First of all, let me give my disclaimer: I can only speak with the views, experiences, and opinions of one person - which is obviously me. Anything that I will be talking about can be used as a reference for one American high school student. This post does not even attempt to depict the experiences, views, or opinions of any other high school students in the United States of America. With that being said, this is an insight for people to glean off of my experiences. It may not be accurate to think that any other students go through school like I do, but it is safe to say that one may get an idea of how school operates in my area - and by area I mean my specific school.
Now let's move on to my experiences since the disclaimer is finally over.
For high school, I have gone to a private school. In fact, I've always gone to a private school; I don't really know why since that was my parents' decision, but that's just what's happened. I guess I should probably start off by explaining some of the differences between public and private schools. Public schools and private schools have different standards that they have to follow, so let's start with explaining a bit about public schools. Public school codes vary from state to state, but they all aim to accomplish a common goal - preparing students to pass a standardized test. These standardized tests can also vary from state to state, but, to my understanding, they all test students over their knowledge of Math, Science (interpreting graphs), and English. Public schools also have different tracks for students to follow. These tracks are to prepare students for what they intend to accomplish with their lives - this includes the college bound track, the trade/technical school bound track, the apprentice track, etc. Even though these students may be in different tracks, all must still pass the standardized tests in order to advance to the next grade. Failure to pass these tests results in the student being "held back" a grade until classes and tests are passed. Public schools must also follow certain guidelines in order to operate and graduate students. I shall give a link for the state of Tennessee (since it is the state I go to school in) if any of you (readers) would like to know more about these rules and regulations for conduct and graduation requirements. Here is the site map if you would like to explore: http://www.tn.gov/sbe/site_map.html
If you've chosen to read up on Tennessee school rules then good for you! You will notice more of the differences that I'm about to talk about. If you chose not to go exploring, then you're not missing much, but there might be a few things that don't make sense. I'm not really sure what information I need to include or leave out since this sort of information is just understood for me because I've grown up with it. Private schools do not have to follow state rules (exa: speaking about religion without it first being brought up by the student, etc.), but they do tend to mimic state graduation requirements in class credits - though they almost always require more class credits as graduation requirements. The state, for example, may only require 4 credits in English, 3 credits in Math, 3 credits in Science, 3 credits in Social Studies (aka History), 1 credit in Wellness & Phys. Ed., and 6 credits in Electives - a minimum of 20 class credits. (Those are the actual requirements in the state of Tennessee for my graduating class fyi.) Whereas, a private school may require 5 credits in English, 4 credits in Math, 3.5 credits in Social Studies, 3 credits in Science, 2 credits in Fine Arts, 2 credits in the same foreign language, 1.5 credits in Wellness & Phys. Ed., and 4 credits in Electives - a minimum of 25 class credits. (Those are also my actual graduation requirements for my school.) Private schools must still prepare students to pass state and national standardized tests. Private schools also tend to have higher test score averages on these standardized tests than public school do. Some private schools choose to join certain accreditation groups as well - this is so that people may see that the school is regulated and held to standards even though these standards may differentiate from the state's. My school is a SACS accredited school (SACS = Southern Association of Colleges and Schools).
Yay! Now you have some background knowledge! Shew, that was a mouthful to try to explain. Now I can finally talk about my experiences.
