posted
I would imagine the bit about college acceptance isn't supposed to be the main selling point of the school. As you've pointed out, many schools do this.
Think of the school more as a religious school that teaches children how to be a certain type of person and to have a certain type of outlook on life. That's probably why most people send their kids to the school. At least, of the people that I know who have sent their children to the school, that's why they were doing it. I think these types of schools are trying to tackle some of the same problems that home schoolers, and various other private schools are. It's not just social conservatives who don't like public schools, you know.
Beyond the fact that the acceptance rate isn't all that remarkable in general, I think when you factor in the fact that the school(s) are doing it without the kind of rigid hierarchy that a lot of people insist is necessary for proper civic and moral development, I think that shows that the school specifically is doing something right.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote: Is that statistic particularly outstanding?
It's pretty dreadful, actualy. For a private school, that is. The vast majority of graduating classes from prep schools have 100% college acceptence ratings.
Posts: 211 | Registered: Dec 2006
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quote: Is that statistic particularly outstanding?
It's pretty dreadful, actualy. For a private school, that is. The vast majority of graduating classes from prep schools have 100% college acceptence ratings.
All private schools are not prep schools. Do the democratic schools bill themselves as prep schools? (asking, not needling)
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I found it enlightening to read everyones input, you all had a lot of good ideas about it, which is why I posted in the first place. When I referenced the Declaration of Independence I knew it was not a legal document, only a manifesto, I was merely pointing out that one of the ideals of this country is freedom for all, although I am not a legal adult, I am still a human being. Theses democratic schools, as far as I know, mainly function without teachers, at least teachers in the traditional sense. Students don't have classes where a teacher lectures and they take notes, sometimes the students study concepts with other students, and they do seek the help of the staff members when they need someone with expertise in a subject to help them learn about it, but I don't think that the teachers play that big a role in the functionality of these schools. The students can go to the adults if they want, but mostly the adults let the students run their own affairs. In my school, independent study isn't possible until you have passed all the AP courses or that subject. For example, although I am taking French 3/4 now, I will have to take AP French Language and AP French Literature before I am eligible for teacher-supervised independent study in that subject. I understand that not all kids are highly motivated like me, I personally have a brother who has gotten straight D's and does very poorly in school. But that's because he doesn't care about what he's learning. He is a math whiz, way beyond me, he just gets it, but he still fails the class. He can create computer programs and spends a large portion of his time on his computer. He doesn't plan on using much of what he learns in school and so he doesn't bother with it, the downfall is that he is having a lot of trouble getting into college. I decided that to figure out how kids my age would react to thins, I'd just start asking them general questions. That's what I did today as much as Ii could. I asked people what they'd do if they had a week where they didn't have to worry about school or schoolwork and if they liked school in general. The results varied a lot. There were several who felt that they liked school. Some said they didn't but only one person who I asked expounded about how she loves school. I must take into account though, that I could not conduct I wide survey very easily. I was asking a girl who I knew in middle school, Karen, about this. She doesn't like school, but she doesn't hate it. Having spent time with her though, I see the toll school has taken on her. She breaks down in tears because she gets a B on a quiz. You see, her dream is to go to Penn. State. She loves to read, and wants to be an engineer. I asked her why, she said she likes inventing things and making things and designing things. But shes stuck stressing over whether she got the right answers on her homework. That's where I just think things are wrong. The thing about skipping grades though, is that you become... prejudiced against. Both the older and younger kids resent you for making them feel inferior. Also, to graduate from my high school you have to have a specific number of credits for each subject and all total. That includes 4 English and Math credits (you earn a credit by passing a class for the whole year, half credits for semester courses)but it effectively means that it is near impossible to graduate more that a half a semester early. I do go to Model U.N. and film club, occasionally to others as well. With Model U.N. you research everything you can about a nation and it's politics and issues and how it relates with other nations and about current issues. It's truly interesting, but the people in the club are seen as slightly insane for wanting to spend time learning about the issues and writing position papers because in general, learning is seen as an obligation only, not something you'd do because you want to. An issue with the teacher lecturing situation is that it all depends on the teacher. Some teachers are better than others and rule benevolently, some don't. In 6th grade my Social studies teacher did not like me and therefore drove me to tears in class without batting her eyes. In contrast, I had the best English teacher EVER in a 7th and 8th grade pullout class who truly truly wanted us to learn, and guaranteed us A's as long as we learned, on tests you corrected your mistakes, if you bombed an essay, she walked you through it and it became a near-perfect paper. Now in high school the top English students are almost all from her class. Don't worry, I do know how to spell, my mother made me and my brother learn spelling young, she is adamant about that. I also know proper grammar, so I wouldn't be lost without spell-check, but it does make life easier, and takes care of a lot of typos. College-bound student percentages though aren't all that reliable. My school touts our over 95% college-bound student rate, but every student has to at least apply to a