If we could create your very favorite school or academy where you could go to school and take classes that really interest you, where would you choose to go? For example, would you go to a Music Academy so you could learn to sing or play an instrument? Would you go to a Dance Academy so you could learn to dance different ways? Would you go to a Science and Math Academy so you could learn to be scientists, doctors or astronauts? Would you go to a Leadership Academy so you could be the next President? Tell me what kind of school academy you would create if you could?
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I'm not really sure I understand the question. How specific do you want us to be? This seems kind of like asking "what kind of college/university do you plan on going to?".
ReplyDeleteUsing your examples as guidelines, I would say that I would want to go to an Engineering Academy because I'm interested in pursuing a career in engineering. The introduction of Project Lead the Way at MHS was a great idea because without that, there aren't many electives that seem appealing to me.
Should I elaborate?
You have answered this perfectly! This is exactly what I want to know. I do know about Project Lead The Way and believe it has been very successful. Does Project Lead the Way go into different kinds of engineering- Chemical, Civil, Electrical, etc? I used to be an elementary principal in charge of an elementary school for engineering-- very, very cool! Could you get some of your friends to write in what their ideas are? We are really trying to understand what kids want and would like to hear from them.
ReplyDelete(I'm the same person from the 1st comment)
ReplyDeleteI've taken three Project Lead the Way courses at Memorial High School and am in the process of taking the fourth and final course offered. The first two courses (Introduction to Engineering Design & Computer Integrated Manufacturing) don't really focus on any particular area of engineering, but instead build a background essential to all types of engineering. We learn about the "design process", in which we sketch designs, build prototypes, and use either software to create 3D models of our designs, or create physical models with moving parts. After each project, we present our work to the class, which improved my communication skills. From what I've learned, communications skills are essential to a successful career, no matter how intelligent a person may be.
The third class I took was "Digital Electronics", which dealt only with Electrical Engineering. We built/designed circuits in real life and using software. The circuits we designed were fairly simple, but the whole point of the course is to gain a basic understanding of how electronics work. The highlight of the course was when we built these mini robots which we had to program to navigate through a maze.
The PLTW course I'm taking this year is called "Principles of Engineering", which applies physics and engineering to real world situations. I'm not quite sure what kinds of engineering this will involve, but it will most likely be mechanical and electrical.
These were the only classes that I can honestly say I looked forward to going to every day, not because they were "slack off" classes (because they definitely weren't) but because we dealt with things that I can relate to everyday life.
Ever since taking shop class at Memorial Middle School, I've been attracted towards these types of "hands on" classes.
Wow... I didn't realize how much I wrote. I guess I just had a lot to say haha. I hope it didn't seem like I was rambling.
Oops, forgot to answer your last question.
ReplyDeleteI'll ask around and see. I randomly ran into this blog when browsing the SBISD library resources page, so I'm not sure how most other kids are supposed to find this.
Hi Ben,
ReplyDeleteNo, you are not rambling at all! Thanks for taking time to give me some very specific details. I am going to be sure to pass this on to the superintendent and other staff members making these decisions. If you could get some of your friends to write in, that would be great. We are trying to put strands of classes in place that kids are interested in(engineering, math, science, arts, etc). We seem to always ask adults what they want, but never ask the kids. I am interested in what the kids have to say about what they want to take. Any help you could give me would be great!
hi im melissa,
ReplyDeletei would like to go to a dance academy and learn all about dance..maybe even preform infront of an audience.
To me not everybody knows what they want to do i mean im a senior and istill have no clue what i want to do with my life and the part that sucks is now that im in my senior year im taking all these classes that i really like and would like to pursue and keep learning about before i go to college yet now its to late so for me the scholl that i would create would have open classes meaning any student in the school can go to any class for one week or one semester so that they can try and look what they like yes it would be hard to track students but it would help alot of people to decide before its to late what they want to do
ReplyDeleteI would make an academy that focuses the Arts.
ReplyDeleteI love the ideas for the academies! Please encourage your friends to keep sending!
ReplyDeleteIf there was an academy offered at a school OTHER than the one you are currently going to, would you transfer to another school to get to go to the program?
ReplyDeleteI would if I was entering middle school or high school, but not if I had been going to a school for a year or two. After getting settled in at one school, I doubt most kids would like the idea of leaving all their friends behind and starting a clean slate.
ReplyDeleteFor MHS (I don't know about other schools) there's the option to go to the Guthrie center for part of the day, while still attending MHS as the main school. This opens up a lot of new elective possibilities not offered at school.
To me, places like the Guthrie center seem much more appealing than transferring schools (yikes!).
i would like to do something that has to do with computers like making games and stuff
ReplyDeleteSOMS
Transferring schools after you have already started going one place could be a huge YIKES! I agree there. Do you think, for example, kids that attend a certain elementary school, might consider going to a middle school other than the one they are zoned to go to IF that middle and high school offered a program that the kids are interested in? I guess what I am asking is this-- do you think a student would go outside of the feeder pattern to attend another school if that school offered something really cool?
ReplyDeleteto many rules at homecoming i think it needs to me more in the hands of the students and not so much of the teachers planning it they dont really know what we want
ReplyDeletei like our new computers
ReplyDeleteI'm already in an engineering academy at stratford, but I think it would be interesting to be in a music class. I want to focus a little more on music (not being in band or orchestra), so a teacher that could tell me what I'm doing right or wrong and show how instruments work and other things generally music related would interest me.
