Because I live in Ohio, sophomores have to take their OGTs (Ohio Graduation Tests) this week. Don’t ask me why “Graduation” tests are taken during the sophomore year, but whatever.

Anyways, I am mercifully a freshman and not a sophomore, so I’m not taking them. However, my biology class (which is technically a “sophomore” class) has to do a ridiculous amount of reviewing for them. About half the class is freshmen. We still have to do it. Apparently, the sophomores take their science OGT on Friday, so our teacher says, “We’re reviewing up until Friday so you don’t forget.” I’m thinking…I will most definetly forget this by March of next year.

The stupidest thing is…there are three other periods of Scholarship Biology, all with about half and half freshmen and sophomores. So they should have put all the freshmen in two classes and all the sophomores in two other classes, so that they could review without us. Because this is taking a big chunk of time out of my regular biology class. Now, I happen to like biology, so that makes this waste of time even worse.

Not to mention that the OGT week schedule makes classes only 35 minutes long anyways. So we’re not learning a whole lot right now.

school, tests, biology, Ohio

So here is the product of my years of hating how school is taught. It’s called “Work or Play”. It made my mom laugh, so I can brag at least of that.

“I learned plenty of interesting information in eighth grade, which my teachers said was a time of preparation for high school. The most vital skill for high school, the teachers seemed to think, was being able to color pictures. Therefore, we wasted no time in preparing for our more difficult high school education. We colored maps in history. We colored picture books in French. We colored drawings of animals and fossils in science. At first, I was skeptical about how this was helping me for high school, especially since I hated this kindergarten-style treatment. However, when I started ninth grade, I realized that the ability to color pictures is actually useful. Even in high school, I find myself being treated like a little kid, and no matter what I do to stop it, nothing seems to work.

“Every week, some of my teachers find new ways to pretend that I am still in the first grade. In some classes, every chapter test must go hand-in-hand with a review game that the whole class must play, divided into the teams of primeval enmity: boys and girls. On days when teachers seem to have nothing left to teach, we play games such as bingo to ’study’, with prizes such as candy and colorful key chains. However, I do not complain too much, because it sometimes turns out to be a wonderful class period of nostalgia during which I fondly remember my days of preschool.

“No matter how ‘fun’ these activities may be, I realize that I must somehow prepare for the rigors of college, which does not ask for colored pictures in lieu of admittance essays. Starting in seventh grade, I took all of the honors classes I could because I thought I could escape coloring pictures and playing bingo. However, that reduced the problem only slightly, since seventh grade honors pre-algebra was a waste of time (even though it was a very ‘fun’ class). I also thought that high school would be more work and less play, but I was wrong, as my school planner testifies. Not participating in some of these activities is impossible, because my teachers remind me constantly that I must prepare for college and a future career by playing games with the class.

“Is there a solution to the problem that, according to the rest of the student body, does not even exist? I do not believe so. Of course, I could talk to some of my teachers to try to convince them that my classmates and I have let our carefree childhoods go and do not need to wallow in childhood memories in class every day, but this would cause disagreement with the other students. After all, I respect the fact that not all of my peers agree with my viewpoint that, unsurprisingly, we go to school to learn rather than play. The only possible solution to being treated like a six-year-old is simply going with the flow and ignoring the sudden urges to dash out of the classroom and to the nearest playground, which are natural side effects of this sort of education.

“Despite my lack of success at alleviating this problem, I remain optimistic. It could be worse, and there are times when I actually enjoy some of these activities. I feel certain that education will become harder and more serious in college. For now, I can only hope that when I have a college degree, am thirty years old, and am working in an office, my boss will not make me color pictures.”

School, English, Essays, Writing, Teachers, Games

This weekend, I’m writing an essay on what is probably the best essay topic I’ve ever received in English class. You’re supposed to describe, in detail, your worst pet peeve. I took this opportunity to write about school. It was hard for me to decide exactly what to write about, since there are so many things about school that annoy the hell out of me. I finally settled on writing about how we’re treated like little kids. More specifically, my thesis statement is “Even in high school, I find myself being treated like a little kid, and no matter what I do to stop it, nothing seems to work.”

I have no doubt that that’s going to change, since this is only my first draft. The thesis doesn’t even work very well. Doesn’t have any sarcasm. However, I can’t even write about this the way I want to. I can’t mention what classes this stuff happened in, because I know my English teacher would track down those teachers and tell them all about my wonderful essay. That would be…disastrous.

So I’m going to lose much of the interest in my paper because of this. Oh well. This is still the best essay topic I’ve had since 6th grade or so.

School, English, Essays, Writing, Teachers

An interesting event has just come to my attention…I read the story on Michelle Malkin’s blog about a teacher who ranted against George Bush, comparing him to Hitler and expressing his opinion that the United States is the most evil nation on Earth (obviously, he was anti-Iraq war as well).

Not only do I totally disagree with this guy (especially since I think he was being anti-Semitic), but I also disagree with his right to say that. I always complain that my teachers are too politically correct, but this is kind of the opposite extreme. And definetly more harmful than politically correct teachers. Who really don’t cause harm at all.

He did get suspended. Justice at last.

The scariest thing about that for me is…this guy was teaching a 10th grade class. It could have just as easily been my school. In my school, as in every school, wouldn’t there be people who would become swayed by a year of such indoctrination? Would someone decide to break school rules and record the teacher’s class on tape, like a student in this teacher’s class did?

Who knows. However, I hope you can see now why I think public schools suck. There needs to be some quality control. I get the impression they’re letting anybody off the street teach.

My English teacher has been really nasty to us for the last several days or so. Now, mind you, she may be under stress, but so are we from all the homework and assignments she’s been giving us.

