#theamericaneducationsystem

[anenglishmajorsblog]

General Education :(

Me: Hi! I would like to major in English please.

My College: Alright, please take four semesters of French.

Me: ????? Pourquoi?

[anenglishmajorsblog]

I really would like a degree, fuck you.

I will not be someone who starts college and does not finish because I got left behind and washed up on the shore beneath a wave of unpardonable debt by the American Education System. Not today, [money-hungry, low graduation rate, students-are-numbers, unhelpful, behind-the-times, slow, administratively bloated, inefficient, unaccountable, unreliable] Satan. From the ashes I will rise. Into the high school I will enter, simultaneously underground and front-in-center, to teach the future generation not to put up with a single ounce of your fucking bullshit in an articulate, confident fashion. Be scared, because your days of sitting back and collecting obscene amounts of money without doing your part are seriously numbered. 666. 

Also, dear all levels of schooling, pay your fucking teachers more.

[anenglishmajorsblog]

How fast someone can hand write an essay on paper is not a good measure of intelligence. We can do better than that!

Source: @explrain on Instagram

[anenglishmajorsblog]

America: We really need teachers! Good ones, too!

People who wants to be teachers: I’d like to become a teacher! How do I become a teacher?

America: go to college, get a Bachelor’s degree at least, get thrown into terrible debt, do a lot of working for free, pay for all the things that an employer would typically pay for, like a background check, agree to be paid unfairly, continue to be required to give us many free hours of service, plus a whole bunch of other shit. And then, we MIGHT give you a job, bitch.

People who want to be teachers: fuck that, I am going into Computer Science.

[anenglishmajorsblog]

What Do I Want To Do As A High-School English Teacher?

1. Spread Mental Health Awareness: I know a lot of schools focus on “kindness” or anti-bullying, but I instead want to focus attention away from the actions of students onto each other and instead talk about students’ perceptions and feelings of themselves. A student body who is aware of their mental health will see an increase in kindness and a decrease in bullying as a side-effect. 

2. Support the Arts and Encourage Interdisciplinary Studies with the Arts: Something I have noticed in my high school experiences is that exploratory courses, particularly the arts, are seen is less academic and separated from the core subjects (Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science). As a teacher who will be working in one of the “core” areas, I will try my best to build bridges between English curriculum and the arts curriculum(s). English teachers are also often theater leaders at the high school level, and even though I am personally more into visual arts, I would love to learn more about performance arts so I can offer that sort of thing to my school.

3. Ditch The Standard Classroom Layout: Most classrooms have a bunch of desks or tables facing the whiteboard in front of which the instructor stands. It is stagnant and outdated. I am in favor of a more circular layout of desks with my desk also being part of the circle, instead of off to the side or at the front. I want my students to feel encouraged to participate with the class and each other and I would like to create an inviting, comfortable, and cohesive environment. (Thank you Montessori for your work on classroom environments/furniture). 

4. Sponsor A (Queer/Unique) Club: I am unsure what type of club I want to sponsor, but I do want to do something awesome and something that the students actually want. I have been imagining a Queer Club where I give a short lesson on queer history and then we do creative activities or eat or do crafts or something. Or maybe I could do a club for the students who are struggling to find a niche and we can just do different stuff each time like crafts one time and improv another and chess the next. Something cool...

5. Eliminate As Much Busy Work As Possible: Things like bell work, extra homework, needless worksheets/workbooks, and other assignments like that are extremely annoying. At the college level, that sort of shit does not exist. I do not plan to assign anything that does not directly benefit my students’ learning of the material, especially if their grades on tests and such show an understanding of the concepts. I will provide study guides and other at-home resources, but I will make them optional. Ultimately, the student needs to decide how they learn best, and for most people, extra work is not beneficial. In my opinion, class should be a combination of study hall time, discussion, and lecture. That leaves no time for bullshit. 

There are so many more things I plan to integrate into my teaching style, but a lot of it I have yet to learn about or will need to adapt once I get into my school. But one thing is never going to change: I am there to help the students and be my best self doing what I love. It will be challenging and fun and scary and amazing. 

If you are still reading down here, I would love to hear any suggestions or comments on my teaching philosophies. I especially would like to hear from high-schoolers, if you all would like to grant me some insight as to how the education system could better serve you.

[anenglishmajorsblog]

Why I Decided to Major in English

If I am counting correctly, I have changed my major seven times. The seventh change was to English.

