overall my primary research did not go as well as planned. I got the information needed, but the quality of responses from the 8th graders were not as detailed and well explained as I thought. I can still

Of all the presentation methods in class I like the powtoon server the best. I can use that to put main ideas to focus and talk about the details in a way that keeps the listeners attention and listening to me not just reading words on a slide. over all the presentation should go well, I feel confident that I will put together a great presentation

I had to do a portfolio last semester, so I am pretty confident that I will be able to put together a good one. I am planning on revising the academic conversation, with adding the primary research It should be easy and fun to make it the proper length.

Colin Abercrombie


Ms. Sippy


English 1102


February 17, 2013


Research Proposal


           
I am interested in researching students and teachers and their
educational relationship to find out who is to blame for the current educational
problems we are facing in America. I am especially interested in thisearc topic
because I have always wanted to be a teacher and could still possibly see myself
taking that road. I have always respected teachers for what they do and how they
handle their job dealing with 30 teenagers at a time, I know most of us couldn’t
even do that when we were one of the students yet alone the authoritative
figure.


 After reading all
the articles in class and discussing them as a group I always found myself
asking who really is to blame for the current problems in the education
system.  In order to find the
answers to my question I will research both teachers and the students. Starting
with the teachers I could observe 2-3 high school teachers as well as 2-3
college professors to see how they conduct their class, the interactions they
have with their students, and the teaching methods that they use to get their
information across. On a side note I will be able to see firsthand if teachers
just use the banking system to spit information out at their students. In
addition to observing first-hand how teachers conduct their class I will also
research different teaching techniques and methods.          



           
Along with observing and researching teachers I will also take a look at
the modern student. While I observe the teachers in high school I will also
watch how the students work and how well they obtain the information. I will
watch for their interactions with the teacher and their fellow students. After
observing the students I will randomly select 10-25 students and ask them
questions on how much time they spend on their studies and work, how important
school is in their life, how well they know their teachers and if they are happy
with how they conduct their class.


           
When I finish my research I want to make sure that I don’t stay on the
fence. I want to collect my research, observe, and collect data and analyze it
and give my opinion on where the blame sits. One thing I didn’t like about any
of articles that we read in class was ho they were all one sided. They just
looked at one side or the other and didn’t have any comparison. With my research
I will be looking at both sides of the argument and see where I find the
problems with the education system.

All of the stories we have read have complained and pointed out
all that is wrong with the education system without giving any advice on how to
fix it. I notice a lot of writers and journalist do this, they put down a system
that works and will duck when asked for their own opinion. Anybody with a brain
can point out flaws, but not many can give a thoughtful opinion they will stand
by. The last one we read at least put some of the blame on the students; all the
others all blamed the teachers. I don’t see how it could be the teacher’s fault,
in high school they are told what and how to teach it. It is not their fault
that the classes have to be dumbed down to fit the standards. It was brought up
a lot during group seminars that the teachers are bad teachers and it was either
too hard or too easy or they didn’t do enough. They are not meant to give away
the answers but help students get to how to get the answer. The old fisherman
saying and what not. Teach a man how to fish and he never goes hungry again.
It’s on the students not the teachers, if something is unclear students have a
million resources to get help. It’s a vicious circle, if the test scores were
higher, the teacher could teach class in a different way and make it more fun.
The fact that America is seen as one of the greatest countries in the world, and
yet we are middle of the pack in education. The problem is out 
inability to let people fail. It starts in sports; they don’t keep score
so everyone is a “winner”. In school they are given a life line when they fail,
I agree people deserve a second chance, but at what point does a second chance
turn into taking advantage of the system? I think we should let students drop
out if they want to, and actually make it possible to fail out of school. In
other countries if you mess up once you’re thrown out. Students still deserve a
second chance in case of a mess up, but high school isn’t hard enough where they
need a babysitter the whole time. Right now every year the bar is lowered in
high school and raised in college. That needs to change. We need to raise the
bar for high school and if some cant reach that bar they need to sink or swim.
It sounds rough, but if we want to fix the problem then some people will need to
get stepped on.

