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Image courtesy http://www.bridgeport.edu/files/2513/6725/2414/secondary-education-degree.jpg
This week, I attended a public deliberation about reforms that should be made in secondary education in the United States. For me, this is an especially important topic because my mother is a high school teacher at my local high school. She has also been the head of the math department for the past few years, so I have heard quite a bit about the state of our current education system and the reforms that must be made from her. I was interested to see what my fellow Penn State students would have to say on the issue as we all come from different high school experiences and backgrounds.
As the deliberation began, I noticed that this group approached the deliberation in a slightly different way than my group pursued the assignment. Most notably, this group only discussed approach one, saving approaches 2 and 3 for the next two classes. All class members were required to attend this deliberation, as it occurred during the normal class hours. However, I did not know this before I went to the deliberation, as I assumed it would be like ours, which was open to the public but not all class members were required to attend.
Additionally, there were multiple recorders for the approach, and they switched off every 15 minutes. This class was able to do a more in-depth discussion about their topic because they devoted over an hour to the discussion of only one approach. However, the discussion was conducted in a large group, not the smaller groups that we used for our deliberation. Overall, there were probably around thirty people in the room, which made it difficult for all voices to be heard. The greater amount of time gave more room for discussion in a large group and more diverse opinions were shared with the entire group. Some voices definitely stood out more than others as certain participants were more likely to speak out in a large group, which I think could have been fixed had smaller groups been used. There was no formal conclusion in this deliberation because they only did the first approach, but it would have been helpful to hear a quick recap of the information presented in the approach.
Aside from the structural differences between the deliberation my group conducted and the one I attended, I thoroughly enjoyed the topic because of its close relation to my personal life. In the single approach discussed, the group moderated a deliberation about changing the curriculum of our modern education system and its relevance to the goal of the modern educational system.
The first point that was brought up was the lack of cultural diversity in education. One participant said she noticed in literature classes that most of the works studied were written by white authors, and she felt that more cultural diversity could be included in the curriculum. This discussion was followed by the point that standardized testing does limit a lot of what can be taught in American schools. Students felt that high school teachers were teaching too much “to the test” and the curriculum could not be adapted to the school or teacher because of this. Often, teachers are forced to teach “to the test” because of certain incentives, like losing state funding (in public schools) if test scores fall below the acceptable range.
If standardized tests were no longer used as a metric for assessing the success of students at the secondary level, what could be used instead? One participant suggested project-based learning, which is only effective if the school has the time and the resources available to devote to such an intensive program. In my personal experience, the right instructor must teach a project-based class or it will fail and the students will learn nearly nothing.
The final point brought up in the first approach of their deliberation was the necessity of every subject in high school. Some participants argued that we do not need to take all core classes (math, science, English, and social studies) in high school and that students should have a choice based on their interests. Yet other participants advocated for a well-rounded education in which students must take classes even if they are not their primary area of interest for the sake of general knowledge.
Overall, I enjoyed attending this deliberation. The topic was personally relevant and the moderators did a good job in keeping the participants on track throughout the discussion. I believe it would have been improved with smaller groups, but the shared views and diversity of the entire large group did add depth to the discussion.