 I am about to start my third semester of community college in the transfer (to a “four-year” university) program. Although this program is advertised as a one-size-fits-all affair and names basically every university in my state as an option for transfer, participating in the general track typically leaves students with gaps in curriculum. The general program requires approximately fifty credits of general education courses. The problem lies in the fact that most universities can start major-specific coursework as early as the very first semester, and these foundational courses are typically prerequisites, barring students from entering their desiring program with fifty recognized credits because not all gen. ed. courses can substitute for major-specific courses. This means a semester, even multiple semesters, of “catching up”  could be needed once declaring a specific major at the transfer university. The only way around these constraints is Articulation Agreements (the list of courses a student must take at the community college level in order to be waived into a university mid-bachelor’s program).

 So that’s fucking confusing as all ever-living fuck.

 Despite the transfer program having one name, there are a shitload of underground varieties of the program, Articulation Agreements, which are only provided to students when they choose specific major and program at their university of choice from the very beginning.

 Before becoming an English Major, I was determined to become a talk therapist. I bounced around Psychology, Human Services, and Undecided majors mainly because I was trying to make my transcript fit into the rigid restrains of the universities’ Articulation Agreements. It was discouraging and, on top of doubts about my ability to do that kind of work, I was doubting my ability to find a school and earn a degree. All the changes had created a scrambled transcript that fit into no Articulation Agreements.

 And then I was invited to work as an embedded English tutor. My job was to go class as the Professor’s Assistant and then go to the Study Hall and take one-on-one appointments helping students with their writing assignments. I fell in love with teaching English and ditched all Human Services-related dreams in favor of a life-long career goal of English Education. 

 I put on my decisive pants and picked a university and a program. After jumping through more hoops and loosing credit for all my Human Services coursework, I fit myself into an Articulation Agreement for a Bachelor’s of English with Secondary-Level Teaching License. I finish my community college credits in Summer of 2020 and enter into the university in Fall of 2020, which means I will graduate in the Spring of 2022. I started college in Fall 2018. I am going to graduate in four years as long as I keep going.

 For this clarity, I am grateful. I will not fall victim to the cycle of confusion, vain debt, and wasted time within the American education system.

[anenglishmajorsblog]

Do We Want Teachers or Not?

So I am taking an EDU 200 class, and there are a lot of hoops to jump through to complete it.

I have to complete forty hours of classroom observation. Just to do the observation, I need to have completed 24 credit hours of college prior to enrollment in the course, take and pay for a TB skin test ($16), and get a background check done and be fingerprinted ($48, plus the cost to mail and have all the documents notarized, which is another $15). None of these costs were covered by Financial Aid, and they were all due at once within the first week.

This is expensive and there are a lot of cost and time hurdles. They wonder why teachers are in short supply...

It’s all worth it though, because I am certain of what I want to do. But if I wasn’t, I would quickly abandon this administratively bloated, inefficient, costly, and time-consuming process. 

If we want to have the best chance of getting quality teachers, there shouldn’t be so many barriers and no help. 

I do think it is a great idea to have people be tested for TB and not be criminals; I am not arguing these things. What I am arguing is how I was blindsided with all these expenses. I am lucky that I can afford the costs and time, but others are definitely not so lucky, and my school really needs to do something about it and be upfront about what the course entails.

[anenglishmajorsblog]

Why Is English Class Important?

Not everyone enjoys English class. In fact, for some it is a dreaded experience. Perhaps it is even a least favorite subject. If you are one of those people, I am going to try to give you some reasons to not hate, or maybe even like, your English class(es). 

I break up English classes into two broad headers: Literature and Language. The reasons are categorized as such.

Literature:

Developing opinions and creating arguments about things you have read is a really good way to develop critical thinking skills

Reading literature as a practice to better understand written texts will help with almost every job (because almost every job requires reading)

Blah blah blah it makes you more well-rounded and more culturally aware

Language:

Learning grammar rules will make writing resumes and job applications easier (or at least it will help ensure a lack of grammatical mistakes, which are distracting to employers)

Communication is fickle and if everyone understands Standard American English to use between the various dialects of English, communication will be more effective. (I know this is a complicated notion, I will write more on it another time).

La Dee Da it makes you sound “SmArtEr” / more “ProFessIonAl”

ATTN The American Education System: The humanities are starting to be slid to the back-burner. Less and less are educational institutions, public and private, grade-school and higher, funding the humanities or providing them with an equally important status to subjects like math or history. Overall, I think that this country is drifting away from an already fragile and divisive culture. We are so young as a country, but we are leaders in a lot of areas. As such, connecting to world and American culture through literature, demanding that all students be fully and exceptionally literature, and mastering written and oral communication skills are priceless skill to us as students, because we are the future of the country.