SChool Board Members

It's always interesting to hear from members of the community that are also involved in the school system because they have so much to say and comment on. However, whenever a students mentions something about NCLB or standardized testing, there seems to be little else discussed. I understand that NCLB is a big deal right now, but I also feel like I am not usually presented with any new knowledge or opinion about it. I guess I'm just tired of hearing the same thing over and over again.

I did agree with one of the members when he mentioned that although academics are important, that doesnt make a well rounded student. He seemed to think, and I agree, that students need social and athletic involvement also. So, although other countries may push education into a higher priority, often the kids are just getting the acedemic side, and don't always have to social skills to be able to interact with their peers and have fun. It reminds me of what we talked about in class; I.Q. will get you the interview, but E.Q. will get you the job.

High Stakes Community School

There were a few good and bad things about the lecture tonight. First, I did like the idea of doing a lecture in small groups; it got everyone involved so different opinions could be shared. And, the teacher- school board- parents set up is an actual situation that we could experience one day as teachers. Also, I thought that the 2 profs. did a good job at presenting the new change for the schools and did a good job with coming up with answers to questions on the spot.

On the other hand, people seemed to take the debate very personally. People were so defensive when someone else in the lecture or a board member would ask a question that seemed to contradict their point. People got so worked up about a fictional situation that it almost seemed ridiculous. Although, I did think it was good practice and forced people to think about different topics that they could be dealing with in the future, I also think that some of the groups needed to not take the contradicting questions and counterpoints so personally.

Library and Database

The lecture was fairly repetitive to last year since we learned about searching and the library database last year in Paidia. And, although the fact that we had already learned about this through Paidia was brought up multiple times, we were still lectured about it... I didn't get a lot out of the lecture except that I now know that there is a tool to use that shows you how to site your sources.
I think that instead of talking about it in lecture, it would have been more beneficial to used that time to actually find articles or do research that would help us out later in class.