What if you woke up on your first day of fifth grade, ready for whatever life had to throw at you, and you realize that kids have changed? They were bigger, stronger, and more emotionally hardened than you, who had skipped fourth grade. This was the case for actor Ken Newman. He was picked on for being the ‘small kid’, and the bullying only got worse through high school. He went on to Cornell University as a fifteen-year-old, still wearing braces and not shaving. Even with a high school education, he was not prepared for college. “For the first few weeks I was so homesick that I cried myself to sleep every night,” he said about his college experience. This is just one example of academic acceleration gone wrong.
Academic acceleration is a program that moves a child through their education at an enhanced rate. While the most
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Ken Newman said about his experiences with bullying, “Kids thought it was funny to grab me and stuff me into the trash can.” Another thing to worry about is that teachers are not taught how to accelerate someone in college. “Teachers who attended the information meeting(about acceleration) and received written information expressed more positive opinions about accelerated students’ social competence and school achievement and motivation and less negative opinions about emotional problems after intervention.” reported a study of teacher attitudes towards acceleration. Both of these, from the perspective of a student being accelerated and the perspective of a teacher, are enough to shy people’s heads away from the practice. But what about the other students? Opponents of acceleration argue that the needs of one individual are worth less than equal opportunity for all. Acceleration Institute, an information source on acceleration, stated the following: “Individual differences have been sacrificed in the political battles and culture wars about
Caroline Bird writes the statement in her 1975 article “The Case Against College (Bird 15-18)” that not every high school graduate is ready to attend college. It is 2010 and this article is still valid today. Some of the college students I have been around were not mature enough for obedience school let alone college. A few of the points she makes in the article are: College has never worked its magic for everyone. Does it make you a better person? Are colleges responsible for your children? Are my children living in a country club? I will use some of my own experiences as an example of college life, as well as examples from my daughter’s college experience, along with my nephews as well. All to find the answer to the big question: Are you ready for a college education?
...story of AP Frank, Julie, Audrey, Sam and the others can be any number of students they may know. More importantly the book offers readers a chance to also evaluate their own experiences in high school. It is recommended that potential readers of Robbins’ expose’ recall or identify a student in the community or within themselves who are goal driven or preoccupied with success as they read. Perhaps from this perspective the reader may gain an insider perspective to the true culture of academia around them.
Inside us all there is a deep dark fear this is what grabs us by the thresh hold of life. It controls the most important aspects of our lives. This is found within the deepest and darkest chasms of our souls. The very creature that wreaks havoc in our minds we cage and never confront we lock this beast away to afraid to overcome it. If the beast is not confronted it begins to contort and change who we are as a person and how we interact with others. Even the very decisions we make as a person to affect those around us and are loved ones to also suffer the consequences of our actions. Such as the crucible and how each person was warped into their own monster by greed.
“School can be a tremendously disorienting place… You’ll also be thrown in with all kind of kids from all kind of backgrounds, and that can be unsettling… You’ll see a handful of students far excel you in courses that sound exotic and that are only in the curriculum of the elite: French, physics, trigonometry. And all this is happening while you’re trying to shape an identity; your body is changing, and your emotions are running wild.” (Rose 28)
Studying a university degree is one of the biggest achievements of many individuals around the world. But, according to Mark Edmunson, a diploma in America does not mean necessarily studying and working hard. Getting a diploma in the United States implies managing with external factors that go in the opposite direction with the real purpose of education. The welcome speech that most of us listen to when we started college, is the initial prank used by the author to state the American education system is not converging in a well-shaped society. Relating events in a sarcastic way is the tone that the author uses to explain many of his arguments. Mark Edmunson uses emotional appeals to deliver an essay to the people that have attended College any time in their life or those who have been involved with the American education system.
...oroughly gives students what they need to thrive in the real world – thus creating a successful public school. Although many points made by Chris Mercogliano are valid of the traditional school setting, the early college model (and my high school experience) may be the traditional experience of the future. With this new approach, the United States can pave the way for the future and remain a world intellectual power.