college. No, democratic schools do not by any means call themselves prep schools and do not pressure their kids to go to college at all. The schools believe that the students should decide what's right for them, so definitely not prep schools. Doing REAL things would also help, probably. For example, we do labs in science in an effort to increase "hands-on" learning, but everyone does the same lab, one that has already been proven by the last year of kids, and the last year, and which has no purpose in the real world. It would be so much more interesting if what we were learning and doing and testing mattered to people. I've been considering this deeply. So far, I've come to the conclusion that I want to go to the democratic school in my state, the Alpine Valley school, and do a trial week there. Even if I don't end up going there, I just want to see firsthand what its like. However, when I'll get the time to actually do a trial week I don't know. I also have discovered that if teachers acted more like students were fellow human beings with independent minds, everyone would be happier. A real life example from today: History, first period, studying women in the west: an hour full of note-taking and lecturing as we all longed for our pillows It was clear that no one really cared and the teacher was obviously taking down to us. English, seventh period, the class was talkitive, the teacher decided, and said, it was just because we had come back from lunch and had energy. I had the teacher read over my essay. Since I already learned most of what we're doing in English, I knew my essay was good, but I asked about some points where I thought it would need work. When I persisted in asking how I could improve my essay, she said "Don't worry, it's an A paper". I knew I'd get an A, it was a good essay, I wanted to work on my writing skills, but that shouldn't matter, as long as I get the right letter. Then the teacher talked about how we were doing poetry next using DIDLS (acronym for analyzing poetry, did that also, last year). People asked if we would be writing any poetry. She said no. How many people will truly employ the skill of poetry analysis in their work? Math, eighth period, Spent entire time going over quizzes and homework After school: I stayed for a few minutes to talk to my math teacher. Most of the class agrees he's not the best teacher, but he's a nice guy and I chat with him when I have a few minutes. He talked to me like an equal. We discussed how cliques form in smaller versus larger environments, about how friendships form. My brain was more active in those say, 10 minutes than throughout the hour long math period. Anyway, for any of you have actually read this far , basically, all I know about democratic schools is off the internet. The library doesn't carry the few books concerning them. If I do get to go to a democratic school at any point, I will definitely gain from it, whether it's a good school or not. I know that this post seems like its truly favoring democratic schools but honestly, I have doubts about them. This post mostly explains why I find good points in them in comparison with my experience in school.
Posts: 130 | Registered: Jan 2007
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Just a friendly tip jlt; you might want to use more paragraph breaks. Even on my 1600 x 1200px monitor I feel a bit like this. Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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I thought about that about halfway through but then I was like, next time, I didn't feel like rereading everything and inserting them. Hope you still read it, despite the format.
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Sorry, no, not reading - give me too much of a headache. I can't focus on that much text without space. Unfortunate as I would like to read what you have to say.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I think such a school might be a wonderful environment for an intelligent, intellectually-motivated person as you appear to be, jlt. It might have for me as well; I'm not totally certain. There is definitely the consideration, though, of the value in learning to do things that do not come easily to you. I wonder how many of my honors high school math students would take no math at all if they had the option, and I don't think that's acceptable, because I think they benefit from the experience.
Beyond that, though, everyone is not like you or me. There is a romantic theory that everyone is intellectually curious, yadda yadda, and my experience is that this is simply not true. (Specifically, in case it's not clear, I am calling Zeugma's theory poppycock. ) I work at a school that is currently a traditional medium-large public school, with all the problems you might imagine that entails. But if you go back about ten years to my school's origins, it was very much like you describe. It was called the Celebration School (part of it still is called that, because we eventually split into a K-8 school and a high school), located in Celebration, Florida, and it is extremely well-known in pedagogical circles. Several books and countless articles have been written about it. About half of them tout what an amazing success the school was, and about half focus on what a dismal failure it was. It all really depends on the axe the author has to grind (as is true of all pedagogical "research," actually). I'm not a professor of education and I don't have a book to peddle, but I was there. The fact is, some kids really pushed themselves in all sorts of creative directions, and learned about things that interested them. Many more spent most of every day socializing in the couches that were ubiquitous in our "hearths" at the time. Many students were actively disrespectful and contemptuous of teachers and other adults. (Interestingly enough, while I've been at a large, integrated, socioeconomically diverse public high school for several years now, and a teacher for twelve years, total, it was at the old Celebration school where I was actually threatened with bodily harm--twice.) There was also an impressive drug problem for a school centered in such a high socioeconomic stratus. (In fact, one of the authors of a book partially about the school, an NYU anthropologist, spent a year in town smoking pot with the kids, as part of his particular research.) When the FCAT-based grading began, the school earned a C. (In contrast, the current K-8 school has been an A school for each of the last six years.) My point is not that FCAT grades are the end-all and be-all, but that all kids were clearly not self-motivated to learn. That's a piece of romanticism that just doesn't describe reality.
