Does America need to change the high school education system?
A work in progress
I am an environmental artist who lives in a depressed area of my home city. I hear the violence, and I see the children struggling.
I firmly believe the key to raise the bar on the impact of poverty, violence, and drugs is education. Okay, how do we keep kids in school?
I know very little about the education system, and how the system is created. I am only looking at the current system from a students perspective, being a creative/artistic learner. I don't have all the answers, but I am beginning to ask questions and would like to discuss this topic further.
The current high school system is broken. Well, it seems to be broken because of all the drop out numbers. As I see it, the child, here in my community is making most of their own decisions whether it be good or bad, by the time they are 15-16 years of age. First of all, have the school system decision makers ever asked the children through surveys? Have they taken into consideration there are minorities and how the curriculum affects their world view and how they view themselves? And I will address how the arts play a major role in keeping the student in school. Plus, a more hands on approach through programs, and getting the child more active participation than sitting in a classroom all day.
I have been thinking about the high school setup presently concerning the 4 year style. Here in our city, we used to have a tech high school and I believe we need to revisit the tech high school idea.
Here's my suggestion of a different type of high school system.
I am an environmental artist who lives in a depressed area of my home city. I hear the violence, and I see the children struggling.
I firmly believe the key to raise the bar on the impact of poverty, violence, and drugs is education. Okay, how do we keep kids in school?
I know very little about the education system, and how the system is created. I am only looking at the current system from a students perspective, being a creative/artistic learner. I don't have all the answers, but I am beginning to ask questions and would like to discuss this topic further.
The current high school system is broken. Well, it seems to be broken because of all the drop out numbers. As I see it, the child, here in my community is making most of their own decisions whether it be good or bad, by the time they are 15-16 years of age. First of all, have the school system decision makers ever asked the children through surveys? Have they taken into consideration there are minorities and how the curriculum affects their world view and how they view themselves? And I will address how the arts play a major role in keeping the student in school. Plus, a more hands on approach through programs, and getting the child more active participation than sitting in a classroom all day.
I have been thinking about the high school setup presently concerning the 4 year style. Here in our city, we used to have a tech high school and I believe we need to revisit the tech high school idea.
Here's my suggestion of a different type of high school system.
- High school would begin in eight grade while preparing the student for the Jr. college format. Kindergarten could be considered part of the 8 grades. For that matter all the children in daycare could be considered in school.
- There would only be 3 years of high school.
- The last 2 years of high school would be a more hands on approach for all students. (There could be more involvement of high school students in the process of growing our food, locally, we are going to need to grow our food locally in the future as one example.)
- Concerning the subject of history, one home school parent suggested to me that there needs to be a more world view of history which includes history about all minorities and not the watered down version we have today.
- And, I will say this again and again. I believe it is a mistake that there is not more emphasis placed on teaching creating thinking through art in grade school and high school. I firmly believe art is a tool and can be utilized in so many areas where it is not being utilized today. Plus, art teaches the child about processes, and they learn to problem solve through processes. Also, ethics and philosophy are very closely related to art.
- Why isn't ethics and philosophy being taught in grade school and then all the way through high school? I'm not saying religion, I'm saying ethics. (A book for little children about ethics, wow how would that go?There must be books out there on ethics and logic for little kids)
- Would we have less problems with bullying if more ethics and logic were being taught in the schools?
- Could we get businesses to participate in the programing of youth during the last two years of high school to help keep down the cost of programing?
- What is the result of the child that is graduating from high school today? Is the child's world view and view of themselves even considered in the current high school system and curriculum?
- Could high school and Junior College be combined if the format was more like Junior college. The student or parents would have to pay for Junior college?
As we begin to rebuild our middle class, we can begin to look at so many areas of our system that is not working and make positive changes. We have to begin work together one day at a time.
Posted by Rosewood Environmental Art at 2/11/2012 10:49 AM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: high school system art art for beauty ethics kids in school natural art art art as a tool environmental art environment land art art based on nature nature natural art natu art for art sake discussions about art art ideologies creative thinking creativity common ground create better world environmental art envi fun art classes herb gardens herbs
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: high school system art art for beauty ethics kids in school natural art art art as a tool environmental art environment land art art based on nature nature natural art natu art for art sake discussions about art art ideologies creative thinking creativity common ground create better world environmental art envi fun art classes herb gardens herbs
I agree with your assessment of the situation 110%. And I like your suggestions as to how to fix it.
My brother has a pattern he uses to design systems. He designs the system and then tests it on, say, 10 examples from one extreme to another. I guess the extremes with respect to education would be something like: from least able to be educated (probably due to a lack of resources) to most able to be educated (due to having an abundance of resources. Then he would make sure these 10 examples worked in his system. He'd tweak it until he successfully accommodated the entire range of variation and diversity. This isn't done in our current education system. It's the easiest thing in the world to design such a system that works, but hard to implement it because of status quo/establishment/beauracracy/unions/ lack of creativity/etc.
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