Wednesday, September 5, 2012
your opinion on school
Some members of last year's founding network created an international, multi-media research group. One of the collaborators, Jasmin Baier, lives in Austria and extended her work into a project entitled, "How the United States culture is reflected in their high school system." To further inform her work, Jasmin has posted an online survey here; please take a few moments and share your perspective. I'm sending Jasmin the link to this post, so please also feel free to comment with your ideas and/or get in on the international think works. Mahalo.
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I felt the questions that I could only pick my answer from two things was very limiting. For the security question, I think that they help to some extent but that we probably needed better security. I felt like I was in-between two answers for most of the questions where we couldn't type a response.
ReplyDeleteI admit that the questions with only two possibilities might be limited, however, to get results that are more clear, it is important to keep the answering possibilities as low as possible. As I experienced High School Life at Righetti as well (even though if it was just for 6 months) I will definitely mention this thought, that I had of my own as well :)
DeleteSorry for answering so late! I couldn't quite figure out my Google Account password :)
I feel like the questions were productive and interesting to compare my opinions to other peoples about school. Although I don't know how great European schooling is so the question about comparing our education is kind of irrelavent.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all: I think so too :)
DeleteSecondly, as it is an opinion poll, it doesn't matter too much that you do not know how european schools work, it matters more what you think. Maybe you have heard a little bit about it, maybe you've heard of the PISA-test, maybe you've had an exchange student as your friend...it's really your impression that I am wondering about!
I like how it shows the graph of each answers. It was very interesting to see what other people think about school.Like how Cory said, I didn't really understand the European schooling question..
ReplyDeleteAs I have to present it to my principal, 10 teachers and 1 official grader/listener, and as our school system is going to go through a lot of changes, it is interesting for them to hear about other system, how well it works, what I think about it, but also what you (americans) think about the european system. I know (now) that not everybody is interested in Europe, and its school system is probably not part of most people's education. However, I felt like asking for your opinion, because I know that we have our certain thoughts about your way of schooling :)
DeleteI also like the graphing at the end and the security question was too limited. I’m kind of confused at the comparison between European schools and American school because I don’t think many students have been at a European school before or even researched them much. I’m kind of disappointed at the religious question statistics as well. I don’t really understand how it would be offensive to other non-religious/religious people and if were using that logic no one seems to care about the anti-Christian theme in Evolution that’s taught in Science class all the time. I just don’t see any negative affect about teaching moral responsibility towards yourself and your fellow class mates. You don’t need to force kids to pray but how could anyone be hindered from taking the class?
ReplyDeleteI feel like that question was asking if schools should be allowed to have kids pray and take religous classes. Like, if they were to have the classes they would also have students pray. I'm not sure if that is what it meant though, I was a tad confused. I see nothing wrong with taking the class; it's always interesting to learn about religion, but I find it strange that a school would request a student to pray. I think that's why so many people said they didn't think the school should have religous classes.
DeleteI agree if that’s what the question was asking. No one wants to be forced to do something, good or bad.
DeleteIn my school, we pray together every morning, in some way it's like you do your pledge of allegiance. We are "forced" to take religion class, however we can choose between something called "ethics" and either catholic or protestant religion class. For me it was weird to find that at Righetti (and other public schools) there is no possibility to learn about your religion or other world religions, even though so many more people attend church, than they do in my school. I personally do not think either that offering religious education is offending, but apparently some people do^^
DeleteThe bar graph that showed the final results was a great touch. I was compared to 90 people on some and 84 on others and that was an interesting visual.
ReplyDeleteThis was a pretty interesting survey. I was quite impressed with the end, I didn't expect to see the percentages from other participants in this survey. Some of the questions probably could've done better with a few more choices, but overall you can probably get a good perspective on how American high school students think of certain things about school.
ReplyDeleteThank You :) I tried my best considering the choices, but I guess it is not perfect :) That is alright though, I have never done this before, and even though the paper is supposed to be as scientific as possible, they do conider that I am 17 and that my mother tongue is not English :)Thanks for your opinion!
DeleteI agree that are the answers are very limited. I think hthere should have been more questions on curriculum and how USA compares to Europe.
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting, as other people before you thought the comparison to Europe was unnecessary!
DeleteI would love to write more about the differences between the USA and Europe, however, I "only" have 40 pages, and explaining the whole High School system takes up most of it already. Adding cultural aspects, problems and personal opinion, there is unfortunately no room/time for more comparison :/ .
I took the survey, but i honestly didnt understand What was being compare.. education in usa and europe??
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking it!
DeleteIt is not really about comparison. I mostly wanted to know what you think about your school, as I can only write about how much I liked it :D Experiencing High School just for a little bit makes you believe that it's the perfect school system, and wayyyyyy better than my own school! I needed to know what american students, who grew up in this culture, think about it and how they experience certain things. The only thing I did compare was the "standard", the amount of how much american graduates know, compared to "european" ones (it is differen in almost every european country). Statistics say that Austrian, and especially Finnish students, get educated in a more "gaining knowledge" way, and apparently we seem to be 'smarter' what I don't necessarily believe. It is true that we have to study a lot more in general, a lot more facts, a lot more different subjects and to a much higher level, but what is the cost? Our schools don't spend any time on social things, there are no clubs, no sport teams, no ralleys, barely any school events...We KNOW facts and a loot of different things, but we do not leanr much about how further life is going to be, about being responsible for yourself and making your own decisions. For example we cannot choose our classes, and every single student who attends High School HAS to take math up to AP Calculus, if they don't get math, well they won't graduate. We have chemistry, biology, physics, geography, at least 2 foreign languages, most learn 3 (English, French or Latin, Spanish or Italian, Russian,...), we have to take 4 years of history and 4 years of PE.
There is no way of choosing any of your classes (but the language you're taking), 3-4 times a week school lasts from 8-5:30, the other days are 8-3.
No clubs. No fun classes (electives). no school spirit.
I don't know if I want to be smarter, or have a better schooling experience, but I know that nobody here likes school, so something is going wrong^^
So much to comparing :)