You know, what happens is that intelligent, motivated people, such as those who tend to post here, simply can't imagine that everyone else wouldn't be just like them, given the opportunity. I totally understand this; I find myself instinctively teaching to the type of kid that I was. But just because we are curious doesn't mean that curiosity is commonplace or natural.
I'll give a second example that hits closer to home for me. I adopted two special needs kids from DCF custody. I love them and am devoted to them, but they are different from me in many ways! We thought that one of them (whom I refer to on internet forums as "Mango") would benefit from a Montessori approach to pre-kindergarten. This is where I first began to realize that it was a myth that all kids were naturally self-motivated to learn from interesting things, as long as we silly adults would get out of their way and facilitate instead of trying to teach. They had all kinds of cool centers in the classroom--I saw them myself when I toured the school. Unfortunately, Mango just didn't care. She spent two years (at $5,000 a year) playing at the play-dough center. While I'm sure that play-dough had educational benefits, as part of a balanced approach, I frankly don't believe she learned much in that time.
So no, I don't believe our paradigm of education should shift to anything like what you describe. If classrooms--like my own--are dictatorial, they are at least generally benevolent dictatorships. I think some kids would probably flourish under a different approach, and I wouldn't stand in their way. I also believe that there are serious problems with education as a field these days, whose solutions will be complex and multi-faceted. But I do believe that a teacher is more than a facilitator and planner--s/he is, or should be, the one with the maturity, knowledge, education, and, above all, perspective, to know when students need to do things they don't think they want to.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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"This is where I first began to realize that it was a myth that all kids were naturally self-motivated to learn from interesting things, as long as we silly adults would get out of their way and facilitate instead of trying to teach."
I agree with what you said, Icarus, but I am picking up on this, because it reminds me of the "let the children explore with math manipulatives and they will magically learn math without the book" theory.
Some absolutely abhor hands-on learning. Some like it just fine, but never make the supposed natural leap to understanding. SOme do make the leap. I learned math that way as an adult. I sure wish someone had provided that style for me as a student.
I also think of Waldorf, which has a theory that formal reading instruction should not begin until thrid grade. As you mentioned, this would be fine for a child with no disabilities, but for a child with learning challenges,it is incredibly harmful.
I also agree that not all people are curious about academic learning. And more and more, I don;lt think they should have to push their way through an academic curriculum and should be given other options in high school.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote: also agree that not all people are curious about academic learning. And more and more, I don;lt think they should have to push their way through an academic curriculum and should be given other options in high school.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!
I am so tired of the prevailing attitude in American education right now that every public school student should be prepared to attend a 4-year college. I do think that the choice shouldn't be made too early -- I like the fact that all of the core middle school classes in my district are "college prep" -- but academic pursuits are NOT for everyone. Vocational education is a wise alternative. Yes, we (educators) have the responsibility to make sure that our high school graduates have the literacy and math skills (etc.) to be productive members of society. But states should NOT impose exit exams required for high school graduation that are essentially college prep exams. (For example, "reading" exams that require students to know and apply literary terms.)
And that is coming from someone who believes that poetry is really important for EVERYONE.
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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The vast majority of private secondary schools are, wish to be and/or bill themselves as prep schools. That includes Catholic schools.
And I think universal vocational training would be infinitely stupider than universal academic training. The United States is already a bit bizarre in that it imports both its unskilled workforce and many of its university professors, particularly in the sciences.
Posts: 211 | Registered: Dec 2006
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I realize that, Prometheus Bound, but my real question was if the democratic schools bill themselves as prep schools?
I also know from experience that many students leave school before they even have what they need to survive successfully in life(basic reading and math skills) when they would have been happy going on a different track.
I do not think it should be a tracked system necessarily, I just wish there were more options for those who reject an academic curriculum to feel successful.
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The vast majority? Do you have evidence for that? Its certainly not true of the private schools in my town, for instance, so I would love to see some substantiation.
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Where do you live. One school in my town has the words "college prep" in its name, about a dozen others call their curriculum college preparatory. There are no private schools in my town that do not consider themselves prep schools, although I know of a very few elsewhere.
Posts: 211 | Registered: Dec 2006
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I'm adding spaces: I found it enlightening to read everyones input, you all had a lot of good ideas about it, which is why I posted in the first place.
When I referenced the Declaration of Independence I knew it was not a legal document, only a manifesto, I was merely pointing out that one of the ideals of this country is freedom for all, although I am not a legal adult, I am still a human being.
These democratic schools, as far as I know, mainly function without teachers, at least teachers in the traditional sense. Students don't have classes where a teacher lectures and they take notes, sometimes the students study concepts with other students, and they do seek the help of the staff members when they need someone with expertise in a subject to help them learn about it, but I don't think that the teachers play that big a role in the functionality of these schools. The students can go to the adults if they want, but mostly the adults let the students run their own affairs.
In my school, independent study isn't possible until you have passed all the AP courses or that subject. For example, although I am taking French 3/4 now, I will have to take AP French Language and AP French Literature before I am eligible for teacher-supervised independent study in that subject.
I understand that not all kids are highly motivated like me, I personally have a brother who has gotten straight D's and does very poorly in school. But that's because he doesn't care about what he's learning. He is a math whiz, way beyond me, he just gets it, but he still fails the class. He can create computer programs and spends a large portion of his time on his computer. He doesn't plan on using much of what he learns in school and so he doesn't bother with it, the downfall is that he is having a lot of trouble getting into college.
I decided that to figure out how kids my age would react to thins, I'd just start asking them general questions. That's what I did today as much as Ii could. I asked people what they'd do if they had a week where they didn't have to worry about school or schoolwork and if they liked school in general. The results varied a lot. There were several who felt that they liked school. Some said they didn't but only one person who I asked expounded about how she loves school. I must take into account though, that I could not conduct I wide survey very easily.
I was asking a girl who I knew in middle school, Karen, about this. She doesn't like school, but she doesn't hate it. Having spent time with her though, I see the toll school has taken on her. She breaks down in tears because she gets a B on a quiz. You see, her dream is to go to Penn. State. She loves to read, and wants to be an engineer. I asked her why, she said she likes inventing things and making things and designing things. But shes stuck stressing over whether she got the right answers on her homework. That's where I just think things are wrong.
The thing about skipping grades though, is that you become... prejudiced against. Both the older and younger kids resent you for making them feel inferior. Also, to graduate from my high school you have to have a specific number of credits for each subject and all total. That includes 4 English and Math credits (you earn a credit by passing a class for the whole year, half credits for semester courses)but it effectively means that it is near impossible to graduate more that a half a semester early.
I do go to Model U.N. and film club, occasionally to others as well. With Model U.N. you research everything you can about a nation and it's politics and issues and how it relates with other nations and about current issues. It's truly interesting, but the people in the club are seen as slightly insane for wanting to spend time learning about the issues and writing position papers because in general, learning is seen as an obligation only, not something you'd do because you want to.
An issue with the teacher lecturing situation is that it all depends on the teacher. Some teachers are better than others and rule benevolently, some don't.
In 6th grade my Social studies teacher did not like me and therefore drove me to tears in class without batting her eyes. In contrast, I had the best English teacher EVER in a 7th and 8th grade pullout class who truly truly wanted us to learn, and guaranteed us A's as long as we learned, on tests you corrected your mistakes, if you bombed an essay, she walked you through it and it became a near-perfect paper. Now in high school the top English students are almost all from her class.
Don't worry, I do know how to spell, my mother made me and my brother learn spelling young, she is adamant about that. I also know proper grammar, so I wouldn't be lost without spell-check, but it does make life easier, and takes care of a lot of typos.
College-bound student percentages though aren't all that reliable. My school touts our over 95% college-bound student rate, but every student has to at least apply to a college. No, democratic schools do not by any means call themselves prep schools and do not pressure their kids to go to college at all. The schools believe that the students should decide what's right for them, so definitely not prep schools.
Doing REAL things in schoolwould also help, probably. For example, we do labs in science in an effort to increase "hands-on" learning, but everyone does the same lab, one that has already been proven by the last year of kids, and the last year, and which has no purpose in the real world. It would be so much more interesting if what we were learning and doing and testing mattered to people.
