Learn something new everyday…
I’ve learned so much today.
So it’s required that the Neos go everywhere just to be out and get to know people so I went to two “shows” today one for an NPHC Greek and one for a musical fraternity. I didn’t know that musical fraternities got down like that! They were really hard saying poems that I knew, their faces were so mean and intense, I didn’t even know they had “shows!” And then other non-NPHC people were party walking in their line jackets and everything! I was kind of blown away by all that….but it was cool….do what you do. Might have some pictures up soon…
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It’ll be a priority to learn all these party walks so not to be left out in future outings. I think we’ll have a special meeting soon so all us Neos can learn, but after those “shows” I’m kind of excited about Friday…
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Went to work today…
I get so mad every time I go there. The premise of the school is so innovative, but when you look deeper, the school is so wrong on so many levels. Not only do they have to deal with the students’ educational gap between middle and high school (some people not knowing how to read well or how to do fundamentals such as their times tables) they are setting the kids up for failure in college and in everything else. For Example:
They get homework, but they also have a class called “study skills” in which the teacher tells them exactly how to do it.
They have a class called “science, technology, and society” which is what they have instead of something like biology…they do computer projects in this class. Nothing science related at all.
They don’t have any textbooks, it’s all on a laptop they carry around with them during the day but can’t take home at night.
They have science fairs, but they’re assigned topics to do their experiments on, and they’re told exactly how to do the experiment.
The have extended days until six every day but Friday at which they have another study hall with homework instruction and random classes. One class is “video game production” which only caters to one audience. (Personally I think that’s cool, but how many girls think like me? Plus the teacher for that hardly ever shows so that’s another hour of “study skills”…)
They don’t have tests, they have projects. (For instance in their literature class they’re studying poetry. As their project, they’re supposed to find 20 poems and make a book. They’re not supposed to WRITE them mind you, they’re FINDING them. AND THEN instead of studying poetry, they studied song lyrics to rap songs….IN A LITERATURE CLASS? SHOULDN’T THEY BE READING LITERATURE? OF IF THEY’RE STUDYING POETRY, WHY NOT STUDY SHAKSPARE OR DANTE?!?!?!)
Next semester, they can take their classes online. ( That’s wrong by itself, but they add to it by making them come to school for five hours to sit in a classroom for supervision.)
Then don’t even get me started on PE classes in which the boys are told to play sports while the girls sit and do nothing….
Wrong. WRONG. Basically they’re spoon-fed everything and at this rate, they’ll never learn to develop their own educational independence. They’ll NEVER survive in college if they can’t develop that. The whole institution is so full of technology, grant money, and just glitz, but has absolutely no content. The kids were failing before, and they’re going to fail again. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
The other mentors and I have taken it upon ourselves to help these kids as much as we can. We devised a kind of enrichment class in which they’ll learn the fundamentals they’re not taught in class. We’ll teach them those times tables, explain how to write effective papers, have a mini biology class, assign actual homework that they’ll take home and try to figure out. Hopefully we can make up for a little bit of what these kids are lacking…
ARRRGGG though….waste of taxpayers money…
