Kilee's soapbox

Today I talked to one of my foreign exchange students for a while about the education system. Then it sparked a really long conversation with my mentor teacher after school.

This foreign exchange student basically said that the schools here are a joke. School is way harder in Norway. They are more based on the sciences and math (which is what we are turning to as well), but they also don't have "busy work."

Okay, I really don't like busy work. I think all assignments should be given to enhance student learning. Although, some things could be busy work to one student but really needed to help another student understand things better. I think the ideal for me would be to have a range of projects or assignments with varying degrees of challenge and let the students choose to do whatever challenges them to the next level. Some would be easier than others, but the more advanced students who need more of a challenge would do the harder assignments. I would totally like to set up my classroom like that too in the future if I could. But then the problem becomes the "fairness" of that. So many people are so lazy these days, and life is all about trying to make everything fair (apparently). I can guarantee that students would want the easier projects because they don't think it's fair to let someone do easier work than them. Many people think that everyone should be given the same treatment, so of course it wouldn't be fair to let Jonny have an easier assignment than Tim. Then Tim isn't challenged enough in school and either doesn't turn in his homework at all or doesn't pay attention in class because he feels like it's too easy. I haven't figured out where the line is. No one really has. There is no right answer to these kinds of things. Teachers just do their best to meet the needs of their students.

That was a bit of a tangent.

Another difference between the US and Norway is that they don't have tons of homework assignments. It's just assumed that students will do their work and/or study enough to know the material. And they don't have multiple choice tests. They really KNOW the material. But here, teachers do give busy work and multiple choice tests. And I think that is because the young generation of Americans expects everything to be easy and handed to them. So, no, they don't really do much studying. We even had a class where many of the students failed an OPEN NOTE TEST. How is that even possible?

Another issue I have is when teachers form their class to have high expectations, they get a bad rep because they are "so hard" and "expect too much."

So, where is the line?
Well, like I said, I don't know.
I don't even have a really solid opinion about this. But I find the differences noticed by this foreign exchange student both fascinating and troubling. It makes me think.

What do you think?
(be nice)