights.