#dr. matt

[babyxenomorph]

[thefrugaltrekker]

Awesome Cute Puppy_It's a Must

[destinyusaschoolsystem]

Dr. Matt vs. The US Educational System Pt. 3- The Test Rant

Hello again. It’s Dr. Matt, and this time I’m going to be dissecting my own brain. More specifically, I’m going to be doing a brain dump on my personal opinions about school, it’s effectiveness, and maybe a few personal ideas on what we could do to make it better.

Now, let’s dissect.

 If you haven’t guessed already, you ought to know that I’m not a huge fan of the United States Educational System. On an international level, we lag behind. On a personal level, we don’t really learn that much. I mean, we get all this information shoved into our brains, but it’s not necessarily for the betterment of ourselves, but so that we can get passing marks on our tests so the teachers can breathe easy. That’s not to say I think teachers shouldn’t be able to breathe easy; that teachers shouldn’t care what students get on their tests. No, it’s that those tests are the one and only qualifiers for success in our student lives. It’s that we use paper tests instead of practical tests to determine how proficient we are at learning something. We don’t teach our kids what the meaning of anything we’re learning anymore when it comes to the real life applications; especially in math. I mean, let’s be real. After a certain point, math leaves the realm of practicality for most and enters into the abstract and theoretical, and it’s pretty early. I mean, the majority of my family gets by without applying any serious form of algebra (at least in the sense that they’re not thinking it of it as algebra), and it’s fine since they don’t need it; but I’m sitting in Trigonometry learning the seemingly impractical fact that sinπ/4 = √3/2. And to prove my point, I bet you didn’t know that √3/2 isn’t actually the answer, it’s √2/2. In fact, I’d actually reckon that any math past Algebra 2 is almost impractical to everyday life. So why do schools teach it? Funnily enough, my Algebra 2 teacher told us. He told us that the higher level maths were important to us because they help develop an otherwise hardly touched part of our brain that deals with logic. Granted, I haven’t actually confirmed that statement, but as it stands, it makes sense to me, and makes math quite a bit more relevant. Unfortunately, I don’t think a lot of other students get the same liberty of having the importance of what they’re learning bestowed upon them.

 On the subject of tests, something I never understood about them was how they encourage learning, or more importantly, retention. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the need for tests and their advantages; however, I do think that the “test culture” schools currently have is ridiculous. As I said before, tests determine your worth to some respect. Tests are the main drives to your grades, and thus your GPA as well. GPA can be used by employers and scholastic organizations to determine how smart, intelligent, or hardworking one may be. This in itself doesn’t sound illogical in any one point in the chain (save maybe the last part), but I pose this question: If I can get all those rewards from taking tests, what’s the incentive to actually know anything? By this, I mean that it’s quite common among students (and some teachers) that tests are basically brain dumps. Before the test, we study up on what’s going to be covered on it, we take the test, then we promptly forget most of the things that we on that test, until the comprehensive final. With this being the way many take their tests, it could be said that our grade is a cumulative average of how well we brain dump, rather than how well we learn and know things. Then we get showered in praise from all sides about how well our grades our doing, but we might not understand as much about that class as our grades may suggest. We might’ve just been able to memorize steps to specific problems or situations. To me, this is a rather toxic culture for learning.

 So, the Doc’s rambled on for long enough; what’s the cure? How do we fix the “test culture”, and encourage kids to learn; and then accurately understand the things they are learning? I think we have to take a step away from the importance of tests just a little bit, and make a more concerted effort on not only bringing relatability and practicality to our classes and lessons, but we should also take the time to get to the principles as to why certain things are the way they are, and give reasoning behind what students are learning. Once we get kids to understand the principles of what they’re learning, I think only then can we begin clawing our way out of the deep hole the education system has dug for itself.

But then again, I’m a Doctor, not a Necromancer; it’ll take one heck of a miracle before anything of that magnitude happens for us to make that change.

 -Dr. Matt

[destinyusaschoolsystem]

An article written by another glorious Matthew explains 3 problems that the American Education system has that we need to address.

