Allowing students to drop out

Referring to the education gap increasing, and complications with the curriculum, should educators be afraid of drop out rates increasing? Is it socially acceptable to drop out of high school? I believe there needs to be changes made to the "loose" restrictions regarding when it is "okay" to drop out of school. As i said above the education gap is growing larger and larger as we speak which is causing a degree of separation that i am afraid will not be able to be fixed. I know there are laws pertaining such issues (No Child Left Behind) but i feel like our complications in education are helping our drop out rates. We need to restrict students from dropping out of high school and completing their education to insure success for not only society as a whole but for the individual. What is education? Why are you doing all this work? Some people have different definitions for why we go to school and get an education... i would like to believe it is to make us more knowledgeable and insure prosperity for life. If students continue to accept the fact that it is okay to give up and quit how will we grow?

Private vs, Public schooling

I have always attended a public school and honestly i have never really second guessed the decision my parents made when send me there. I am not going to make any claims about a private school education because I never had the chance to experience it. However, as i point out in my response paper i thought of a couple significant differences between public and private schooling. Tuition cost and the advantage created by private schools having the ability to recruit. There is an obvious and significant difference in the cost between public schooling which is funded by the government, and private schooling which receives no funding from the government and has substantially greater costs. As an athlete, there was a big difference in the type of athletes that most private schools had in comparison to public school athletes. Like i said, i am not going to make any claims against private schooling, i just chose to point out a couple differences that i have noticed from attending a public school.

chocolate milk

The case that we analyzed today (March 31) regarding chocolate milk was a very controvercial issue within the class. My standing on the issue of chocolate milk being thrown into the mix regarding child obesity is ridiculous. I understand that the amount of sugar in chocolate milk is slighty higher than what people are comfortable with but where will the attacking of foods and drinks end? Where else can we place the blame about childhood obesity other than on ourselves? From my personal perspective, i have probably been drinking around 5 to 6 classes of chocolate milk a day for the past 4 or 5 years and i have seen no noticeable difference. The amount of sugar in chocolate milk can be simply burned from a little harmless physical activity. We should be pushing the issue of why do schools not encourage more physical activities rather than pushing blame on a beverage that has been moving side by side with health for as long as i can remember. After looking at the case, and discussing the possible reasons why the dairy association would run such a contest i think was just because they were looking to stimulate demand for a dying industry due to the innovation of sports drinks, energy drinks, and soda pop. Chocolate milk serves as a healthier more reasonable replacement that is better and healthier for children that is more appealing than regular milk. To criticize the nutrition value and point blame on chocolate milk is ridiculous and if that is what the world is coming to, everyone is being extremely nieve. Besides look at everything else that is offered in the cafeteria and vending machines... i mean come on all that junk is better than chocolate milk?

standardized testing

Standardized testing could be one of the causes to the education in gap in U.S. schools. The three problems that i discussed in my paper include: the negative effect it is having on our teachers, the large amount of strain it is placing on our academic curiculum, and the results of the tests not exactly giving the best representation of who that student is. I believe this is one of the main causes in the education gap because we are continuously putting more emphasis on the results of these tests which is ultimately taking away from further educating our students. We are having to prepare students for a test and not preparing them for lessons learned in schools that could potentially help them down the road. If we do not reevaluate what is important in our society in terms of schooling, the education gap is going to continue to get larger unless something is done to take academics back to what they once were.

cultural integration

Today in class, it was very interesting to interview students from different backgrounds. It was interesting to hear about how they were raised and educated in different ways than what we know of today. It was especially different to hear about Aya's story. I thought it was weird to hear about how her main language in Japan was english and their secondary language in that school was Japanese. You would think that being in your native country the main language would be the national language but not in that case. The student from Ghana also had a nice to story to hear as well. It would be very different if our schools were structured similar to the one that he attended until his senior year in high school. Being able to experience three different styles of schooling is a very good asset to have because you know how hard it can get and how easy it could be.

liberal arts college

The other day in class we broke up into groups and discussed the positive and negative aspects of liberal arts colleges. A few things that i thought about when looking at Luther was how they allowed/forced us to kind of explore all our opportunities. As much as we hated having general requirements it more than likely benefited us more than if we had gone to a public university where we would have been pushed down one specific path. Luther has allowed me to experience human anatomy, kiniesiology, management courses, history classes, and math classes which ultimately helped me make my decision to become a management major. I believe that the structure of a liberal arts college is a great way to go aside from the financial bind it can put you in because it gives you the opportunity to explore possibilities or areas of interest that can potentially be something you can enjoy the rest of your life.

effective teaching

Ok, i am not an education major seeking a profession in teaching but from what i have read in the Paideia reader i am going to side with the fact that i think teachers for the most part are doing just fine. I believe the problem behind suffering test scores and a "larger gap" is the high expectations that are being placed in the teachers. Our society is always searching for the fastest and somewhat effiecient ways to gaining a competitive advantage. By finding the competitive advantage in some individuals it also sets others back. Hence why we have the problem of a large gap between students. The problem places a heavy burden on educators because they are expected to teach students a large curriculum in a very short amount of time.

The effect money has on education

On Wednesday February 17, we discussed the relationship between money and schools. Until wednesday, i had never really thought about or considered how much of a constraint money places on the quality of education. It was extremely shocking to see the differences in schools that are so close to one another. The difference in graduation rates and noticeable difference in material being taught was unbelievable. I grew up in a small town with an enrollment in my high school of around 500 students. We took a lot for granted and to be honest never really looked outside our box. If i were one of the parents that was sending my kid to one of the inner city schools and i saw the story on those two schools i would have been pretty upset because i would have realized that my children were not being given the same opportunity. The quality of education should be held at the same standard regardless of the financial status of your parents or the neighborhood you live in. Money should not be the deciding factor for a quality education.