My high school just so happens to be an "Academy". This means that the school serves more than just high school students and, at the moment, my school teaches grades 5-12 (grades 5-8 are considered middle school; grades 9-12 are considered high school). I've been at my school since my 7th grade year and, since I was put in advanced placement in some classes, I have been taking some high school classes ever since I came to the academy. Because I took some high school classes as a middle school student, I have been able to choose more of my classes to tailor them to my needs and likes. I've heard that in some countries students take certain tests to determine what they are good at while they are young and are then placed on a track tailored only to those certain skills (for example, a Math/Science track vs a Language/Fine Arts track). This is not so in the US (or at least, not to my knowledge). Here schooling is aimed more towards allowing a student to pick and choose subjects he or she may like while creating a well rounded individual. I, personally, like this method of education more than the "test them while they're young" idea. As I have matured, my interests and skill sets have changed. When I was a child, my standardized tests showed that I was more Math/Science inclined than Language inclined. Now, my scores are almost the complete opposite. I also like the idea of a student being able to choose (to a degree) what he or she would like to study. I feel like these other methods, with tracks inlaid from early childhood, do not give students the chance to explore what they would like to become. ... My high school is also unique because it is located on a college campus; this has allowed me to take college classes - some of them for dual credit - while still in high school. So far I have completed 28 credit hours over the course of 5 straight semesters. Now that I've explained why I prefer this type of education and the type of school I've attended, I'll go ahead and tell which classes I have taken to match my graduation requirements. (The courses followed by strange numbers at the end are college classes.) Here's the list grouped by subject: English 1, English 2, English 3, English 4, Grammar & Writing, English 110, English 210, English 310, Communications 200 (basic speech and group communication), Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Pre-Calculus, Math 111 (beginning algebra), Math 120 (trigonometry), US History, History 121 (world history to 1500 CE), History 122 (world history from 1500 CE to present), Government, Economics, Biology 1, Biology 2, Chemistry 1, Scientific Research, Chemistry 100, Strings 1, Strings 2, Strings 3, Strings 4, Spanish 1, Spanish 2, Spanish 3, Japanese 1, and Wellness. That's a total of 27 credits that counts towards my diploma (some of my college courses don't count towards my high school credits and those that do count only weigh in at a half credit per class - it's confusing). If you ask me, I think that's a rather well rounded education right there. Some classes were fun and some were a pain in the royal rear, but they've all been interesting. My favorite classes were strings and English 210-310; the classes I disliked the most were Math 120 and Government. If I had to name which class was the easiest, I would have to say Economics because it's basically a class on the common sense of how money works. The most difficult class for me was, by far, Math 120 once again because it required the memorization of so many different concepts and the teacher was very difficult to understand.
I was also going to talk about Co-Ed schools, but this post is more than long enough already - so I'll save that for another day.
What do you think? Do prefer to pick some of your own classes or do you think the track method is more efficient? Do you have any questions about different aspects my high school experience or want to know more about student life, athletics, extracurricular activities, or things of that nature? Comments and questions are always appreciated :)
Your system of education prepares you for employment too, in India employment is something which we think of only in say the 3rd year of university, the American model of Higher Secondary Education is among the best in the world, India needs to wriggle out of its time warp, we are still stuck up in a colonial vortex which refuses to go away.
ReplyDeleteOh Amrith, where do I start? It does seem that our education system does prepare us for employment, but really it should be the parents who prepare us for the real world. Only students who care to take notice of what the schools are trying to teach become prepared though. Really, learning comes down to the individual. Unfortunately, many parents do not really parent anymore (in my opinion of course) which leads to many students not caring about an education which also results in a less educated society that in turn leads to the typical American stereotype the world sees. I do appreciate the way our system of education is set up, but it still has it's downfalls - I would not say it is the best system in the world. When I went to world school, I felt like rather uneducated, though I did feel like I had more people/real-life skills than many people I was surrounded by. It was a rather strange feeling.
DeleteAnyway that's a well written article, I should say, does every state in the US have a different pattern of education, or is it more or less the same? Victoria, i should say is growing up to be an interesting blogger, fine tuned to air views which are soaked in a global purport
ReplyDeleteThank you very much :) I try to explain things so that everyone can understand them, but sometimes I worry that my diction is too elevated for our other WS friends who are still learning English. I want people to feel like they're in an enjoyable classroom setting - not like I'm trying to talk over everyone's heads. Every state has a similar education system so that students have the chance to do well on state wide standardized college entrance exams like the ACT and SAT (the two main standardized tests). I'm planning to do another post about these tests and how to pick a college, etc. Some states, however, have more effective systems in place to help students learn. Here is a chart that might help you understand what I mean. It is a little bit difficult to interpret though. Compare the state average to the national average to get an idea of different state rankings. http://www.publicagenda.org/charts/state-state-sat-and-act-scores
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