On my way home work today I was listening to NPR as I usually do and heard a story on All Things Considered that made me glad that I don't have kids in school in Florida. "Fla. Bill Requires High-Schoolers to Declare a Major"
Jeb Bush recently proposed a plan to "improve" education by requiring high school freshmen to declare a major, essentially requiring them to select a career when they are only 14 or 15 years old. What's up with that? Shouldn't high school be a time for exploring educational options and trying new things? I know growing up that I went through many career paths on my way to where I am now. Like every young kid I wanted to be a professional baseball player, I quickly realized that wasn't going to happen :) Throughout school I really enjoyed science and thought about being a doctor or scientist for quite awhile even up until sophomore year at Tech. Being the nerd I am, I was in the acclerated math class in junior high and some of my friends called me barometer man because I'd always quote the barometric pressure from the morning's weather report because I thought I'd like to be a meteorologist. I went to a camp on Ossabaw Island off the coast of Georgia for a week because of my interest in marine biology. While I had a strong science interest I also greatly enjoyed history, government, and social studies. I longed to be on of the kids running around on the big map on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (I have the sound track featuring Rockapella on my Ipod now...yes I know, I'm a dork). I was speaker of the house in Georgia Studies during our mock legislature sessions in 8th grade. I even watched CSPAN for fun back then.
In high school, my interest in science and the social sciences continued but I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Most of my thoughts still led to medical school to be a doctor. I took anatomy and as many other science classes as possible, but at the same time I enjoyed my AP US History and government classes and did well on the AP tests. When it came down to the college decision everything was focused on science for the most part as I figured I would go to med school or pharmacy school. I was accepted to Mercer pharmacy school for their 5 year program but decided Tech was the way to go and I'm glad I chose the path I did. When I arrived at Tech as an undecided science major in the Fall of 1999 I was in for a great shock. I didn't know how to study. I thought I was a nerd, HA! I quickly felt overwhelmed by school and actually hated being in the city and basically confined to campus without a car. My freshman year I took general chemistry which I enjoyed and then in the spring I took inorganic chemistry which quickly turned me off the entire lab experience. I felt confined in the lab with its lack of windows and constant focus on one specific topic. Fall of my sophomore year brough on biology which I enjoyed but again realized I wasn't much for the lab. After my freshman year my GPA was in the tubes and at that time I didn't think I could pull it up as much as I did and as a result kind of put the med school thing out of mind. I was getting close to having to choose a major and sought out my other interests that had been spawned by Atlanta's lack of control in its growth. I chose Public Policy as a way to create my own major with the generous 15 hours of free electives which allowed me to take planning, real estate, and business classes that otherwise wouldn't have been possible in any other major. At the same time though I learned more about the government and how it really works, philosophy of politics and government, and just more about myself and how it takes all kinds of people for this world to function. Just because I was not an engineer at Tech didn't make me less worthy of being there. My interests changed as I experienced new educational opportunities.
Which brings me to my point after a long rant. As freshmen and even as seniors in high school most kids do not know what they want to be and even if they think they do, that may change. As part of the story the reporter interviewed two 16 year old students and one was heavily in favor of the idea since he's adament that he's going to be a doctor and wants to select a science major right now and the other is still undecided and wants options. What would be really interesting is to follow up with the two students to see what they ultimately end up doing in and after college. Ultimately by requiring a strict focus on a certain educational path so early, it appears that one's options will be limited in the future as a result of not experiencing a range of different classes. Futhermore, from an implementation standpoint, as the story points out, it will be nearly impossible for such a plan to succeed due to the basic core curriculum requirements already in place and that are not expected to change with the new plan.
As you can tell, if you made it this far, I'm not in favor of the plan. I'm interested in your thoughts? Listen to the story. From your experience, do you think you would have benefited from such a plan?
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5 comments:
yeah I thought it was bad too just like you. Then I did the research on it. It's not really a big deal at all. It's like when I took Accounting and Entrepreneurship in hs. I heard about that plan about a month ago. And you can change your "major" whenever you want. So basically it means nothing except you should take some electives in the end. I think in the end it's 3 classes for your "major". And it gives you a more real world approach on electives. But yeah my first reaction was yours until I did my research and calmed down.
Jacs
So you're saying that I should do some research after listening to the liberal NPR media? You're right I should have looked into it but I'd rather vent sometimes. But I guess that's a decent idea to allow electives like that but looking back on my schedules in high school I didn't have a lot of electives because of band taking up a period each semester. There's only so much time and I guess that would have put me on the fine arts track or something like that. I think everything just works together to help you figure out what you want to do eventually.
I did provide some random links for you though :)
I have not listened to the article. For me, the program probably would have worked -- I was undecided in 9th grade, but by 10th grade I'd decided I wanted to be an AE and was hell-bent on aerospace and NASA for the remaining 3 years of high school.
Of course, today with the benefit of 10 years of hindsight since graduating from high school, I wish that perhaps I hadn't been so convinced that AE was for me. But I could have never know that without having done it, and gone to work in the industry. And I do love AE. It just doesn't fulfill me quite as much as I'd hoped. I enjoy my job at the moment, but I know that in 2 years or 10 I am going to have to leave to do something more creative. Otherwise I'll go crazy.
That's a bit off topic, but oh well.
Well I guess my "Jump to Conclusions Mat" wasn't working. Given Jac's explanation it doesn't seem as bad as it could be, but I still think it's strange to make a rising freshman decided what he or she wants to do for the rest of his or her life.
The other thing that I read on CNN is that it doesn't really matter. If you change your mind you can still graduate. So what I got is that nothing has really changed, you can just add something on to your diploma if you so choose.
If it gets more electives in the high schools, I'm all for it. Knowing how high school education is going, I think its going to be a bunch of math and reading "majors"
Why don't we want to spend money?
Sorry for the rant
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