Today’s Schooling, is it Good Enough?

Throughout Tony Wagner’s article, “Rigor Redefined,” Wagner grasps our learning and describes the “seven survival skills,” that he believes are the keys to becoming successful in the real world. Within his article, Wagner worries about today’s schooling techniques and wonders if the techniques being taught to the students are good enough to help us become successful in the real world.

When I was reading Wagner’s article, “Rigor Redefined,” the question, “Are we going to be well prepared for the future,” came to my mind. I believe that right now, schools and teachers are teaching us everything we need to know about the world and how become successful in the future. They’re teaching us how to read, write, and communicate, but I think that the schools need to teach us a couple other things as well. To become successful, we do need to know how to read, write, and communicate, but we also need to learn to think for ourselves and know how to analyze information that is given to us. Schools need to teach us critical thinking, problem solving and oral communication techniques that will benefit us in the future. I personally think that all schools should teach the fundamentals of Math, English, Science, and History, but also put some time and devotion into what Wagner calls the, “Seven survival skills.” For example, our English class is teaching us how to think for ourselves and how to comprehend information that’s being taught to us. Within our English class we do lots of activities that help us learn to use the “Seven survival skills.” The skills that are taught to us in English class also help us in all of our other classes as well. This is why I think all schools around the world need to teach the skills that our English teachers are teaching us at Arapahoe High School.

Everyday around the world, children go to school to learn how to become successful in the future. However, the schools aren’t doing their jobs if all they’re doing is teaching the children how to read and write. Schools need to teach the “Seven survival skills,” if they want their children to become great students in high school and eventually collage. I know that I’m going to need to graduate from collage in order to become the person I want to be in the future, and the only way to ensure that I’m ready for collage is to be taught the “Seven survival skills,” and how to use them to my advantage. In order for us to do very well in school, we all need to be taught more than just how to read and write. We need to be taught the “Seven survival skills,” which are the keys to becoming successful in the real world.

Absences in School

In this blog post titled, “So How Could I Still Teach My Students If School Was Cancelled?” by Brian Crosby, Crosby described the importance of attending school. He explained that many students miss school because of illnesses and that it would be nice to be able to teach his students while they’re sick.

Crosby said that if we don’t attend school we miss out on a lot of learning. I believe he is correct because if we miss school for two or three days, that’s days of learning time that could have helped you with problems you had. Also, the days you miss could have been days that the teacher taught a new concept and you missed out on learning it because you were absent. Now you are going to have to learn that new concept on your own time because you weren’t at school. School time shouldn’t be wasted, especially if you are behind in a certain subject because you will only end up falling farther behind in that subject due to your absence on that day. I know sometimes we get sick and we can’t make it to school. Although we are unable to attend school sometimes, we should come in as soon as possible and make up work or get caught up if we missed something important like a new concept. In class we are doing new stuff everyday and a lot of people miss our class. Those kids should come in and get caught up before it’s too late because if they don’t get caught up they develop a habit, and that habit gets worse and eventually worsens their grade. Another reason why you should get caught up as soon as possible is because if you don’t get caught up then you might have missed something important that could be on a quiz or test that is coming up, so make sure to get caught up with everything in all your classes so you don’t end up failing quizzes and tests.

While writing my thoughts out, the question, “How badly would being absent in school affect our grades?” came to my mind. I believe that being absent affects our grades enormously. At first being absent may not sound like it would drop our grades a whole lot, but as we are continuously missing class our grade drops because we are missing out on a lot of information that needs to be learned in class. That information can’t be missed because it is information that could help you throughout your life and that information can’t always be re taught. Kids all around the world have the habit of being late or absent and it really affects their grade level for the class or classes they missed. Everyone should be attending school everyday or at least for a majority of the school year. As you can see, being absent may not seem like a huge deal, but it can become a big deal if you don’t come in and make up work and get caught up. So, my advice to you is to come to school everyday and make up work or get caught up if you are absent, that way you end up having high grades instead of low grades.