ReplyDeleteI want to be a dancer and a translator so I would love a high school with many languages that we could take instead in place of a science class, or our senior year of math.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to go to an academy for english so I could learn to be a better writer. Stratford has made steps towards this with Mr. Nakadate's creative writing class, but he only has one class of this (which is full) and always says that he'd like to do more. In this golden age of technology we focus much more on math and science, while english and literary classes garner little attention. We create an environment where those who do not want to become an engineer or businessman are of little importance. Its depressing.
ReplyDeleteAt my school which is Stratford there are more science and business classes offered then writing. There is only one creative writing class and its not even offered to freshmen. My english class is all about writing literary analysis essays and creative writing is given no attention. I wish the school offered more writing classes or english classes that included creative writing.
ReplyDeleteOverall, i think it depends on teaching quality. I have a younger teacher who teaches spanish and has great ideas to make the class fun but it's hard for her because she's overwhelmed by the class and im always glad when the bell rings.
ReplyDeleteHowever, i also have an AP US History teacher who just sits and lectures for 100% of the hour and a half class period, but somehow it stays interesting even though, in concept, we've all been over the material and it is all just repetition of what we know.
So many plans have failed to make kids love school by having "fun activities" and an assortment of events and speaker, that fail to connect with students and really just get laughed at and detract from our class time.
Its hard to put a label on what will and wont work because each student body is different, and in that, each class is different. But, as cliche as it may sound, nothing will make me love a class more than having a teacher who knows their subject well and can really teach, which is harder to find than you think.
Even though I go to Shadow Oaks Elementry School,I stil think we need some fun here!So I would highly reccomand a dance team,but if you can't do that maybe you cold at least make some cool after school clubs for 3rd,4th,and 5th,and others for, 1st,and 2nd it would be so much fun if you could! Thanks for listening!
ReplyDeleteOverall, I think success or failures of a course would depend on the teacher. I am taking my first Project Leads The Way course, Introduction to Engineering Designs, and so far I hate this class. I am a daughter of an engineer, so I was exposed to CAD, engineering terms, etc. since I was a little girl. I love engineering, as a matter of fact. But in PLTW, so far, all we do is memorizing the vocabularies (not even to the level of understanding those things), while my teacher reads the material off the PPT slideshows. No more, no less.
ReplyDeleteI understand that we need to have a basic genralization of engineering before going to tackle advanced, real-life problems, but I find memorizing the 36 vocabulary words every two weeks not very fun. It seems to be there just to keep us struggling with "Why do we need to memorize 'keywords'instead of trying to understand concepts as a whole?" Copying the glossary also proves to me that even if I memorized the concepts words-by-words, I do not know how to apply it. I have my father to help me with IED (and gosh, now I am disinterested in Engineering, or at least, for this year.) Today, the girl who sits next to me does not know how to draw a tangent circle using Inventor, and she struggled without asking anybody (because she's afraid that people would think that she's dumb). That should not happen. Especially when the supposedly instructor just sit at the front of the classroom and says "Ask your peers."
In conclusion, it depends only on the teacher...
I dont want to work when i get to be 20 i just want to win the lottery
ReplyDeleteI would like to have career elective.
ReplyDeletei would like to create a academy thats full of interactive learning what i mean is that its fake holagrams of people that are very much apart of history along with macs in every classroom.
ReplyDeleteI would like to go to a Danca academybecause i want to be a professional Dancer.
ReplyDeletefor almost my entire life i have either wanted to be a chef or a actress. right now i am in the school play and and i am sure other schools have that too and i think that that is good enough. but in my school only a few kids are in the cooking class and i think there should be more than just a single elctive that only so many kids can be in i think that there should be something i don't know maybe a after scool place for kids who like to cook or smething. but at least something that would help kids know how to do some cooking. it could be good in their life to. for example what if there parent will not get home until later and they need to make food; or if one day when they have a family they might need to make some food for their kids so they can eat. if that situation comes along and they don't know waht to do then....well what are you going to do. that is my opinion and if you do not like it i understand but take it into concern because it could help some kid one day. thanks. :)
ReplyDeleteEvery studsent, in every school, wants to become something, a scientist, a doctor, a teacher, but they wonder upon a question everyday. Why can't students have a career now? In school! Why do older people, like poeple going to university get to go be whoever they want! Students at this age level should wonder this question. Why not have a university in school, and we are what ever we want to be in no time! I want to become a medical doctor, following my mother's steps, my mom told me that here, it takes more than eight years to become a doctor! So if i was eighteen, and i am in university, i would be 26 years old by then! That is a total waste! Now from kindergarten to 7th grade that is about.... seven years, actually eight because of pre-k! Why not study in those years, and then when you learn all those statistics, you are finnally a doctor!!!! So i think every grown up should take this seriously, why not have a school with a side dish of univresity to becoming anybody you want to be!!!!
ReplyDelete--janet
--cornerstone academy
i would go to friends academy to learn, interact, and go with them for fun things? Why not have fun with your friends and learn to be great people together! I think friends academy should be made!
ReplyDelete--a cornerstone 7th grader
hi jennifer blaine, i am a friend of janet at cornerstone academy, i am a 6th grader, i think.... there should be a school that is totally a library! because people people don't read these days because of electronics,
ReplyDeletei am still the sixth grader that wants the library school, i didn't gt to finish because the bell rang, and i had to get to class, i think because electronics are not something really interesting, books, like fascinating autors, or series like harry potter, make you fell alive in many ways, i think their should be one like that, because the authors make you inspireed rather than a company making you inspired into electtronics
ReplyDeleteI would want to be a evil super hero and take over the world just kidding
ReplyDeleteI would like a cosmetoligy coarse//academy for grades 8th through 12th because we can prepare for a future job. well i am just saying that because thats what I want to be when i grow up!!!!!!!!
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