Complete school based homeschool program

Buried in another post, I have written about this before. I would however like to take some time to discuss it in detail as to make it clear what the program would involve if it did exist. Unfortunately I don't believe it does.

What the program is about and how it works
The basics are that an intelligent student who believes he/she would benefit from such program, probably only for the last 2 or so years of high school, will be able to take the material home to complete instead. When the material is completed and studied to what the student finds satisfactory, the student will return to the school for a few days and complete assessment tasks.

As to simulate the student actually attending the school, the curriculum will be exactly the same. Just all material will be outsourced as homework. This is for students who don't believe they need a teacher telling them what they have to learn if the curriculum is given to them.

Students will have to attend school once a week, perhaps a dozen of them on the same program in a designated classroom, to catch up on missed school activities. Such as if their class had watched a movie that was important to the subject or if there was information vital to their success. A staff member, perhaps a year coordinator, will check what they have been studying to ensure they are in the right place and so the student may request assistance if necessary. They might not have to attend for a full day, only a few hours.

So students are still enrolled in the school, and they still learn but intelligently in their own way. It would be just like attending school, but not physically.


Benefits
Obviously, the most important benefit is time saving. I believe if I were on such program, each term would be completed in a few weeks, not ten. Because of the inefficiency and wasted time during school, the same amount could be done much faster without having to sit in class wasting time. It is not necessarily the schools fault. They can't really make a better system then having 70 minute lessons because sometimes that time is needed. Often it is not in which case it won't be used effectively. Learning at home as an individual obviously does not enforce this time block system.

Secondly, students will greatly exercise time management skills. I believe time management is one key to personal development and as such, being able to train time management at a young age will greatly benefit students on the program.

They will enjoy learning more. Students on this program are on it because they don't like learning at school. Not because they don't like school(well they don't), but because they don't like the ineffective methods used. If they don't like learning at school, they don't like going to school. By not learning at school, they should enjoy it more. I would.

It will increase their out of school social life. At first they might feel deprived of being socially active. They won't have school to rely on to make friends anymore(this is why it should be last few years of high school only). It will just mean they have to go and be social in a way which does not involve school, like they would have in a few years anyway.

Increase free time. Having the unit done so quickly will mean there is a long time before the next one, holidays will each be 2 months in length at least. This will give the student plenty of time to do extra curriculum activities, learn other things, get a job or just use at their leisure.


Complications
Not compatible with all classes. This can easily be solved by having the student attend school while those classes are on. Such as, HPE(playing sport, not theory), woodwork and metalwork, and possibly a few other specific classes. Not all students take these classes. I know that my classes could easily be completed at home on this program.

Does not fit in with bus schedule. Students who would have to catch a bus which only leaves at the end of school, and have classes which must be completed at school as mentioned above, would have to remain at school for the entire day. "The intervention room" could come into use, as the student could just remain there to complete what they would have at home, so they wouldn't have to do quite as much at home. Lowers the benefits slightly, but it's no major deal really.


Personally, I would want to do this. I thought of it while I was ranting about school and I can't see any reason why it should not happen. The only thing is, not many students from each school would want to do it. That's not really a problem though, but they would not really bother if just a few were going to do it. I am sure I could do it, particularly if I slept polyphasically.



EDIT - further complications and solutions
I received a comment which pointed out a few flaws with this design, so I would like to work out a solution for them.

So I believe the main point of concern is that at a public school, much is taught orally. This isn't always the case. Not with the school I go to as teachers usually hand out the information they are reading from anyway. However it does happen. I will agree that teachers will often teach orally. Perhaps more so to the students who do not quite understand, such as in maths. Subjects like maths are fairly simple to learn from the textbook. Making use of the given examples and looking at some of the answers usually helps understand the concepts, not just the formulas.

Some other subjects however, given exactly what the students who attended the class normally were given, but without actually attending class may not be sufficient to learn the requirements. The obvious solution to this is give students on this program more resources. Textbooks, Internet(which we all have), and their research skills should be enough.

Some subjects will require the student to actually attend like I already mentioned when I wrote this. Like I also said, just attend those, not the rest. Some students will end up going to school an hour on Monday, 2 hours on Wednesday and maybe a bit longer on Friday. Does not majorly reduce the benefits of this program.

Another issue was that many people are homeschooled because they want to choose what they learn and have their own curriculum. That is true but this is designed for people who are okay with the public high school curriculum and only have a major issue with the wasted time. This ties in with people who are homeschooling for religious reasons. If they aren't okay with the curriculum, it is not for them.

