Officially a Graduate!

I have officially graduated from college!! With my new B.S. in tow, I'm ready to become a PG Fellow :) and hopefully will stop neglecting my blog.

So as an update:

I'm currently enrolled in a crash course for taking the math (0061) Praxis on June 12th. So far we had had two in-person sessions and two webinar sessions. The in-person sessions are soo much more helpful than their online counterparts. As for passing the Praxis, we'll see how that goes. On the one hand, I do want to teach subjects where I'm most needed. On the other, I would feel more comfortable teaching science because I am so much more familiar with it.

Also, I came across some education stories that I bookmarked to talk about and now I can finally do that, with school behind me. Although I should be reading up on the Praxis. And I would, but I lost a contact and blogging is doable with only one eye...

Anyway, the first thing is "unschooling". In short, I think unschooling is BS. Basically, it's where parents allow their children to become masters of their own education. "If they want to learn something, they will." But what if they NEED to learn something and they have no want for it?

It is virtually impossible to expect a child to be able to navigate modern society solely on their own knowledge. That's what parents and teachers are for. Even animals don't leave their young to fend for their own. If these children were not expected to thrive in our society, then I could see unschooling as a way to go. People will always learn to survive somehow. But you can't expect for these kids to become productive members of society when they have such little interaction/experience with it. And while I've learned about a lot of different things on my own research, school has presented me with so much information that I probably would have never come across, but am glad to know. All I'm saying is, school is a good thing. So kids, stay in school.

Another is an article from the Post that talks about resegregation. Resegregation is nothing new to me. When I was growing up, I was one of less than ten Oriental students in my grade. Most of my friends were white and that was normal. When I moved to middle school, I was flabbergasted by the growth in the Asian population. And unlike myself, these kids were grouped together since elementary school. As I grew up, my schools became more and more diverse and there was more mixing between the races. However, while diversity increased, something else followed - resegregation. My neighborhood went through a burst of diversity and then, to state it informally, all the white and or rich people left. My elementary school today is mostly hispanic or black.

When I grew up I knew about a lot of different ethnicities, growing up in a predominantly white school didn't effect that. In fact, my schools promoted learning about different cultures. In elementary school, we learned about Japan and Mexico. In middle school, each homeroom was assigned a country to represent in an Olympics of sorts. My class was Ethiopia. We spent that semester learning about Ethiopia. However, it is to my knowledge that many students growing up in predominantly black or hispanic schools today are led to believe that their school is the norm.

I understand why resegregation occurs, but I think it is important that our school demographics represent our society more clearly. So what's the solution? Bussing in students from other neighborhoods? Some parents would not have their kids going to "worse" schools. I benefited from going to a "well-balanced" school and I think students today would benefit as well.

And lastly, I just really like this article from The Atlantic.

Hopefully I will be reading my TfSA after the Praxis studying is done... hopefully.