A High Schooler's Re-Design of the Education System

https://medium.com/@zachcmiel/a-high-schoolers-view-on-the-education-system-9fc85517c8fe#.4p2a9hmde

by thefifthprint • 10 years ago

17 7 10 years ago

I’m a junior in high school and I love entrepreneurship and business. I’ve made 14+ apps on the iOS App Store and have explored design and marketing through an e-commerce t-shirt shop and music discovery newsletter.

Sounds particularly gifted, both internally and externally, to have this under their belt by that age.

thefifthprint2• 10 years ago

I don't know if gifted is the right word. I just found out about iOS app development when I was young and ran with it

ccvannorman• 10 years ago

I think it's fair to use the word gifted although it's loaded and we should have better words. That said, his point is that while you are having good ideas, it's important to account for most students in your ideal system not having your aptitude--one big challenge in education is "how do you address the bell curve of aptitude" without going as slow as the slowest, or leaving anyone behind, or segregating classes. Education gets pretty nitty gritty when you dig into real world changes!

Good article, education is ripe for disruption especially in 3rd worlds.

JackFr• 10 years ago

I really don't want to sound like a hater here, but my only takeaway from this article was that the author is a high school junior, with some iOS app chops and he wants me to subscribe to his music discovery newsletter. It's not a piece that's information dense.

thefifthprint2• 10 years ago

Hi! My projects weren't supposed to be the focus of the post. It was supposed to show that I'm coming from a business/entrepreneurship standpoint. The plan which I think is most of the post was supposed to be the focus. Thanks for the feedback!

brudgers• 10 years ago

So don't.

nxc18• 10 years ago

The U.S. has two types of schools:

- excellent, well-funded schools in areas not experiencing socioeconomic stress

- underperforming, underfunded schools serving troubled areas

These ideas would be nice additions/improvements to take the good schools to the next level. Unfortunately, systemic issues are challenging and would be exacerbated for the troubled schools.

Also note that it is really hard to teach things like critical thinking. Also note that while creativity is super important, forcing everyone to take art classes hurts more than it helps - math, science, and engineering are all deeply creative in their own way, but the whole 'forced to do it for school' thing really kills all that. Rarely have I seen an art class that is more fundamentally creative than a traditional lecture.

I would love to see more emphasis on real-world projects and exploring things that are interesting to the student, ideally tying the personal interest topics in with the mandatory topics.

My high school really focused on a 'depth over breadth' concept where students would do in-depth research on a topic (using modern tools), then compile and present the research in some creative way. That is a really powerful way to learn, promotes research and critical thinking, and helps form a base of long-lived knowledge. One example: while learning about 'the gilded age', we went to an art museum with artwork from the area, read one of a selection of novels, wrote a research paper about art styles at the time, then painted a scene from the book we chose in an art style we learned about. That knowledge stuck a lot more than any of the test-memorization things I learned later; another take on quality over quantity, with the twist that too much quantity leads to absolutely nothing in the long run.

A High Schooler's Re-Design of the Education System

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