I've been considering all this. So far, I've come to the conclusion that I want to go to the democratic school in my state, the Alpine Valley school, and do a trial week there. Even if I don't end up going there, I just want to see firsthand what its like. However, when I'll get the time to actually do a trial week I don't know.
I also have discovered that if teachers acted more like students were fellow human beings with independent minds, everyone would be happier. A real life example from today:
History, first period, studying women in the west: an hour full of note-taking and lecturing as we all longed for our pillows It was clear that no one really cared and the teacher was obviously taking down to us.
English, seventh period, the class was talkitive, the teacher decided, and said, it was just because we had come back from lunch and had energy. I had the teacher read over my essay. Since I already learned most of what we're doing in English, I knew my essay was good, but I asked about some points where I thought it would need work. When I persisted in asking how I could improve my essay, she said "Don't worry, it's an A paper". I knew I'd get an A, it was a good essay, I wanted to work on my writing skills, but that shouldn't matter, as long as I get the right letter.
Math, eighth period, Spent entire time going over quizzes and homework
After school: I stayed for a few minutes to talk to my math teacher. Most of the class agrees he's not the best teacher, but he's a nice guy and I chat with him when I have a few minutes. He talked to me like an equal. We discussed how cliques form in smaller versus larger environments, about how friendships form. My brain was more active in those say, 10 minutes than throughout the hour long math period.
Anyway, for any of you have actually read this far , basically, all I know about democratic schools is off the internet. The library doesn't carry the few books concerning them. If I do get to go to a democratic school at any point, I will definitely gain from it, whether it's a good school or not. I know that this post seems like its truly favoring democratic schools but honestly, I have doubts about them. This post mostly explains why I find good points in them in comparison with my experience in school.
Posts: 130 | Registered: Jan 2007
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jlt, I am about 99% sure that a friend of mine I taught with long ago taught at this school, or ran it(if there is a person who "runs" it.)
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Originally posted by jlt: A democratic school is a school that centers on democratic principles and participatory democracy with "full and equal" participation from both students and staff...
Ahem Perhaps you'd care to just link to sites in the future, instead of just lifting from them verbatim, huh?
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I guess I misunderstood you, then, Zeugma. (btw, you left out my smiley in the paragraph you quoted. ) I thought you specifically were advocating that all children were naturally intellectually curious. I'll post a more thoughtful response to what you really meant a little later, when I have more time.
-o-
quote: The vast majority of private secondary schools are, wish to be and/or bill themselves as prep schools. That includes Catholic schools.
I don't believe that this statement is accurate, although I am certainly willing to look at your evidence to the contrary. When I lived in Miami, this statement certainly was accurate. Now I live in a much more rural part of Florida, and no private school within an hour of me could be described that way, but there are quite a few private schools near me. The vast majority are Baptist schools that do not have any pretense of being preparatory schools. They refuse to hire any teacher, no matter how qualified, who will not attend their church, will not tithe, will not attend Church meetings on their own time, and, finally, who believe, personally, in evolution. (You have to sign a statement.) It is pretty clear to me that they view their school as an extension of their evangelism. (As a teacher with substantial experience working in one of the most prestigious private schools in the nation, certified to teach both mathematics and language arts, and qualified to teach computer programming and Spanish as well, I could not get so much as the time of day from them, despite being Christian at the time, because I believe personally in evolution and will not claim otherwise.) They don't have the words "Preparatory School" in their name, and I would be willing to bet that their rate of going on to college is lower than or at best equal to that of local public schools. I would say they neither are, nor wish to be, nor bill themselves as college preparatory schools.
The other local private schools are mostly geared toward exceptional student education. The nearest school I would call a college prep school is in Orlando, and I would say Orlando has two.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Actually, I didn't get the text in the first post from wikipedia, I got it from answers.com. Still, I'll cite sources of information in the future if it makes people happy.
Posts: 130 | Registered: Jan 2007
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My mother spent much of her teaching and administrative career running programs that provided a non-academic track for students to have alternatives to the usual low-level jobs available to high-school graduates.
I can't say exactly what motivated her to pursue this so vigorously, but she was very successful in pulling in grants and getting local business people to take on students for practical business experience as part of their high-school career.
This was separate from the more typical vocational education the school (a large urban high school) also provided (shop classes, hospitality industry classes, etc.).
I know that she remains thoroughly convinced that there should be meaningful alternatives to college track and that the educational system where she worked was failing the students who weren't destined for 4-year college.
