This chapter mentioned very interesting things, the idea about the pressure on high schools to serve, as a place for job training is very different from what we consider a high school today. I found it very interesting that there was so much debate about what a high school should be and what the aim of it are.
Today high schools still offer different things and still use the idea presented in the book of a general curriculum such as the one presented by the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. Yet there are also vocational schools or in large high schools some students are geared towards a college bound track while others are geared towards a vocation. I wonder if this idea may be overly archaic or if there is a way to change modern day high schools and help prepare students better.
Something that this chapter prompted me to think about AP classes and that not all schools offer them. Should AP classes be offered in a stand-alone school where students from every high school can take the classes if their high school does not offer them? Or is it somehow fair and just that students in schools that are zoned to neighborhoods with a high SES just wind up more prepared for college.
This chapter also focused on was the need for schools to have extra curricular activities yet these are the first things that are cut from schools when there are budget cuts. It seems very strange that something that so many believe is very important for students is being cut.
It struck me as crazy that all the things we believe are just part of a normal school day were actually created to be a training ground for work and that classroom management was part of preparing students to take direction in a factory.
Public school education is something that might need to be changed and really altered for a new day and age. Most students are better at the Internet than their computer teachers and some schools still teach students a typing class. It might be time to change the curriculum as well as general classroom decorum and layout to provide modern day students with a modern day school.
