More than Just a Piece of Paper

More than Just a Piece of Paper
In the article For Most People, College is a Waste of Time; Charlie Murrey expresses his thoughts about the continuum of testing throughout a professional’s career. He feels as though a bachelor’s degree does not explain anything about a student’s ability, but rather is a piece of paper that explains your time at a college or university. Murrey states that the solution to this dilemma is to have no degree at all. He shares that the only way to see the students’ actual ability is through a series of tests. Some students may just coast through college without actually obtaining important and useful information.
I agree with Murrey in the fact that some students’ may just do the work that is needed to skim by in class with a C or even a D. This student will not be useful in a work setting, because if he is not willing to put the effort into his school work than where is the motivation needed to excel in the workplace. I know that when I initially started college I was one of those students that did the bare minimum to just pass the class. I would have been close to worthless in a business setting. For the students like me, in my past experience would fall through the cracks if there were certification tests. Murrey expresses that more than two-thirds of students with a bachelor’s degrees are not getting tested before entering the work place.
Murrey explains the benefits from a non traditional college experience through the use of online type classes. Students’ from a traditional four year college would do better than students from an online class due to the personal interaction with the professor. He expresses how certification testing would create an equal playing field for everyone, because the people who are unable to attend a traditional college would have the same opportunities. I do not agree with his idea of only using certified testing to determine the student’s intellectual capabilities.
A four year college like Capital University does not only pump individuals full of information, but rather provides students with valuable experience that will better them down the line. Another aspect about this system is the fact that some students are simply not good at taking tests. I believe that just by simply taking a test the employer is not able to see all if the abilities that a person may posses. A test will not show the personality of an individual or the creativity that they have. A certification test may turn a bright colorful person to a dull shade of grey.
A person who simply studies for a test may learn information but may not gain knowledge. When a student studies for a test they simply learn the information needed to pass the test, they are not worried about how that information could be implemented. Murrey says that an educational world based on certification tests would be a better place in many ways, because it would provide the people without a bachelor’s degree the same opportunities as those who hold that piece of paper. I think that this statement is simply worthless. If a student did not have to go to college to get the same type of job they wanted than why would anyone attend a four year university?
There is a reason why Capital Students pay 32,000 dollars a year to attend college. When we graduate from college we hope to have gained the knowledge and experience that will help us throughout our careers. If this notion of degrees is taken away than how or why would colleges exist. The world in general would not benefit from such tests. I would not want to have surgery performed by a doctor who throughout college never touched a scalpel. Murrey talks about the whole notion of creating an equal bond between everyone. I think that this notion is nonsense and will never happen. Getting rid of the traditional way of schooling is something that I consider to be barbaric and hope to never see in my lifetime.

Standards and curriculum

Making the Curriculum Exciting
The book Curriculum and Imagination, James McKernan expresses his thoughts on how a curriculum should be laid out and implemented. The most important aspect to think about when creating a curriculum is the audience in which you are teaching. The students’ thoughts and interest should be taken into account before the final curriculum layout is made. The problem with a curriculum is the fact that the school districts are not able to make their own curriculum; this is where the challenge appears. Teachers can think of a curriculum as molding clay; where as you are given a block to work with, but what you make of it is your own choice.
There are three major curriculum orientations, with one of them being the scientific curriculum, which includes social sciences. In the Ohio Department Standards for Social Studies students should be able to use knowledge of perspectives and products of cultural, ethic, and social groups to analyze the impact of their communality and diversity within local, national, regional and global settings. This is known as people in societies. McKernan stressed in the book that a curriculum is a powerful selection of values from contemporary culture. I think that in this always changing world that students need to be exposed or at least learn about various groups of individuals. The book explains unity versus diversity through the Social Market Model (SMM) perspective which advocates unity at the expense of diversity. This perspective stresses the notion of multiculturalism of values and cultures. Although people in Midwest Nebraska may not experience the same type of diversity as the individuals in Compton, both should still learn about different cultures throughout the world.
McKernan expresses that individuals should not only meet a pre-fixed standard, but rather expand the individual thought process and creativity. He also suggests that the idea of standards and performance levels and goals could be universally applied to all subjects across a curriculum. Education should not be measured by preset notions, but rather should be evaluated on how the information is implemented and evaluated. Through the social studies skills and methods benchmark students collect, organize, evaluate and synthesize information from multiple sources to draw logical conclusions. Students communicate this information using appropriate social studies terminology in oral, written or multimedia form and apply what they have learned to societal issues in simulated or real-world settings.
This will be different throughout various school settings, because this standard is very much socially based. Through this standard students will be able to engage in open discussion of the issues brought up though their research. By allowing the students to be involved in independent research the teacher is emerging the students into different cultures and enabling them to form their own opinions. A curriculum learning objective is to apply both theoretical and practical knowledge in the classroom. Students not only need to apply what they learn in the school setting, but rather be able to apply their knowledge in everyday situations.
Through the geography standard students use knowledge of geographic locations, patterns and processes to show the interrelationship between the physical environment and human activity, and to explain the interactions that occur in an increasingly interdependent world. The key word in this phrase is interdependent, all cultures and societies depend on each other for services and resources. I believe that there are multiple ways for teachers to address this standard along with a multitude of other standards. Teachers could either take on the traditional or epistemological form of teaching, learner-based, objective-based, or society and problem-centered curriculum in the classroom.
The traditional curriculum is approached in two separate forms which are the disciplines forms of knowledge approach and fields of knowledge, which are defined by their subject knowledge, rather than their distinctive forms. The learner-based curriculum is centered on the students’ strengths and interests. This curriculum is focused on the development of the individual rather than the subject, as a source of planning. The personal-progressive perspective is based on this curriculum where the focus is completely on the student.
The objectives model derives from a view that efficient technology, teaching and resources aid in the specific outcome. Ideas are based upon the behavioral change in students in both their educational and personal development. The society and problem-centered curriculum is based on the difficulties of living, this curriculum attempts to form a life-adjustment education using personal, group and institutional issues and problems. This curriculum I believe is most important when teaching social sciences, because it addresses issues such as racism, inequality, terrorism and a variety of other problems. I believe that no matter which curriculum path you choice to follow you need to make sure that the path is clear and adventurous. Children are more adapt to remember the classes that are interesting and innovative, as opposed to the classes where students just sit in their seats while the teacher lectures for an hour. I hope that my future classroom is a place where children cannot wait to escape to and completely dive head first into the learning process.