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Showing posts from March, 2021

My Schooling in Austria

I talk about my school fairly often. A lot of times, school is the only subject adults can think of when they “small talk” to a teen. But what if I had to explain my school to someone who has absolutely no idea how schools work in general or even what they are? If, say, a Martian were to land in my backyard, how would I describe my school to him? Bizarre scenario, I know. I mean, first of all, school probably isn’t the first thing they’d ask me about, but alright. This is probably how I’d explain it to him: First off, a school is an institution with the responsibility to teach the youth important knowledge and abilities humanity (our species) has acquired over the course of history. It should also ideally impart important values and mould young people into responsible personalities who contribute to society in a positive way. I visit an “AHS”, which, in German (the language spoken where I’m from), stands for “generally educating higher school”. There, I have twelve subjects, ranging fr...

The Ultimate Guide to Better Education

Our educational system has brought us a long way. It’s part of the reason for almost every idea of bright minds in the world today. However, it’s received its fair share of critics as well. Does our system need a change? And if so, how should that change look? Over the past few weeks, I have acquired quite a lot of information on the topic of education and therefore, I feel inclined to answer these questions. Here’s my personal take on this. If you’ve been reading my blog, you already know that I’m of the opinion that our school system needs to evolve. My first suggestion for improvement comes from our system’s way of seemingly thinking that all students are equal in their characteristics, personalities and interests. The reason for this isn’t difficult to understand; The less individualistic an approach to education is, the more “efficient” it is. It tends to also be less student-friendly, though. Thus, I would really like to see a more tolerant education philosophy implemented into o...

The Gap that fails to close

The achievement gap is the gap in academic outcomes between diverse groups of students. Those groups can differ in income, race, gender and more. Today I want to talk a bit about this gap in different countries. In the UK, these gaps, which are often called “attainment gaps” there, have been mostly narrowing over the last years. However, research suggests that in 2019, meaning even before the Covid outbreak, the attainment gap between poor primary school pupils and their wealthier peers has widened for the first time since 2007. Not by a large margin, but concerning nevertheless. According to experts, rising levels of persistent poverty is to blame. The worst gap is that between black Caribbean and white British students; By the time they face their “General Certificate of Secondary Education” exams, black Caribbean kids are 10.9 months behind their white counterparts. In 2014, they were “only” 6.3 months behind. As with many other problems regarding inequality, the United States are e...

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SCHOOLING

  Today I have spent some time studying the different school systems and I would now like to write a little bit about them. I have done some research on compulsory schooling, home schooling, world schooling and unschooling and I have learned some things that I thought were impossible. Let´beginn with the compulsory schooling.. It is by far the most common form of schooling in the world. You go to a school that is normal for us. There you sit with your classmates in a classroom and the teacher teaches material with the aim of preparing the students for the Matura. In Austria this system lasts 9 years. At the right age you start the so-called primary schools and learn the basics like reading, calculating and writing. In the fifth   to the eighth school year, pupils attend the lower school of a Gymnasium or a new secondary school. After the new school year you can decide whether you want to continue your schooling or whether you want to learn a profession. The second type of...

FUTURE LEARNING

  Today I have been dealing with very interesting topics. I think that these forms of learning will be the future and will make many things easier. First of all, I dealt with e-learning environments. The e-learning environment is becoming more and more important. More and more people want to work and learn from home or their favorite workplace via online platforms. Many people say that they can't concentrate as well in the office as they can when working from their living room. Others like to work in nature or in libraries. Also, many people have more time for themselves and their work because they save their commute. E-learning platforms make it possible for each individual to fulfill his or her desire. The current Corona crisis has shown that e-learning works very well and that is why more and more companies will use e-platforms. Next, I dealt with digital platforms. Today there are more and more platforms that make it possible to work from home and still communicate with you...

SUMMARY

In the last few weeks I have been dealing with a lot of different things on the topic of learning and education. I have to say that I have learned a lot of new things and also about things that I didn't feel were real. First of all, I found out that the purpose of our education is to prepare us for our future life. Since then, I no longer question the meaning of what I have learned so often, but try to somehow process it for myself and take it with me. Because you never know. Maybe things like that can help you some day.   Next, I researched different school systems and their advantages and disadvantages.   I found out that probably the most boring and exhausting school system is the most common one. Compulsory schooling. It is actually exactly the same school system that exists in Austria.   After that, however, I got involved with very exciting, even very unusual types of schools. Homeschooling, unschooling and worldschooling. I found homeschooling and unschooling...