Also, I can vouch for the truth of Icarus' assessment of the private schools in the Central Florida area. I know there were a small number of preparatory academies, but the majority of the private schools in that area were run by and for fundamentalist Christians who passed a doctrinal litmus test, and they made sure the instructors passed the same litmus test.
Posts: 300 | Registered: Dec 2002
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We have a 4-year college in our area with a doctrinal litmus test for faculty and staff. Part of it is (as I understand; I haven't taken the oath) believing in the literal truth of the Bible.
Lavalamp, you should be very proud of your mom. We need MANY more administrators with that kind of dedication to vocational education.
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by jlt: Actually, I didn't get the text in the first post from wikipedia, I got it from answers.com. Still, I'll cite sources of information in the future if it makes people happy.
jlt, this is not just a matter of making people happy. If you don't know why, it would be worth investigating.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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I drop by once in a while, and found this wonderful thread and want to add.
jlt, when I was in high school I complained to my cousin that while she was popular and having fun, I was not and had an awful life. Girls didn't like me and I didn't like my classes. I got As in classes that I could pass from general knowledge gleaned from my subscription to Time magazine. And I got bad grades in the rest. (I always thought that homework was for kids who didn't understand the concepts.)
My cousin said that she had noticed I was not popular and added she had talked to her older sister about it. Her older sister said, "Well, Lynn is the kind of guy that gals in college will like."
It is a dumb story, because I didn't like the answer then. I wanted a girl friend THAT YEAR. Not in 100 years when I was in college.
But that's how it worked out.
I went to a junior college, got scholarships to a good Division 1 university, got a PhD and work in a great job where I get to do what I want when I want.
My real thought is to try to convey hope, without which life is almost unbearable.
In my area, kids can take college courses from a local junior college their Junior & Senior year. Being such a diligent young person, I am sure you'd be a great match for that. Does your school have anything like that? You can start college essentially with up to 2 years of college credit.
Good luck. I did struggle with the long post w/o breaks, but read it because you are clearly so sincere.
And I'll bet you came here because you related to Andrew Wiggins. Neh?
ps: Your brother can probably get into a junior college like I did and then bootstrap into a good Div 1 school and do whatever he wants. This is the greatest country on earth.
Posts: 121 | Registered: Jul 2006
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fugu- The private schools in Bloomington might not have college prep as their primary goal, which is understandable, since they're Christian schools. However, all of the ones I'm familar with (St. Charles and Lighthouse) do their best to turn out students capable of getting into any college they want to.
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Yes, that's certainly true. PB is talking about a type of self-categorization, though, not a general aim. Almost all schools would, I hope, try to make kids capable of attending college. A prep school is a subset of those, a school whose purpose is to prepare kids for college, and whose resources are focused on that end.
I don't know too much about lighthouse, but I don't think either St. Charles or Lighthouse would tell you the reason they existed was to prepare kids for college.
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"When I lived in Miami, this statement certainly was accurate. Now I live in a much more rural part of Florida, and no private school within an hour of me could be described that way, but there are quite a few private schools near me"
Perhaps that is true. I grew up in an ex-urban area, but still near a major city. What percent of Americans live in or near an urban area? I can't seem to find the data, but I wager that they are very high.
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The best estimate I could find was that 20% of Americans live in rural areas, but I think the author was using rural in a different way that Icky is. (The document was talking about availablity of health care. . . Joe, you don't live somewhere so rural that it's hard to find a doctor, do you? Only 9% of US doctors serve the 20% of Americans who live in rural areas.)
But check out this cool site I found while I was looking!
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Yes, that's certainly true. PB is talking about a type of self-categorization, though, not a general aim. Almost all schools would, I hope, try to make kids capable of attending college. A prep school is a subset of those, a school whose purpose is to prepare kids for college, and whose resources are focused on that end.
I don't know too much about lighthouse, but I don't think either St. Charles or Lighthouse would tell you the reason they existed was to prepare kids for college.
I misunderstood. I know that there are prep schools, but I didn't realize he was asserting at all private schools are prep schools.
I think that most private schools do strive to teach children better than the public schools in their areas do; because they need to, in order to convince parents to send their kids there.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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Not necessarily. They need to convince parents that they do something better -- be it by providing religious education, a safer environment, a more college-prep education, a more art-intensive education, etc.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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A very close friend of mine is a teacher in a private school and she says that a pretty good percentage of the students in their school are there because they've been kicked out of public school for discipline problems. Given the number of stories she has for me, I'd say it's a higher percentage than most of us think it would be.