According to this article the five-paragraph essay format hinders
  students and makes their thinking identical. I would agree, making all students
  write the same is not good for academic growth. I can see why it would be
  taught in elementary school and middle school, because students are still
  learning the basics of how to write. That is what I think the five paragraph
  format is designed for; learn the basics of writing. Once the fundamentals are
  down, the students can then add to their skills in high school. High school
  teachers can teach them different techniques to improve their writing. If high
  school English classes are taught like college classes, then when students do
  get to college they can start upper level classes as underclassmen. 
This article further develops the banking system where the teacher just
tells the student how to write because it is the easiest to grade and not that
they don’t know other methods of writing, but don’t know how to convey that to
the students. A part of me thinks they should do that, but something tells me
that if a 14 year old was in a college level class, they wouldn’t be able to be
successful. I know for sure if I was given that work load at that age I wouldn’t
be able to handle it. The way English classes are now isn’t very good, making
everyone think the same is not productive. But I don’t think making the class
impossibly hard for that age group is the solution. There has to be a middle
ground where students are encouraged to write in a style that feel comfortable
to them to get the information across in an interesting way. It isn’t just all
on the teachers though, they are told what to teach and how to grade. If we want
things to change it has to happen from the top, not just complain and put the
blame on the teachers

This piece is much like the “I Just Want to be Average”, by that
I mean it ridicules and puts down the educational system that we have in place
today.  He claims that the “banking
  system” is hindering the learning of the students. That the teacher spits out
  what they think is useful knowledge and the students then just have to memorize
  it, but they don’t know why it is important. I agree with this to a point, I
agree that in some classes the teacher just spit information at you that you
just have to memorize and never really learn anymore about it. I wonder if he is
referring to high school or college classes. Id=f it is high school what classes
are teachers doing this? If it is a history class then how else is a teacher
supposed to teach the class? All the class is supposed to be is a history
lesson. Or a math class? What else should the teacher do other than explain how
to do a problem? Or if he is referring to college, if the professor is telling
you something just to memorize and not explaining the importance, then it is
your job as the student to do more research. The educational system is nowhere
near perfect, but people like this that just belittle teachers and the way they
do things, but offer no reasonable solution are doing nothing but putting the
  ideas in students’ heads that they don’t really need teachers and that they
  know more than the professors do. Of course there are teachers who do not teach
  their class in a very good way, but to blame the all the teachers as a whole is
  preposterous. To say that they students would not abuse any teacher that tried
  to teach their class in more detail spending twice the amunt on a given subject
  to explain how important it is.

Now that I am in college, I realize how narrow minded high school
classes have made me. The teachers are taught a “one size it’s all”agenda for
the whole state, and now you learn that a lot of what you were told in school
wasn’t even true. In this text the author talks about being in a school where
nobody wants to be there and could care less if the teacher even showed up. He
then changes to a school that is higher education and gets him interested in
learning again. In his story there are two different schools, but every school
has both those types of students. The ones who are going to college have no
problem. They are there because they want to be there and learn because they
know that if they want to be successful in this life and get what they want they
will need to get through the whole “school” thing. The kids who think they are
above it always struggle, but because in today’s society they don’t want anyone
to fail they have someone holding their hand the whole way to make sure they get
through it. I went to Lake Norman High School, I don’t know if you have ever
heard of it, but it has earned itself the nick name “heroine high”.It is known
for its drugs, sex, and lacrosse. In fact, my senior year we were on the news
for all three of these. On the outside that is what Lake Norman is, seems like
the school that the author was talking about in the beginning, the vocational
school. On the inside is one of North Carolina’s best schools. Top 10 in
academics across the board with one of the highest graduation rates. This is a
college prep school; I think every high school is. There will always be the kids
and teachers that don’t want to be there. It’s about the ones who do want to eb
there. The education system we have now is not perfect, although every school is
not as extreme as the ones in this story, they are still struggling. I don’t see
any other way to have public education though, it’s a bad system but at least it
is a system