Reading Reflection 1- Rethinking High School

In my first clinical practice (CP1) I must have answered thousands of questions. More times than not, I would reply first with, "What do you think?" or "Where would you start?" The students would typically respond with those three melodic words, "I don't know." The prompt from me was not for information, but rather to promote student thought. The Best Practices High School (BPHS) notion of students being able to create meaning for themselves rather than being a short-term warehouse for information, is at the the core of how I feel students should be gauged. In chemistry and across the sciences, if you actually understand the concepts, you really don't need to be so consumed with absorbing factual information. I discussed this with some of my better performing students in CP1 and they admitted that it is usually easier just to memorize the facts. In the context of how they were going to be assessed, they certainly had chosen the path of least resistance.

The BPHS suggested that only a few subjects be investigated, but to a much deeper level. I did not see this as a great measure of reform. Perhaps, during the course of the school year, students should be allowed to explore a few topics in much greater detail. The chemistry course that I taught in CP1 was labeled as a college preparatory class. The aim is to present the students with a fairly large scope of chemistry concepts. If they choose to pursue chemistry in college they will have plenty of time to explore the discipline in greater detail.

The BPHS incorporated many of the Second to None suggestions for reform such as; teachers acting more as coaches and mentors, students receiving more individualized attention and teachers seeing fewer students during the day. The question I have and would like to explore further is how do we make these 3500 student high schools with class sizes exceeding 40 students seem small.