Within the past four years of my high school as “ Willis Bilagody”, have been been such a rollercoaster ride. There were the funny/fun times when the people there made it seem that way, and bumpy times; by that I mean the work and the grades. The struggles of becoming the active and successful person I am to society was because Freshman year of high school, it was always just trying to fit in. Always getting the preaches of being the hard working adult that we had to be, and that nothing is always going to be there handed down. Then came along the money. There had to be a way to have cash to spend, and oh wait, working. Working and doing yard work for people of the neighborhood was first step on becoming self-reliant. But although, I was recognized as having Insomnia, attention-deficit disorder (A.D.D.), and synthesia that didn’t stop me from going to school, or dropping out and being a loser. I just had to keep trucking, that’s when hiking/backpacking came along for me. To me hiking was my escape, “I’d always known, in the abstract, that climbing mountains was a dangerous pursuit.” (Krakauer 450). How things were applied for school sometimes.
Gail O. Mellow is the president of LaGuardia Community College. In her article, The Biggest Misconceptions about Today’s College Students, she argues that there are misguided judgments present about the ‘typical’ college undergraduate. Mellow, writes this to inform the reader about the challenges college students, mainly ones at a junior college, have maintaining structure between their personal and academic lives. She adopts a firm, formal, and assertive tone for different groups of people; likely, financial trustees that could also be her fellow colleagues, any member of a staff of a higher learning institution in general, and even general taxpayers. She supports her claims about financial and academic obstacles students have by further explaining
He argues that sending students who are unprepared for the difficult education, who are most likely driven by societal pressures and misconceptions of the success college may bring, is the wrong approach, and ultimately causes many negative consequences for the students. For instance, he identifies one of the most prominent issues of college being the tuition, stating “the financial costs, let alone the emotional toll of the young people involved, is scandalous” (Reeves; Paragraph 4). Students who are unprepared for college often end up paying for typically high tuition just to either cost their institution millions of dollars for remedial education or drop out without gaining any money back. For instance, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about one-third of freshmen do not return to the institution for a second year, implying a high rate of dropping out. On the other side, for students who relentlessly study to be admitted to schools, there is a chance of receiving merit aid–money granted by academic institutions for students who have good grades or test scores.
Determining college readiness is an essential part in determining who will qualify as a good candidate for admission into a college or a university. The last thing that colleges want is for students to qualify for admission and drop out, this affects drop out rate and graduation rate. According Robin Chait and Andrea Venezia (2009),
Gus Van Sant's film creates a heavy impression of what can occur when students reach their limit. Some students can not deal with the social injustices of high school. Others deal with these injustices by picking upon other students, in the long run the whole system must be changed to deal with these issues. Schools must change their policies and develop new strategies to combat the social injustices occurring today.
High-school: some kids go to class, some kids go to parties, some kids go Harvard, and other kids drop out. No two kids are the same… that is what makes high school the unique and interesting place that it is. A high school caters to the wants and needs of a large variety of student types. Walking down the hall, you notice a pack of girls chomping on their gum and texting (not inconspicuously) with their football playing suitors dragging along behind – the preps; a group of boys with their glasses pushed well up the bridge of their noses, conspiring about the Big Bang or the derivative of the cubed root of the sine of two pi – the super nerds; and somewhere, running between the other clans, books piled high, scholarship applications flying off the top of their stack, are the stressed-out, college-bound overachievers. It is later that I am concerned about. The way that these college-bound overachievers interpret the expectations of college causes them to lead hectic, stressful lifestyles.
The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or S.T.A.A.R. is a test required by the state that students have to take in grades 3 through 8 and are required to take 5 in high school. This test is unfair to the school districts, teachers, and students.
I’ve also always had the inner drive to perform well athletically far beyond what I achieve academically. Unfortunately, I’ve never had the same success athletically, as I have had academically. I’ve come to enjoy athletics enormously. Athletics have become my teacher and the will to learn, thrive, and achieve more than where life’s circumstances have placed me.
It is my belief that the goals of education are to provide students with critical thinking skills and the tools to live successful and prosperous lives. As a future educator, I play one of, if not, the most significant role when it comes to meeting the goals of education. It is not only my job but also my responsibility to ensure that all students are equipped to live an independent, successful life and to become an emotionally intelligent citizen. I will meet the goals of education through engaging students with hands-on activities, using different strategies to meet the needs of all students, and creating a community-based atmosphere where students feel comfortable to learn.