Debate!

This mornings debate was a refreshing change to the regular pace of class. It was fun, I thought, to interact with everyone for a change. I feel like last semester we all interacted a lot more and so it made the class more meaningful. It was also nice to talk about last night's event since mroe people had gone. It's great when more people get to go to the events because it gives us something to talk about the next day that we all have in common. But back to the debate. The topics that we chose were a bit difficult to argue. It's hard to disagree with the statement that schools are failing our students. But I thought the debate was good.

On the first topic, we tried to push the view that many schools do not prepare students for college. I feel that is very true. Many schools' curriculums and lesson plans are very strict and rarely do teachers ever stray from them. Because of this, I feel like students don't get the chance to learn things on their own. They are babied through courses and because of it become dependant on someone else to always be there to help them. Once they get to college though, there is no more hand-holding. The professors just give you an assignment and you have to figure out how to accomplish it on your own. I do not think this is a "personal problem" on behalf of the students. I think schools need to work out a better system to prepare students for college.

The other group related their school topic to overcrowding in high schools and how that affects discipline and the learning environment. I've personally seen the problems of overcrowding. I went to a very overcrowded high school and it does cause many problems when trying to learn. When you have 35 students in a classroom, it is harder to discipline them when they act up. It's almost as if the students gang up against the teacher because they outnumber them. I've seen that happen many a time. Eventually the teacher gives up and no one learns anything. Unless I was in an honors class, I felt like I was wasting my time. There are so many students who think school is a joke, that they hinder the education of those students that care about learning. Of course the best solution to overcrowding is to build new schools. Unfortunately the money is not always available for this. It's hard to figure out a solution to overcrowding but something needs to be done. It just isn't practical.

I enjoyed the debates and the class overall this morning. It actually kind of woke me up, being 8 o'clock and all. We should do it mroe often.