Dr. Matt vs. The US Educational System Pt. 2- 3 Big Problems

It’s time once again for Dr. Matt to dissect an article on the internet. I, and the article, are going to be talking about the United States Education system, and why it’s currently sucking. This particular article isn’t going to be blasting the education system like I probably would, but it highlights some issues the government could most certainly improve on in order to improve the educational standing of the United states on a global scale. I’ve got the link for you if you want to follow along down below.

Now, let’s dissect.

 The article begins by introducing us to the PISA; that is, the “Programme for International Student Assessment”, a program that does exactly what the name implies. In more than 70 countries worldwide, students at 15 take a test and get compared to others to get world rankings for how countries perform in reading, science, and math. The article references a 2009 PISA assessment where the USA ranks 14th, 17th, and 25th in each of the categories respectively. The article gets a little confusing, but those numbers are in the context of 34 countries (OCED I assume) participating in the test. In perspective, with 17th being the perfect median of ranks, we perform around the middle in science, above in reading, but well below in math. Now, what I don’t understand is why an article written in 2016 decided to use 2009 data. There’s a 2015 PISA that I just so happened to check out, and out of 35 OCED countries, we placed 19th in science, 20th in reading, and 31st in Math. With a median rank of about 17 or 18, it’s quite easy to see that America’s been slipping in the worldwide education field, but why? Matthew Lynch offers 3 possible reasons.

The first reason he offers is that students in America aren’t spending the same amount of time in school that children in high-performing countries are. For example, he notes that Korean students spend 225 days of schooling a year for about 16 hours a day. That’s a huge difference in American schools; 8 hour days and a little less than 200 days a year. He goes on to talk about how Obama was in favor of increasing the amount of time spent in schools, but both parents and teacher unions (and probably the students too) pushed back with their own concerns. The parents thought students were stressed enough at school as it was, and the unions want to know how teachers would be paid for the extra time spent in the classroom. Personally, I wouldn’t increase the number of hours in school necessarily, but instead I’d increase the amount of days spent in the classroom, just as a start at least.  

Then, he cites that we don’t show teachers the proper respect they deserve; but not in the way I’d expect. In other countries, teaching as a career is seen on par with, say, doctors or lawyers here in the states. I have known for a while now that some cultures (Asian cultures particularly) were very strict on how students act towards a teacher, and how one would show respect to the teacher; but I had never thought about other cultures thinking that teaching was such a prestigious profession. I think I could speak for most students when I say that teaching in America (for anything below college at least) doesn’t seem prestigious. With that said, I can’t help but fully agree with what he brought out.

Finally, he gives a short paragraph on how we should increase attention on the arts. He relates an interesting study where a low income school in New York made an effort to include more arts subjects and they saw almost 10% increases in reading and math, and less absenteeism.

So, what does the doctor think? Well, the diagnosis is obviously a case of America slipping behind in the competition of international education. If nothing changes, then best case scenario is that our placements on PISA won’t change, but likeliest case is we keep going downhill. Cure? I’d say we should start with the teachers. Make teaching an attractive profession, like they do in other countries. Let the teachers feel and be important, so that they may be better at teaching their children. Of course, that’ll only change if students’ and society’s view of teachers change too. Once we get that straightened out, we can start thinking about our other problems.

 -Dr. Matt

 Source:  http://www.theedadvocate.org/3-issues-that-are-hurting-the-american-educational-system/

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2015-United-States.pdf

[dallonsmiles]

I am so insanely in love with Matthew Francisco Ortiz :D

God I love you baby. muah!

[dallonsmiles]

I know he's busy saving the world and everything,

(literally), but man I wish he could write a little more often. <3

[dallonsmiles]

You guys, how is it possible that I'm falling so hard for him so fast?

My god. My boyfriend is bloody amazing. That accent... guh! To. Die. For. He makes me so happy. So so happy. And I'd like to just say right now how thankful I am to Brian Herget. If it weren't for him, I would have never met Matt. 

Thank you so much for dumping me, Brian.

Gonna go off to dreamland and dream about my man and sigh profusely. 

He's so dreamy... *siiiighhhhhhh*

[dallonsmiles]

He calls me his Sunshine :)

Baby I'll make you happy when skies are grey <3