So, private schools may not necessarily need to prove they're better in any way, simply the fact that they'll take kids that don't have anywhere else to go may be part of their appeal to some parents.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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There are private schools for children with special needs and private reform schools. They are a tiny minority, however.
Posts: 211 | Registered: Dec 2006
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quote:Actually, I didn't get the text in the first post from wikipedia, I got it from answers.com. Still, I'll cite sources of information in the future if it makes people happy.
It doesn't matter if you got the text from your deaf uncle in Alabama. You can not quote other people verbatim and act as if it is your own thought. Today is a good day to learn this.
(Of course, this doesn't apply if you're J. Carter, but still...)
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote:Originally posted by jlt: Actually, I didn't get the text in the first post from wikipedia, I got it from answers.com. Still, I'll cite sources of information in the future if it makes people happy.
jlt, this is not just a matter of making people happy. If you don't know why, it would be worth investigating.
I know, I know, it's a plagerism, giving credit, issue. I'm running into my whole, but this is an online forum, not a report mentality.
Posts: 130 | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: A very close friend of mine is a teacher in a private school and she says that a pretty good percentage of the students in their school are there because they've been kicked out of public school for discipline problems. Given the number of stories she has for me, I'd say it's a higher percentage than most of us think it would be.
I suspect this one varies greatly by state and/or municipality. Around here, kids are more likely to end up in public school because they had discipline issues in private school (and the school is not equipped to do psychological and LD testing) than the reverse.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: I wonder how many of my honors high school math students would take no math at all if they had the option, and I don't think that's acceptable, because I think they benefit from the experience.
quote: You know, what happens is that intelligent, motivated people, such as those who tend to post here, simply can't imagine that everyone else wouldn't be just like them, given the opportunity. I totally understand this; I find myself instinctively teaching to the type of kid that I was. But just because we are curious doesn't mean that curiosity is commonplace or natural.
I've been thinking some more about democratic schools. You know, I don't love the idea even for highly motivated, intellectually curious students. I think learning requirements and guidance make for a better education. My anecdotes are personal:
#1-- I am a curious & motivated person who loved college, and I always took as many credits as I could every semester, but there is no WAY I ever would have taken astronomy or geology in college (or any other lab science) if it weren't a requirement, and they were 2 of the most valuable, fascinating courses I took. Same for history of medicine. I simply was not interested in science, was not going to use it in my life, and didn't want to be bothered. I don't *use* much geology or astronomy, but having to take the courses enriched my life. This is what I fear in democratic schools, where learners are the only directors -- students miss out on things because they assume they're not interested.
#2 -- Essentially the same point. I'm in 3 book clubs right now. I love to read and I love to talk about what I read, but that's not my main reason for being in the clubs. After joining the first one, I realized that virtually every time I felt grumpy about a selection, I ended up loving it. I never ever in a million years would have read The Glass Castle, for example, or The Stolen Child, or March. They're just not "my kind of books." Being in book clubs forces me to stretch as a reader, and I've stopped vetoing book choices unless I've actually tried and hated them.
None of this is to say that a traditional high school is better than a democratic school, but that some requirements are helpful in promoting intellectual growth.
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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"I suspect this one varies greatly by state and/or municipality. Around here, kids are more likely to end up in public school because they had discipline issues in private school (and the school is not equipped to do psychological and LD testing) than the reverse."
Private schools run on the parents' money and on alumni contributions. There is a certain unfortunate reality that students with poor academic skills and behavior can sometimes be passed though the hoops to save the money.
As Rivka said, though, many private schools do not have the resources to provide remedial instruction.
What my dad found in his school, though, is that this changed in his years at his school. Now, there are SpEd certified teachers. This is the same at a small private school I worked at after college.
Still, I think it is dangerous to generalize about private schools, because one of the reasons they are private is that they can be free to be different.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Originally posted by jlt: I know, I know, it's a plagerism, giving credit, issue. I'm running into my whole, but this is an online forum, not a report mentality.
And this is a whole "life" issue, not "just a report" issue.
Not many people here are going to have as much confidence in what you say now, at least not for a good while. If you'd lie about that (and passing off someone else's words as your own is lying, plain and simple), then we don't know what else you'd lie about.
But you are young and thoughtful, and you are earnest, and that counts for a lot. There are also not many people here who haven't done as bad or worse in younger days, whether in public or private, and so that perspective is helpful, too.
But you will still have to clock in some good time to show yourself trustworthy now. That's why this is a life thing.