Another flaw I realised is that, unless the education department, and the school both accepted the idea and managed to incorporate it into their system, it unfortunately just wont happen. Too bad, but I still like and support the idea.

Improve Primary School Homework

The solution to primary school homework is simple -- don't just pile up tasks for them to complete. Instead they should be taught how they can effectively study for themselves and not have to slave over unrelated homework. Then, by the time they reach high school, they would have figured out that what the teacher gives them isn't important - it's what they actually learn that is related to the course.

Kids come home from school, often packed with homework to complete by the deadline. Not all, but definitely a considerable amount of children anyway. They do not need to be given a large amount of work to complete at home, especially those in the low grades. It would be a better idea to influence them to study the material themselves rather than given a preset homework sheet designed for everyone.

School's seem to overlook a lot. Students would spend a lot less time doing homework if they weren't given much, but knew that they had to study it for themselves. They would also learn the same amount in the process making homework much more efficient and effective. It would carry on through high school. Students, particularly smarter ones, won't have to be told what to do for homework. They will just know "learn this" but not to be bothered by busywork.

My views on homework

In my own experience, I haven't always been bothered by homework.

During grade 1, we wouldn't get homework, unless we really wanted to do it. At the school I went to, grade 1/2 were together, same as 3/4 and 5/6, though there were several classes of each. So grade 2's would get homework, but were not expected to always complete it, and it was easy stuff. Then came grade 3/4, same as grade 2, but they expected us to complete it and it was slightly more involved.

Grade 5 got interesting, we actually were given proper homework to do but the only punishment would not be getting a sticker on the wall for our homework completed. I found that funny, so I quickly learnt I didn't need to complete it. I was fine without it.

I didn't go to grade 6 -- I moved states and here grade 7 is still in primary school so I was moved into that instead. However at this new school, grade 7 was far more challenging.

We would have our weekly homework which involved an english sheet which often didnt teach us that much and required a bit of time to complete. Why did they try to teach us latin roots? Then we would have 2 pages of homework to do. We had to write a few brief overviews of news stories, complete the repeated from class maths, write out our spelling words then fill in how much we have read of books that week.

That was every week

Oh - and we also had to complete any Japanese homework we were given, and some other.

Every second week, we would have to complete a few paragraphs on the topic (whatever they chose) and occasionally do a speech on it. It started adding up to a lot and there was always that fear of "Oh no, I think something is due today".

I think that specific school was too strict. They expected too much of us and pushed us hard. We weren't even allowed to write with pens, and we had to use cursive. I didn't like that school. Slip up once and your guaranteed 30 minutes off your lunch. Infact I was kept back in for a lunch and a half because my homework wasn't set out correctly... and that was in the second week of school.

They wouldn't realise it, I didn't back then, but a lot of the work they give is busywork. I didn't think there was a point at writing out all of my homework again just because I set it out incorrectly. But, right now I could probably give good reasons and get out of writing out an hours worth of homework. An 11 year old has great difficulty being able to make well thought reasons so of course I had to do it back then.

Finally, after that year I was out of primary school. Then came grade 8. If you thought grade 7 was bad, you should have seen grade 8.

It was very easy.

We could use pen, we didn't have to worry much with setting out, the teacher wouldn't go psycho because we didn't write completely perfect and our homework was atleast halved. Although we still had weekly homework, it was much easier and didn't require as much effort. I still count much of it as busywork but I still hadn't realised that back then. Now if you thought grade 8 was easier.... grade 9.

Homework slowed down completely in grade 9. I don't remember having it(or more than 10 minutes for the week) for atleast half the year. Our maths was no longer checked and we stopped having to complete it all. I wasn't forced to study japanese, so that cut out a nice deal of homework.

English still has weeklies, like it does now(infact, same class as back then) but they weren't always given or checked, and nothing really happened if you didn't do it. There was only one term where we were given an english textbook to complete for assessment. About 95% of it was busywork, irrelevant, or an ineffective method of teaching, and 100% of it was a pain.

Grade 10, I have already talked about it. It is similiar to grade 9 but often even less homework.



So, I have learnt that the best option is to have barely any homework. I don't count assignments as homework even if they have to be completed at home, only extra work given by teachers. Not work you didn't do in class that you feel important to catch up on either, but just work set by teachers specifically to do at home.

I think that smart students are capable of completing whatever they need to at home as their own study. Not be given work by teachers which are designed for the majority. Infact homework isn't even designed for the majority, they are just what teachers think students may benefit from. The best way to go is to choose what you need to do.

Even if homework is continued to be set, I believe that there should be no consequences for not completing it.

