At the heart of public education is the idea that we as a citizenry should educate our populace. According to the PBS documentary, School: the Story of American School Eucation (2001) three questions have been at the heart of the educational debate since as far back as Plymouth Rock. Those questions are:
What is the purpose of a public education?
Who is to receive the educational services provided by the public?
How does government ensure the quality of these educational services?
With our school’s fate hanging in the balance, these questions take on even more importance as we as a school are asked to demonstrate the school’s commitment to academic achievement. You as seniors are being asked to demonstrate your academic growth in your portfolios and presentations of learning. And this is precisely why, I want you each to think about what does academic growth mean. As you formulate your definitions, I hope you consider multiple ways of demonstrating your growth, and challenge yourselves to show your learning in ways that might be outside of your own comfort zone.
Most P.S.1 students are people who take great pride in being individuals, in not conforming to what some might call the dominant society. I certainly am one to champion those who stand up against oppressive belief systems; however, as I grow older, I am less likely to simply discount the dominant society as being stupid or annoying or just plain wrong, and rather, I strive to understand where might there be common ground between the various sides, and look for solutions there.
I encourage you to take pride in what P.S.1 does well (respectfully allowing for creativity and individuality). I also challenge you to take into consideration deeply:
- How DO you demonstrate that you have grown academically?
- What observable measures can you bring forth?
- How can you use descriptive statistics to show your acquisition of knowledge?
- How can you do this succinctly, perhaps in a graph?
- How are you measuring yourself and your journey?
- How do you know that you have achieved academic growth?
- What areas are you still deficit in?
- How are you pushing yourself now to learn and grow?
5 comments:
Where once was timid and cradled by meager knowledge, is now oozing with an amplitude of enthusiasm and bookishness.
Be omniscience!
How have I demonstrated growth? Through tests, yeah, to some extent. From awards, through whose eyes? I have put on meaningful POL’s and have created portfolios for many a years. I‘ve thrown in documents from before and after classes, showing improvement. High scores on tests. Things I have done that the ‘normal population’ would be forced to do. Nevertheless, I want to know just how much of my true learning’s and been transcribed to my audience? I behold a lot of knowledge, so how can I share that efficiently?
I am not sure I have answered any of these questions but as I write this very line, I realize that in this very instance I am growing, learning, and pushing myself. For I am the only one to comment and therefore am putting myself out there, doing something that in the past I would not do, and try to blend in with the norm.
-Drew
What is the purpose of a public education? To teach the unfamiliar the familiar. Basically to teach those who can't teach themselves the basics this life requires from us. You can't thrive within this society with out being educated in some shape or form. Whether it be street education, or book education.
How I demonstrate academic growth? Well I believe I could show academic growth in many ways. I could simply display my past work that I am proud of, and not say a word. Or I could express academic growth verbally just as easily. The way i shoe to show academic growth is verbally instead of visually. But then again people will ask for a verbal explanation for a visual piece. So in reality visuals do not explain them selves half the time. That is why I am taking the verbal road in displaying my academic growth. Did I even answer the question correctly? - David C.
I'm interested to see how some People in our class will represent their learning statisticly. A few days ago, in class, it was mentioned that P.S.1 is a predominantly qualitative learning environment. I think that this is perhaps one of the better descriptions of the school that I've heard in my years. But the question still remains, how can we express our qualitative learning in a quantitative manner. I realy like the idea of using statistics because of how concrete and visual they can be. alot of people think of statistic in two dimesions, cause and effect. though there is usualy only one effect (i.e. learning math) there can be a multitude of causes. I plan to try and represent some of my qualitative learning with statistics and I think the more variables that I consider, the more accurate my quantitative representation of my qualitative learning will be.
- Click Bang! what a hang
Looking back at the countless portfolios and presentations of learning that I have done I am aware now more than ever that showing academic growth is one of the things I stuggle with the most. When Itell someone ot show someone how I've grown personally it always has more of an impact than when I talk about academics. I guess I don't have as much enthusiasm for the academic.
I show my academic growth by showing the before and after of a product. If the growth I've made isn't clear then I write a reflection that states how I've grown but somehow that doesn't feel like enough for me. It doesn't really feel like it captures all that I've learned from a class. Although I feel it doesn't cover all that I've learned doing things this way is the only way I can think of.
Posted by Abigail on Thursday, February 08, 2007 at 10:24
"Most P.S.1 students are people who take great pride in being individuals..."
Honestly i never had a problem with being in the mainstream, or the "norm" as you called you. I pop the collar on my polo's and i buy the pre-ripped jeans from places like american eagle but i know as soon as i put that polo on it goes from being mainstream and "preppy" to being me. Evn if i try with all my might to be the "norm" i know i never will. Hannah can never be "norm."
Posted by HaNbEiN on Thursday, February 08, 2007 at 10:41
sorry that didn't address any of your questions of about academics but thats what i felt like commenting on because the other day in class you talked about celebrating us, and i know i've struggled with being me and liking/accepting me but i've decided i don't need to worry about that because like i said i will always be an individual regardless of some of my conforming tendencies, and i've seen that other people like me regardless of that bs too so i feel like its okay for me to like that too, so i'm celebrating ME!
Posted by HaNbEiN on Thursday, February 08, 2007 at 10:45
I personally don't think that I fit into the "standard" of what DPS thinks that people should. I really don't think that people should be judged on their ability to do math problems or write stories. Not everyone is going to meet this standard.
I shall post more later when I'm able to think about this more ^_^
Posted by teH SmuRfy oNe™ *SmuRfeTTe* on Thursday, February 08, 2007 at 10:43
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