She was being mean and irrational. She’d snap at anyone who asked a question.

Then, we were finishing up our Shakespeare stuff. We were supposed to find 5 examples of how Romeo and Juliet affected the world today. However, since only two students could use the same example, we were supposed to approve it with the teacher first. The assignment was due today, and several of us went up to her for approval yesterday. She just said, “I’m not checking those anymore, so just put them in and see what happens.” Meaning that if we use them and someone already has them, too bad. We just won’t get the credit. I mean, what the heck? She didn’t set a due date other than today, for the whole project. So WTF?

Yeah, I usually have at least one teacher like that every year. You know, it’s hard enough dealing with my own problems, those of my friends, and those of my family without having to deal with those of my teachers, as well.

My English class is going to be really hard this February. We have to do some many things at a time! I mean, come on.

• some of us are going to a speech competition next weekend
• there is a huge project due the Monday after that weekend
• vocabulary lessons due each week and tests on them each week
• reading Romeo and Juliet
• finding, memorizing, and reciting one of Shakespeare’s sonnets
• filling out several pages of examples of literary elements in Romeo and Juliet
• finding 5 connections from Shakespeare to the world today
• writing these journal entries about Shakespeare-related topics given to us by the teacher
• organizing and turning in a binder full of all this stuff
• keeping track of important quotes from Romeo and Juliet
• a test on those quotes

Talk about multi-tasking…From what this sounds like, I can almost compare it to that of some adult working in an office…And don’t forget, I’ve got 6 more classes!

(Though they don’t have the same amount of work in them, of course)

School, English, Shakespeare, Activities, Tests, Literature, Reading, Books, Projects

Recently, I’ve realized what a pet peave it is for me when we have student teachers.

I just think it’s so unfair. My education is important to me, and here comes this person who’s using my education to experiment with his or her own. They’re not qualified teachers, and their methods are usually the cliche, textbook-style teaching methods that they learned yesterday at college.

I guess there’s no real solution to this, but they should at least go teach in elementary or middle school where it’s not as important how the teacher teaches as long as they know what they’re doing.

For some reason, student teachers always come equipped with a plethora of liberal, childish, elementary-school activities for us to do…We’re freshmen! Not 5th graders! Not to mention the poor seniors, some of whom are just three years younger than these student teachers…

Right now I have one in drawing and history class. In history, I’m suddenly becoming a whole lot more bored in class, listening to these retarded lectures which usually involve hearing the same thing about 10 times in the duration of a class period…

School, History, Teachers Activities

My school is a public school. Not a Catholic or other religious school. Now that the second semester has started, the principals have decided to crack down on commonly broken rules. While I agree with some of these rules, there are others that few in the student body (or even the staff) agree with. Some examples:

• No wearing coats in the building (it’s not my fault they can’t regulate the temperature…)
• No headbands (WTF??)
• No electronic devices at all. This means that we can’t even listen to music in study halls or during the hour we wait after we’ve finished exams.
• No spaghetti strap shirts. Many students even agree with this, but I don’t. Whoever made up these rules was like, “OMG your shoulders and neck are visible! Someone’s going to rape you now!!!”
• The lack of an open lunch, which most of the other districts around us have…

That’s not even including the fact that in our school, the right to go to the bathroom when you want to is, in fact, a privilege and not a right. (A privilege often not granted, I might add.)

So, turns out I survived exam week. It wasn’t really that bad. Actually, it was nice having no real homework and getting to talk to friends for about half the day.

The exams themselves weren’t as difficult as I thought they would be. My longest one was biology, at 160 questions. French was gonna be 200 but ended up being 150.

The only problem was, I did occasionally run into things we hadn’t actually discussed in class. That happens every year. And also, every year some of my teachers say the day before the exam, “Oh, I know we didn’t cover this, but study it tonight because it’s on your exam.” I hate that. That’s so annoying. Why can’t they just leave it off? If I could learn things just by studying them by myself, I wouldn’t go to school.

However, because of a two hour delay on Wednesday, we haven’t taken the 3rd period exam yet. That’s English for me. And I’ve been told that it’s the hardest of all the tests, that it will take the full two hours, and that I am (quite simply) screwed.

Well, that’s reassuring.

School, English, Tests, Weather, Exams, Teachers, Biology, French

As I was studying for my history exam today, I was looking at my old tests and quizzes and came across some funny answer choices on questions. Obviously, the answer choices I’ve pointed out here were all wrong answers (I put “…” in place of choices that aren’t interesting):

• “Pedro Alvares Cabral’s defeat of the Arab fleet helped to establish A)…; B) Spanish dominance in South America; C)…; D) the spread of Christianity in the Americas.” Ever heard of Arabs in the Americas?
• “The Dutch colonial settlement on Manhattan Island was called A)…; B) Montreal; C) …; D) Nova Scotia.” Well, I don’t know about Nova Scotia, but I think most high school freshmen know that Montreal is in Canada and that Manhattan Island is, in fact, in the U.S.
• “The Spanish colony that gained its independence during these years was A)…; B)…; C) England; D) the Dutch Netherlands.” Duh. Obviously England was never a colony. WTF?
• “Newton’s theories about the law of gravity were published in A)…; B)…; C) The Skeptical Chymist; D)…” Most people know that the theory of gravity wouldn’t be published in a book about chemists…
• “Deism was characterized by the belief that A)…; B)…; C)…; D) power must be divided equally among seperate government branches.” There IS another word for that, a word which Americans are technically supposed to know already…Coincidentally, it also starts with a “D”…

I suppose that in the end, it all boils down to common sense.

Believe it or not, people DO fail these tests.

School, History, Tests, Quizzes, Exams,