I've said some of this before I know, but I hope I explained what I actually think better now without just ranting about how I don't want to write out spelling words.

I've also said this before, work does not equal learning. Even if it appears to be a task which requires thinking (such as reading comprehensions, wordsearches, crosswords, filling in the blanks on text, etc).

5 reasons why you shouldn't rely on school to teach you

1. The school's curriculum does not always provide sufficient material

Many times before, I've realised that a lot has been left missing by a few different subjects, and only a basic understanding has been given.

This year, in the computer class that I take, for 2 terms (that's half a year) we were working on this program called Gamemaker. That makes Games of course, and is a great, free, downloadable tool to assist beginners in creating games. The teacher we had at the time took us through the basic functions, and had us create a few of the example games. After some weeks, we had learnt the basic functions of the program and eventually given a piece of assessment.

If I remember correctly, the first piece of assessment was to create a game with a minimum of 4 different rooms. Now I wanted to get more technical so I decided I wanted to create a platform game. Using what we had learnt, the game turned out flawed, had dodgy controls, and I was just about the only person who could beat it. I still got a B.

The computers were down for a few weeks at the next term, but they decided instead of giving us a new topic they would give us another assessment for Gamemaker. This time, we had to create a game with a minimum of 7 rooms based on a movie. Since we had not covered any new material, and this game was a lot more restricted, I ended up creating an even worse game than I had in the first term. I still got a B, probably because we weren't expected to be able to do much better.

One day on the holidays, I got bored so I tried to create a game with Gamemaker. In not much time and a bit of Google searching, I ended up producing a far better game then we had ever created at school. It involved a rolling lemon with enemies to jump on, 45degree inclines, and a properly working system which allows the jumping and gravity to work(rather than being able to jump in mid air, like in previous games). The controls weren't dodgy and it functioned properly. They never bothered to teach us how to do more advanced things with the program.

This term, we have been studying HTML. After learning all the basic functions, we have been given our assessment. Now we must create an online magazine based on whatever we like as long as it contains the few pages that were requested, such as a profile and feature article. At first I thought that would be horrible, we had only learnt basic HTML. I tried to create the layout of the site, and it ended up very dodgy and looking like a complete beginner had made it.

From past experience, I know that instead of relying on what the school has taught us, why not just look it up on Google? I now have used CSS also in the website, for the basic layout. Now I didn't just go and copy a bunch of code and paste it into the notepad file for the layout, I actually wrote it myself. I can tell you now that the layout I created in about a lesson and a half is far better than what I would have struggled with using just the HTML we had learnt.

This all proves, that in this class, the best option is not to rely on the material they give and proves that it is much more effective if you look it up yourself.

2. Not enough sources

The way the school teaches you is not the only way. Unlike in reason 1, they can provide sufficient information, but only in one view. For example, if you read the history textbook given to you for the subject, it will provide you with the information you need... but it is only one source. Generally with history you have research assignments, but you may often be learning by the book, the one source you are given to learn from.

The same goes for maths, you don't need as many sources because it does not have many different views on it, and they are generally all correct. But it can greatly help you understand if you can find it on the Internet explained simply.

So, if you can find more, often more relevant sources it can prove useful. Because they weren't given to you by the school, you aren't relying on the school's resources to teach you.

Sick of reading the science textbook? I find it often best explained on wikipedia.

3. Much of the time in class is wasted

I know I wrote a bit about it before, but it is here again. When you go to a class, a lot of the time you won't learn anything relevant or useful, or you just won't learn anything at all. Often pointless worksheets are given, or the methods used just aren't efficient.

In my health and physical education(HPE) class, for several lessons we watched movies. Sure that's okay, a nice easy lesson, but I didn't really learn anything. Other than that, we copy notes off the projector about illegal drugs and how to avoid drugs(including the basics about confidence and self esteem -- I barely bothered to copy most of it).

This goes back to what I said in a previous blog entry Here where I explained about a non existent program where some students who thought they were too good to attend school normally can just be given the material, study it, complete the assessment then sit the exams and be done for the term in less than 2 weeks. That's 1 year of school in 2 months. That is how inefficiently class time is spent.

4. You don't learn it all at school

This reason isn't just school, it goes on to university.

I am looking at computer game programming. When I leave school after senior, I definitely will not have what I need, I won't have the qualifications, or the skills.

So then I would go to university for that, study Maths and IT. That will get me the qualifications, but from who I've talked to, and from what I know, it won't always get the skills. I don't see a university course teaching all the major programming languages to students. I see that as more of a thing they would expect students to do in their own time. I most likely will learn programming before I go to university anyway, and I am definitely not going to rely on university to teach me the skills I need.