----
Edited to add: Ask me about some of my more stellar and memorable mistakes some time. I will happily do a little penance by telling you in great detail just how I screwed up and what dastardly natural consequences came of it. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:If you'd lie about that (and passing off someone else's words as your own is lying, plain and simple), then we don't know what else you'd lie about.
For what it's worth, I don't consider what you just did to be "lying;" "lying" would be actually claiming that those were your words.
I DO think it's lazy -- and, more importantly, it's a bad habit to get into. Cutting and pasting text from one source and into your own "mouth" will not help you develop the critical analysis and communications skills that are absolutely essential for success in intelligent society. Many people here will feel you've been "dishonest" if you quote something without even the slightest attribution; I won't, but I think you're cutting corners that you shouldn't cut.
In general, you should be able to take anything you find online and make it better -- more apropos, more amusing, whatever -- by putting your own spin on it. It's almost always worth the effort. And if you don't have the time to make the effort, just post the link to the site with the information and act like you're doing everyone in the thread a huge favor by saving them the effort of a Google search. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: For what it's worth, I don't consider what you just did to be "lying;" "lying" would be actually claiming that those were your words.
When you put it up under your name, you claim it as yours. At least, by my read. I can't make sense of putting posts up assigned to names, otherwise.
[This seems to be a general assumption -- e.g., it's why we say to one another, "When you said X" or "Didn't you say Y?"]
Nonetheless, I do strongly concur with the rest of your post, Tom. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Tom explained my motives a bit more than I did. I did not want to write up my definition of democratic schools. However, i wan't trying to claim the text as my own at all, I was just lazy, I suppose. I wanted to have the text directly in my post so people could see it without haveing to follow a link. In any case, I won't not cite or link again. (Hopefully) case closed.
Posts: 130 | Registered: Jan 2007
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In public school you are mandatorily exposed to a variety of subjects that otherwise you might miss out on. In democratic schools you might miss out on that.
I am generally interested in many subjects, and I think that's why I get good grades. But in school it ends up being too much forced information, too many things I am forced to study that I don't really want to study. The kids who suceed at democratic schools are probably much more disciplined than me because they monitor themselves, whereas I can be lazy and simply study for the test.
Also, sometimes while the subject material is interesting, the work is not. For example, in physics the laws of motion and theories of relativity interest me, but the work and problems we do on them do not.
Another disadvantage of the public school class is that when you become truly interested in something, you cannot easily pursue it in depth because the class has to move on.
If I went to a democratic school, I might not be able to drive myself to study, but the kids who go there haven't been taught to dislike studying and they hold theemselves to their own high standards. I imagine if I had gone all my life to a democratic school I'd know much more than I do now because even before kindergarden, I could read and I wrote books for each season and went around my yard and taped leaves and such on them. But if I went to a democratic school now, I don't know what would happen.
The worst year of my life was in seventh grade. I had a horribly dysfunctional group of teachers, and in May, I truly broke down in body and mind. I wasn't sleeping, I felt nauseous all the time and missed school because of it. I didn't care if I loved the subject we were studying, it was just more work, just more work that the teachers didn't appreciate, just more work that was breaking me down. After seventh grade, I stopped giving 100% in school, I still give maybe 90% but, that year broke me. That year, I began to really hate school.
Now, I'm still not happy in school, becuase in seventh grade, it became a horrible place to be. Even after a good year in eighth grade, I feel like class is unhappy. The school broke my will to learn, its mended since, but it's not what it was. Before then, I would never waste time or decide that something wasn't worth the effort to pursue,but now, I don't know.
That's why I don't know if I'd do well in democratic school. But the kids around me in school must have had their will to learn broken long before, because by seventh grade, I was an abnormality because I paid attention in class.
Other posters have suggested that not all children are innately curious, but to me it doesn't seem like that could be true, otherwise why wouldn't toddlers just sit and drool? Why would they play? Why would they learn how to speak? I think that the people who remain curious in high school in college are just the most resilient, or have given up on school entirely.
I think I would like school again, as I did when I was younger, if they didn't try to make everything so orchestrated. I don't mind putting on skits in french, but when it becomes an assignment, rather than something fun, I don't.
In any case, my thoughts are limited by my own experience. I know I can still learn things on my own, but not near as well as I could when I was younger. So with democratic schools, there might be an issue of when you get there. If I went now, I don't know if I'd sink or swim, but if I had gone younger, I would have swum.
Posts: 130 | Registered: Jan 2007
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There are private schools for children with special needs and private reform schools. They are a tiny minority, however.
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