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View Poll Results: Do you like your school system?
Yes, I do
31 40.26%
No, I don't
46 59.74%
Voters: 77. You may not vote on this poll

Instructor
#26 Old 24th Jul 2010 at 2:52 PM
Linen, your story really saddens me. Your post makes it clear that you ARE intelligent and probably very capable of learning anything if you had the right environment. Unfortunately, the American educational system is underfunded and not flexible enough to accommodate each student's "peculiarities." Did you ever have a class in which you did well and had no tantrums? (Assuming the tantrums were prompted by the environment--or were they random?) Maybe if you could identify the characteristics of a class in which you succeeded, you could advise people how to help you.
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Lab Assistant
#27 Old 27th Jul 2010 at 2:54 AM
The education system in Ireland is pretty bad at all levels, and is getting worse. At both primary and secondary level, there is no interest in whether or not you understand, as long as you can repeat. Also, both are seriously overcrowded more often than not. In primary schools now, pupils are not encouraged to show respect for teachers anymore, and a number of primary-level teachers say they feel more like nannies than teachers, because parents treat them that way too. Only a few years ago teachers were respected people; now parents and pupils treat them quite badly. When a pupil misbehaves, every other factor possible is blamed but the pupil themselves, therefore disruptive students have permission to do as they please. When I was in primary, we spent a lot of time doing redundant activities such as watching television and playing computer games ( I kid you not), excessive amounts of time doing colour-in pictures, which could not really be called art, or listening to our headmaster's latest conspiracy theory.

Secondary education is far worse. My school was one of the worst in the country; it was delapidated to the degree that the wind would literally make the walls shake when it got strong, and one worried teacher actually told us about the 'duck and cover' routine due to the likehood of the ceiling coming in on top of us. Horrible students were given free reign by most teachers to be as disruptive as they pleased, and when our poor principle tried to do something about them, their parents would burst in to defend their little angel who the teachers were obviously picking on. Gifted students were left to their own devices, expected to educate themselves.

Bitter, jaded or unfit teachers are a huge problem all over the country, and my school was no exception. One would talk to us about her relationships rather than teach; another would throw anyone out of the room who defended an innocent student from her; one Home Ec teacher only taught the 'science bit' because he liked it best; and one maths teacher was actually so bad that one of our gifted students became so frustrated, he got up and taught the class himself. Our Sex Ed. teacher was too embarassed to talk about sex in front of a large group of people, so she talked about dental hygiene instead. If we were lucky, we got one half hour of PE a week.

The Leaving Certificate, the final and most important exam in secondary school, is a once-off exam based solely, in every subject but maths, on memorisation. A gifted student who worked tirelessly for six years, and who has a bad couple of hours during the only assessment of that work, could lose everything, while someone who slacked off for six years but who crams coming up to the exams could do quite well. As I said before, they don't need to understand, as long as they can repeat. The exam is a joke. More and more people are faling maths, so what's the solution? Call for improved teaching? No, make the exam easier every year! Maths is being dumbed down because students are not expected to have an acceptable standard of it.

Colleges are academically very good here, but the social aspect I find quite difficult. Students are expected by their peers to think, feel, and act a certain way, or face labelling as an oddball or an idiot. You are expected to conform to very vague political ideas, and to get very angry a lot about things people barely understand. There are many priveleged students at my college who are brought up thinking they are intellectually superior to everyone else, and the atmosphere is one where people are afraid to be themselves or express themselves completely lest they be thought of as stupid or backward.
 
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