As I've read before, the degree gets you in the door and your skills and experience do the job.

However in saying that, some courses may give you all you need for the job, but like I said from what I know, not this one.

5. School is designed for the majority

The system is not best fit for you, it is best fit for everyone. Top of the class, you are doing well but you can't rely on school to take you much further because the slower people have to catch up. Just like how I wrote about our spelling, a few people in the class struggle with some of those words, and, because it is designed for the majority, I was stuck with them. Actually it was decided that we don't HAVE to do them anymore, but it still stands as a good example of what they tried to give us.

Same in math, you might have worked out the stuff last year and don't want to repeat it with slight more difficulty added to it this year. However again the slower people in the class won't have done it as well and will need it again. I am only getting a B in math, but that is because I don't need to spend the time to get an A until next year.

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I personally don't rely on school to teach me. I don't come home with 4 hours and 40 minutes worth of learning(time spent in class). I don't even get 2 hours worth of learning, maybe 1 hour on a one off occasion.

It will be nice when I am finally out of it.

More Romeo and Juliet and school

Well just in the last week or so, we were given our assessment for English. Two tasks; one is to write an essay on whether or not we think Romeo and Juliet is suitable for Grade 10 and write a scene from Romeo and Juliet but in a different time setting, I believe I mentioned that one in a previous entry.

So I find that funny, half the assessment on Romeo and Juliet is writing whether we think it is a good idea for grade 10 students or not. I'm sure you know what I'll be writing about.

Also, last lesson in science we had a substitute teacher. Instead of doing completely boring and obvious tests which may amuse (or completely bore) a grade 3 student he showed us a bit of basic chemistry with some household products. That's what we have been supposed to be doing this term, but turns out so far we really have failed to be taught much. Sure a half hour to work out Australian bar codes start with "93" but you just learnt that by reading it(much easier).

Well, I had this idea, an idea the school will never accept. Both from legal issues and their views on school which are obviously different to mine.



How about a special program.

One which certain students could do instead of attending school. I know this sounds silly, and most will think its a bad idea, but I think I could complete each 10 week term in less than 2 weeks, if I was given the material and assessment. Once finished, return to school for a day or two, complete the exams and move on. Possibly visit the school for a short period once a week for any school updates, class updates and changes.

Trouble is some subjects cannot do this, such as HPE. Well one solution would be to have a blank timetable except for that class, or just not do HPE, I'm not.

It would be more like a TAFE course. (not sure if it is called TAFE in other countries such as America, Google it)

It is just that SO much time is wasted during school, and I agree with the opinion that one side of it is to keep young people busy while their parents are at work.

But that's why this option would only be for a small number of people, those who can actually accommodate it, and It should only be for seniors.

Now you might think that it just sounds like home school or actually leaving school and attending TAFE, those are options but they cost money. I don't necessarily think that the school is incapable of teaching that I would have to go for another option, I just think that the system doesn't work for me, and I'm not liking it. So this would just be a school based program, nice and simple, saves time.

(not so)Relevance of School Work

Like I explained in a previous blog post, I had been having difficulty working out how writing sentences with words I already know will teach me anything. As an update on that, the teacher is going to check them in the near future and I have about 60 words to go, which I probably won't do.

Well other than that, we have been given our form to choose subjects for our senior years. That's all well and good but they have already worked out what times each of the classes are in before they worked out who wanted what class. Guess doing a poor job doesn't cut their paycheck, so it doesn't really matter to them if half the people aren't satisfied with the class options they have.

What I am talking about is that, there are 6 blocks, you have to choose one class for each. You have to do an English, and you have to do a Maths. So because they chose the classes for each times before knowing which students wanted what classes, you get a bunch of things you want in one block, and nothing you want in another block. You can't choose 2 from the same block. So, in one block you have to choose from Japanese, German, health education, physical education, agriculture, chemistry or ancient history. The only 2 I wouldn't cry if I was forced to do are chemistry an ancient history. That doesn't mean I want to do them.

So, for 2 years after this year I will be doing ancient history. I would rather ancient history because it is probably a lot easier, but either way neither subject will really help me. I'm not saying I don't want to learn chemistry, I just don't like the way science is done in school.

So, that means in another block there are 2 subjects I want, extension maths and one of the computer based subjects. There is another computer based subject, which I will do, but it is frustrating how they put a computer based subject and maths on at the same time. I guess they can never get it perfect, but it would have been a lot better if they worked out classes before times, then maybe *30% would be unhappy/don't care instead of *50% being unhappy/don't care.

