Monday, November 22, 2010

What High School Can Be

   From reading Theodore R. Sizer’s What High School Can Be, I can say that I relate with Will, the high school basketball star that Sizer followed around through his day of classes, and I’m sure that many other high schoolers can as well. While I didn’t usually sail through the entire day without saying anything or opening a book, and my five foot one self was clearly not the star of the basketball team, I can still relate with the way that Will must have felt. 
   Sizer points out the waste of time of both the teachers and students, as well as the waste of resources, when students are not committed to or excited about what they’re learning. Many high school students feel this way as well, but it was never more apparent to me than it became in my senior year. By the time applications were finished and everyone had visited perspective colleges, everyone felt like they were done with high school. Many people, including myself, felt like when they went on Christmas break the school year ended and there was no point in returning in January. We all felt like we were stuck in a bunch of classes that didn’t matter in a high school that could not hold a candle to the colleges that we had visited. 
   There was one class, however, that I did take very seriously, especially in my senior year. To me, the only class worth staying up through the night for (or two nights in a row occasionally) was my art class. I probably spent more time on art homework in my senior year than I did on all other subjects combined. It was one of the only things that I actually enjoyed or even cared about, which was probably why I spent so much time on it. 
   When Theodore Sizer says that the way to get students more interested and involved in their work is to make it more challenging, I would have to disagree. Making something harder would only make a student frustrated if they are not actually interested in the subject. Students will get involved in a subject if its interesting to them, or if the teacher makes it interesting. Making a subject that a student doesn’t care about more difficult might only make them care even less. I think that many high school students, especially seniors, would probably agree with this, and I think that Sizer should probably get a little more in touch with his inner high schooler. 

Monday, November 15, 2010

In the Beginning: The 1893 Report of the Committee of Ten & Creating the Comprehensive High School

     So during the countless hours I spent sitting at a desk in a class that I had no interest in, trying to imagine who’s idea it was for high school students to have to learn this stuff, I wasn’t far off to imagine a group of men sitting around a table and talking about what students should be learning in high school. When I would be in physics or calculus trying to decode the seemingly foreign language that my teachers seemed to be speaking, I would always be thinking, “Who’s idea was it to make mandatory?” Well, now I know. Thanks a lot Committee of Ten. 
     There were some subjects that I could understand the value of learning, even if I didn’t like them, like a foreign language or a writing class. After all, English is not the only language in the world and learning another language could be useful if you ever have to communicate with someone from another country, and being able to express yourself clearly is important as well. But physics? The most basic stuff can be useful, but its also common sense. The more complicated things could be useful as well, but only if you need to build an elevator or know at what exact time a ball thrown into the air will fall back to the ground, and most people will never need to know these things. Which is why it was frustrating for me to have to learn them in my junior year when I had already decided on going to art school. 
     One good point that was made was by James B. Conant in Creating the Comprehensive High School. Conant stressed the importance of homerooms in any high school  to build a sense of community between students that normally would not see each other during the school day because of the different classes they take. In my high school, a homeroom, or FA (Faculty Advisory) as we referred to them, did not only consist of students from different skill levels, but also of students from all four years. This created many mentoring opportunities and made it easier for freshmen to adapt to high school life. And as Conant had said, it really did create a strong sense of community within the school.