People have different ways of learning. Catering to only one way means that smart kids who learn differently fall through the cracks and struggle.
When it comes to mental health, theres a lot more to helping kids with suicidal thoughts than throwing around the suicide hotline number
Less testing. It’s overkill and draining.
Californian here, grew up in public school and my mom was a SpEd teacher. My list is LONG. If I had to pick 3 they would be:
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Irrelevant Curriculum (Either the material I learned was outdated then or is outdated now, or I just didn’t need it)
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Excessive Standardized Testing (Tested literally every year in school except for grades 9 and 12, always Advanced until SBAC in 11th) all they need to do imo is test maybe every 3-4 years if they were designed to do what they’re supposed to which is measure growth on material rather than measure student performance and have some weight allocated to the scores so the state can choose which school districts some of the funding goes to.
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Homework. College professors can give a 50 minute lecture and get across everything we need to know and maybe assign a few homework problems once a week or once every two weeks, not whole sections of textbooks. Some are able to do it without assigning any homework at all! If public school lessons aren’t ready to be delivered in 50 minutes including questions and hiccups unless that requires assigning 3 hours of homework due tomorrow, that lesson needs to wait until another day when it can be done in 50 minutes with hiccups and questions, and MAYBE 30 minutes of homework tops.
I think the problem with schools (in the United States anyway) really boils down to a failure to understand that not every kid is the same. Some teaching techniques just simply are not going to work for some kids. Teachers should be trained to be flexible in their teaching styles. Kids LEARNING should be the only objective, test scores will improve if kids are actually gaining knowledge. Also… for fuck sake PAY THE TEACHERS FOR THE EXTREMELY VALUABLE WORK THEY’RE DOING!!!
Big curriculum changes i would do include:
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Test for an ability to apply knowledge rather than an ability to repeat snippets from lectures
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More emphasis on practical life skills. Home economics, personal finance, and various technology classes (computer literacy, woodworking, home repairs, etc.) Starting at grade 1
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Teach information literacy
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Offer high school students career studies courses so they can get a taste of different careers they might be interested in pursuing after high-school. This way these kids don’t wander aimlessly into college and end up chest deep into a college major they end up hating.
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Art and music are important. Don’t step on kids creativity, it helps them learn, and deal with stress at school