Week One Reading Reflection - Rethinking High School

What resonated with me the most was the author’s explanation of our current educational system and the consistent and continual trends. It is easy to sit around and just stay the course and keep the norms that have been around now for close to 100 years. The authors took a risk, seen an opportunity to try something new that would benefit not only the students but the attitudes of teachers, administrators and parents. I find that not only bold by invigorating that regular teachers can analyze, find fault, and want to fix the system instead of just casting blame and sticking to the norm which would be the easiest and safest thing to do. One area that I think still needs to be looked at for higher reform is that of creativity in our students. The current system is still using the factory model which may have been the right way to look at education 100 years ago, but now with technology and the change in attitude with education we need adapt to the twenty first century. Once we allow our students to become more creative I believe that the attitudes about school will become more positive, and with a positive outlook all assessments could easily improve over time. One reform that I did find in this chapter that seems to be working is making high schools smaller. Having a small school would give the students a sense of ownership of their school and their education which may push them to wanting to strive for a better education. I would like to investigate if the school systems throughout the United States are working on changing their philosophy of a conveyor belt system to a system that values what each student has to offer.