The reason I say don't care is because it would be unfair to take a percentage of people who are happy with the subjects against those that aren't, because that's just it, a lot of people don't care that they have to do a few subjects they don't want. Therefore if they looked at it they would think its okay because only maybe *20% of people are actually unhappy, the rest just don't care. I do.

So now that I have one more subject that I don't want, and one less that I do want, if I want to get a good score for university(college) from grade 11 and 12, I have to do well at a subject I dislike. If I want a completely perfect score, I would now have a lot more work to do in ancient history to get it. Like with chemistry, I am not saying I dislike history, it is just one of those subjects I can do much better on my own.

So now that I have a burdened senior, what else involving school is there that I want to rant about?

Well we had to read Romeo and Juliet. I would be surprised if someone got through grade 10 without ever having to do it. A lot of people like Shakespeare and his works, and I am not going to argue that reading it is absolutely pointless. I just don't want to be forced into it.

It seems the only important reason we read it is because it was written 400 years ago. Sure you might say it depicts love but a lot of people my age I've talked to don't really think it is that important either. If you are an adult, you will probably say it is, and you were also probably bored of it when you were in high school. Why not wait until I am an adult to bother with it? because I was already forced to do it before I cared...

I also feel that with every generation people will become less and less interested in it.

Also with the early modern English, and that it is written like a poem, it doesn't particularly teach English. The older language is obsolete, and we shouldn't have to remotely learn it to get the gist of what the text means. I didn't have fun reading it, and I am glad it is over now all I have to do is the assignment. Writing a remake of a scene but in a different setting, a literary transformation.

Too bad I haven't thought of a good idea for that yet.

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*Percentages are estimated based on who I have talked to

Busywork

Recently, I have become increasingly aware of the population of schoolwork that we get which is busywork.

Busywork is work assigned which is intended to keep the person, in this case students, busy or it is work which is pointless and teaches nothing. This can also include homework. It is not limited to students and schoolwork but in this case it is.

So basically there are 4 terms at school, each about 10 weeks in length with time off seperating them. One term is generally used to focus on one part of the subject. Let's start off with English.

So close to the start of the term, term 3 it is now, we were given our spelling lists. Well I never thought one of the top grade 10 English classes would need spelling lists. Alright, that's not so bad, spelling lists.

It is when the majority of the words are no harder than "vault" or "balcony". Now that wouldn't be an issue, sure some easy spelling tests every week. But down the bottom of the page it says something like...

Each week students must write 10 different sentences for 10 spelling words on their list.

Now if at some stage at home, I have to stop what I'm doing, and write down 10 randomly generated sentences with words that I use every day I am not learning anything.

You may ask, "What's the big deal, its only 10 sentences once a week. You may aswell just do it." Let's say you are living with your parents, one comes to you while you are busy and says "Hey, go take the trash out to the bin, place it in the bin, get it back out of the bin and bring it back inside." It won't take you very long, go do it.

From taking the trash out and bringing it back in you learn nothing, it gets nothing done and it wastes time.

By writing 10 sentences with words I learnt how to spell at primary(elementary) school I learn nothing, it gets nothing done(well, except for some sentences, but what will that achieve) and it wastes time.

If it was an effective method of teaching they would make us write sentences at school, not at home, we have plenty of time in class.

Now you might say, well have the teacher give you harder words. Well giving me harder words won't help me pass the course because writing out 10 sentences a week, even if each has a new word, probably won't teach me new words very fast. As I just said before, it is not an effective method of teaching and that is so because it takes more than 1 sentence for a word to learn it, especially if attempting 10 words every week.

The best way to learn new words is to find synonyms for common words until you find ones you don't know, or to type in things that could sound like words into an online dictionary until it gives you words that are similiar that you don't yet know.

Of course trying to learn 10 at a time, by writing a sentence for each won't help much.


How about math

Well math isn't so pointless, appart from that more than half of the stuff we do we already completed in grade 8 and 9. We get a lot of work to do, many exercises. But when it gets to the point where you already know it and you don't need to keep writing out the same equation but with different numbers over and over, it does get pointless.

Some people need that bit of extra practice, so I can't really say that it is pointless to most people. But I would like to point out that all of this revision we do of previous years should not take aslong as it does and I really do not do much work in maths because I find it much more efficient to just revise a bit before the exam, rather than repeating exercises over and over for weeks in class.

Atleast our teacher doesn't get too annoyed if we don't do it.

I will conclude this saying that you do not need a lot of the work to get the top grades for the course and that more work does not equal more learning. Working hard at a pointless activity won't mean you do better at school.