WEll… Tommorow at school I have this BIG test; A pre-exam in math. I’ve been preparing for weeks, doing tests, reading, writing notes etc. But not that many exercises, because they don’t seem to help. Then again, neither does my new strategy, I just have to face that when math isn’t about economics or logic puzzles I’ll never find it interesting. And it isn’t much of a secret that uninteresting subjects are rather challanging to prepare for, right? Well here I am, procastrinating the night before the test with the biggest impact on my allready poor grade. Which sucks, I am generally a 5-6 grade student. (B-A for americans?)
One of my other classes, one I am rather good at, is sociology. So i figured I’ll do what all sociologists worth his weigth would do; I’ll blame the society; or rather, the school system. The reason I feel justified to do this is because whilst our society have been expanding in a humongus speed since the industrial revolution, the school systems haven’t really changed that much since the 1800’s. Sure the system is somewhat more liberal to student opinion, female participation and the books might be newer; but at it’s core it’s the same freaking thing. So I have some suggestions on how to improve the great experience of learning for any and all student out there.
1: Experience points.
Yes, I am serious. If teachers grant points for everytime you deliver a task, complete a test, write an essay or get an answer correct in class the feeling of progression would increase thus motivating students to participate more in the educationsystem. Which feels better: seeing a C+ in your grade book, or looking at that progress bar seeing you’re just a few more points away from leveling up? You know it. What if when 3 students in your class gained 10.000 points the entire class gain aditional bonus points? That could really lead to better cooperation between students instead of unhealty competition that might occour in the present system. Unlockable perks and/or achivments for a class would make the experience more fun, wouldn’t it? The grade system wouldn’t even have to change, just make a certein amount of XP worth a grade, or a “level”. (Thanks to ExtraCredit for the idea: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3167-Gamifying-Education)
2: Drop the homework.
Acording to most statistics, too much homework is actually working against it’s purpose. It seems that if you work less than 60 min per day with homework, and have noteable educated parents, you will gain from your work. However if your parents are somewhat “lesser” educated, or you’ll spend over 90 min on the homeworks it only results in tired students with lower score in school and less interest in further education. So we should either cut them completely, or at least minimize them. (source you say? http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376208,00.html, amongst others.)
3: Less theory, more practical work.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a theoretic guy. As stated before, exerscices and tasks does nothing for me. I learn trough notes and reading; the thing is though, most people don’t. Statistics (again) show that most people learn from experiencing and doing tasks with their hands. So by adding more field trips, games and such to classes a wider aspect of students may gain from them and grades might get higher. Of course, in certein fields this will be hard or even imposible; but we should try to do it wherever we can.
So there’s my steam, I’ll get back to my math and leave you with the content of my head. Untill another time, cheerio.
