So, some of you might know this, some of you might not, but I used to be in college, studying to become… something because I had no idea what I wanted to be. Or, at least, that’s what I told you because I didn’t want you guys to know the truth. You see, I WAS in college, but my major wasn’t “General Studies”- it was in Teaching, specifically English with a bit of Chemistry mixed in because Chemistry is fucking awesome.
I wanted to become a teacher because I felt that would be the best way to make an impact on the world around me; I was pretty good at explaining things to people so they got the underlying concept behind the random facts being taught in class, so I figured I’d give it a try, and I found out I was pretty good at being an actual teacher too (or, at least a damn good tutor).
So, in my Junior/Senior years of HS, I took a few classes (a few being seven, most of them with college credit) about becoming a teacher and all that entails, and as I progressed farther and farther along, I started to notice something. The higher up you go on the educational ladder, the less and less is actually taught to a student- they are simply expected to understand the concept hidden behind the information they are being given and know how to apply it in a real life scenario on their own.
Now, at first I said nothing about this to my teachers because I thought that was how it was supposed to work; it worked for ME after all, as I had very little trouble getting the idea of what was being taught in class, so that ought to be the same for everyone, as long as they applied themselves. However, by the time I had started my first year of College, I came to understand that while this was how things were supposed to be, it was not how they actually WERE.
Through my time as a tutor (and eventually a student teacher), I came to see that our current education system is failing at a critical level- rather than equipping the majority of its students with the right tools and conceptual knowledge they need in order to make it on a college campus, most major High Schools are simply handing students a list of facts they need to memorize and recite back in test form, leaving them with none of the information behind why these facts are important or where they might be useful, save for “I have to learn this because my teacher/the school/the state says so”.
You would not believe the number of times I hear that exact statement (in all its forms) when I was a tutor/student teacher and, after my first semester of classes at TJC, I decided I needed to do something about it. I was certain I wasn’t going to make much of an impact, or even any kind of impact really, ( I was just a freshman after all), but still, I wanted to try all the same.
So, during spring break I devised a series of outlines, detailing a different way of teaching a class (I say “different” instead of “new” because I’m pretty sure it’s an old way, simply being done a bit differently). Seeing as my major was in English, I decided to use that as my “Test” subject and, over the course of the first two weeks of classes, created a group of lessons plans based around my idea and presented it to my professor once they were done.
Now, while there isn’t enough room to post the actual plans here (they took up over 200 pages), I CAN summarize the idea behind them in the remaining space available to me rather easily.
The basic idea, at its core, was based around my experiences as a one on one tutor and how I managed to reach those who were struggling to understand not just the concepts they needed to learn, but the facts being taught as well- rather than force students to memorize the various (and at time times complex as all hell) parts of grammar, and then move from that into reading literature such as Hamlet, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Great Gatsby, my plan involved having students write their own papers around subjects they wished to write about and, using those papers, I (or whoever was teaching the class) would take the interest the student had in that subject and turn it back onto the point of the class; namely, learning how to properly wield the English language to your own advantage.
This would be accomplished in two parts. The first would be through a somewhat typical grading process that graded the papers based solely on the quality of the writing itself- not the coherence of what was being written, but rather the basic, standard procedure of adhering to proper grammar, sentence structure, and the like.
This, however, was only part of the students grade (and a small part at the, only about 30%) - the second (and largest) part of the students grade would be based on the content of their papers, on the students ability to formulate a coherent thought and express that thought in written form, regardless of how poorly said writing was executed. The point was not to teach them what made up a proper sentence/paragraph/letter, but to show them, through their own writing, how to write one in a way that got their point across as intended, without confusion or misunderstandings.
The idea, obviously, could be expanded to work for subjects other than English, as the concept behind it (teaching a student how to use a specific piece of knowledge in the real world rather than just teaching them about it) can be stretched to fit a variety of styles, unlike many current, rigid forms of teaching.
Now, I was never able to properly test this method, as I was forced to drop out of college due to financial and personal issues, but I am confident that this method of teaching would greatly improve our current education system- and remove the need for standardized tests, as the whole “point” of this teaching method is equipping a student with the tools they need to survive in the real world, rather than teaching them how to answer a group of random multiple choice questions (and maybe an essay or two).
The realities of your path shall never defeat the purpose of why you do things.
Your ideals, your goals, your dreams, they will be fraught with misery. They will be turned in on themselves, defeated, crushed, you may become bitter, you may become cynical, you may have regrets.
But those will never defeat the reason you did it in the first place. Never will the bitterness of age be a more powerful force for change than the ideals of youth.
Welcome!
Welcome to Bleach Gotei, an alternate universe Bleach RP!