How is it possible for one to go from a C student in high school to an A student in college? The answer is obvious: High school-- and maybe even the entire public school system-- is not meant for intelligent people.
Seriously think about it. If you're a sharp-witted kid with a 140+ IQ, photographic memory, and a good knowledge of math, science, english, and history... you're probably well-prepared for tests without having to sit after class three days a week to figure out a simple concept like graphing y=ax2. You probably even understand the concepts the first time they're presented to you and require no further effort on such a menial task.
With that in mind: Would such a student need to spend 3 hours a night doing homework and 2 hours a night studying the same simple concepts over and over again for an entire week? Of course not. And that is one of the biggest flaws in the public education system.
It's not necessarily wrong to force students to review a concept. Common sense says that the more times you review something, the better you remember it. My gripe is this:
In today's world, High School grades come from assignments. In most cases, these assignments do not teach you anything-- they are just for you to review the same concept over and over again. While some students may require these assignments to help them learn; a student's academics should NOT be derived form trite reviews. Academics should be derived from showing that they have adequate knowledge of the subject.
Consider: If student A is the aforementioned bright student, he/she will not need to waste their time on such elementary skills. While student B, a stereotypical "slow" student who needs constant reviewing, does need the constant review-- both students, assuming a successful teacher was involved, should score at least a C without any significant effort.
But when petty assignments count more than actual success, student B will pass the class with a B while student A will pass with a C if he's lucky. Why? Because intelligence and knowledge mean nothing in high school-- willingness to waste 8 extra hours a day on superfluous assignments rather than actual learning is the only way to make the grade.
High school is meant for imbeciles. Tests only count for 30% of the grade in most classes-- and the final semester exam only counts for 20% of the grade. With the current system, someone who passes two semesters with a 75% and completely flunks the final exam (most likely due to a complete lack of knowledge of the subject matter) will still pass the class with a 60% D-. On a similar note, someone who passes all of the tests (30%) and quizzes (20%) yet nets a 0% in classwork and homework gets a 100% on the semester exam will end up with the same grade.
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| | First Quarter | | Second Quarter | | Semester Exam | | | Final Semester Grade |
| ( | (.50 * 2) | + | (.50 * 2) | + | (1.00) | ) / 5 | = | .60 |
| ( | (.75 * 2) | + | (.75 * 2) | + | (0) | ) / 5 | = | .60 |
It's not that we're unwilling to try to do the homework and the classwork and the review sheets-- it's that life is too short to spend your entire day eating, sleeping, and doing schoolwork.
If by chance anyone in a similar situation to me is reading this: Never fear. There is hope... and its name is college. In a college environment, you aren't graded for every little bullshit study assignment. You're graded purely on test performance.
Here's an interesting fact: Many college freshmen are so overwhelmed by the sudden freedom and responsibility that they drop out in the first semester. Maybe if high schools would stop handling them with the kid gloves they would develop THEIR OWN study habits and responsibility and there wouldn't be so many college drop-outs as early in the year.
By now you're probably thinking, "I'd like to see you propose an idea that would work better than the current system. I bet you can't." Bullshit:
The solution for this is simple: Offer a program for students who exhibit high intellect but low academics that would derive their semester grades from a different ratio: Instead of 40% for each quarter an 20% for the final exam; 25% for each quarter and 50% for the final exam. This alternative program would allow bright students to breathe and focus on their learning without having to stress over their academic performance (or the lack thereof).
I challenge you, the reader, to provide a better solution. You probably can-- but don't bother emailing it to me. E-mail it to the Department of Education instead.
Now, that is only one of my gripes with public schooling. The other one doesn't have a reasonable solution and is contrary to the stated goal of every high school in America: To get a good score on standardized tests.
In High School, you aren't learning life skills. You aren't learning anything really useful, either. The only thing you will learn from grades 3 through 12 in Florida is how to pass the FCAT test we take every year.
Standardized testing isn't something exclusive to high school. You'll deal with them all throughout your educational career-- whether it stops at grade 12 or otherwise.
Whoever thought of standardized testing needs to be dragged into an arena, beaten with a morning star, and left there for the lions to eat. I can just picture the dialog that went into the concept:
"Hey, why don't we take every student in America... from every possible end of the spectrum... with all their different strength and weaknesses... and force them to take a test."
"Go on."
"And they need to beat a certain score in Math, Reading, and Writing (because there are no other skills in the entire universe that someone can master) in order to pass."
"Oh, good idea. On top of that, we can make one the deciding factor in both the students' graduation and the teachers' paychecks."
The only problem with standardized testing is that it's buried so far into the system that I can't think of a simple way to fix it. Some of you might say, "Why don't we just get rid of it?" Why, indeed? Teachers use it as an excuse to avoid teaching us anything unique; faculty members use it as cannon fodder for the many "My school scored higher than yours" arguments; but most importantly the members of the School Board and the Department of Education use it as an excuse to keep their heads shoved far up their own ass.
Because heaven forbid a teacher exists who doesn't just dish out the same cookie-cutter bullshit year after year. Or a faculty member who says, "Our school isn't better because we do better on the FCAT; our students' success speaks for itself."
One of these days someone, be it a teacher or a faculty member, is going to tell the Board of Education to shove the FCAT up their asses and focus their limited class-time on teaching their students the important, the complex, and the unique. My guess is that it will probably be a history teacher who's tired of their History class being turned into a mandatory FCAT Prep class and instead decides to tell their students about, say, the Bay of Pigs. It's probably already happened somewhere. But one or two classes of actual education out of an entire country of corruption and skewed statistics is the equivalent of throwing a rock at an asteroid.
Back to my point: There is no realistic way to do away with having standardized testing shoved down our throats. Politicians think it looks good and lazy, mindless teachers know it means they don't have to have a decent knowledge of the subject matter. When is the last time your Biology teacher could answer a question about chaos theory and animal populations? When is the last time your 6th grade science teacher could tell you the half-life of a given isotope?
High School in Florida is meant to teach us FCAT. FCAT is the alpha and omega of all things educational. And every state outside of Florida has their own bullshit test that exists as a placebo for knowledge.