ACHIEVEMENT GAP

Today I have dealt with the achievement gap in the education system of some countries. Unfortunately, I learned that in many countries of the world there are still big gaps and that students have worse chances because of their origin. The first country I dealt with was the UK. In the UK there is a big achievement gap. Here, students who come from rich homes have it a lot easier than poor ones. Since you have to pay for higher education schools in England, only the rich students can go there. Poor or handicapped students often have a learning gap of more than 1.5 years. The longer the students attend the schools, the higher they climb.   Let's continue with the USA. Here, just like in England, there is a large achievement gap. African-American students and Hispanics are often graded lower than whites in the U.S. for the same achievements. They get kicked out of schools faster and have a smaller chance of getting into college, even though they score better. In recent years, how...

Types of schooling

Have you ever thought about not going to school but studying anyway? If not, you may never have heard of home schooling and world schooling.   However, let’s start with the two most common types of school. First there is the compulsory school. The „International Covenant of Economic and Cultural rights“ requires the principle of compulsory education free of charge for all. It balances the education differences and it’s purpose ist that it allows immigrants to fit in the society. Nowadays there is another type of schooling, which is not so uncommon. Especially in the US. I am talking of home schooling. Home schooling was primary used in the UK, Europe and many Commonwealth countries. It is conducted by a parent, a tutor or an online teacher. There are many reasons for learning at home. For example: mobbing, not being able to communicate with unfamiliar persons, Illnesses and disabilities, or because the parents just want that their child learns at home. Now let us focus on a differe...

Four educational reformers and their pedagogical methods

Célestin Freinet, Paolo Freire, Maria Montessori and John Dewey are probably the most popular or well-known reformer of education and school systems. If you haven’t heard from this people, then you should definitely read this text. Célestin Freinet was a French elementary school teacher and a pedagogical reformer. He is best known for the „Modern School Movement“, for which he is responsible. His main idea was that the teacher has to organize his lessons in such a way that the students want to learn. If not, he has to change his teaching. He also wanted to pay special attention to the interests of the children. The Brazilian educator and philosopher Paolo Freire is especially known for his work „Pedagogy of the Oppressed“. As a leading advocate of critical pedagogy he was shocked that approximately 70 percent of the Brazilian population were illiterate. In his opinion education should enable the oppressed to regain their sense of humanity. The only woman, but probably the most famous p...

School is trash experience is everything?!

    Today I took a closer look at some of the ideas from virtuosos when it comes to education, what I found got me more interested than I ever expected.   What really surprised me and what really got to me was the approach of John Dewey, whom I at first didn´t wanted to do because I thought that I already covered three other persons, but luckily, I did. For John Dewey experience is the centre piece and it really makes sense.   More than 300 years ago Sir Isaac Newton discovered the laws of gravity all just because he experienced an apple falling down, but experience is also the key element that is keeping us learning and developing. I truly love this idea because my favourite subjects are physics, biology and chemistry and if I take closer look why I fancy those is because I developed the interest myself and got interested because I had a memorizing experience.   Teachers also appear in Dewey´s education system but in a different way. If I have a lesson with a t...

This seems strange!

Today I took a closer look at the different schooling types around the world, from a pioneer project to now a wide range of these schools. So let´s get right into it.   There are many reasons the summer hill school is as successful as it is. The summer hill school is a unique school in Great Brittan and only consists of approximately 75 students from the age 5 to 18. The point that is making summer hill so interesting is the social connection between pupils of different ages and their teachers. What to me is also one-of-a-kind is the fact that there is no compulsion for learning, the will to learn needs to come from the pupil.   The Waldorf school is a renowned school though its history is quite controversial. In 1919 Emil Molt owned a cigarette factory and opened a school for the children of his workers. Rudolph Steiner was actually the guy who was in charge of building the school and its system. The school system is based on a lot of philosophy and until today they focus on ...

Parents Information

Dear Parents of the Wenzgasse, in our English Elective course, we are currently working on an online portal that is allowing students to exchange their habits of learning for tests and how they help them. We also want to publish weekly tips that can be used to increase your learning abilities in different ways, for example on concentration and receptivity.    Our goal is to write a blog by Austrian high school students that have all experienced the difficulties of learning correctly. We think our tips that focuses lesson study mater and more on advice on how to learn can help a wide range of students, especially since they emphasise modern education. Now you will certainly ask yourself from where we get our information and how we want to educate ourselves.  First and foremost, we try to draw our information from our close interaction with the students of Wenzgasse. Furthermore, we inform ourselves daily via the media if there are new methods that can help us with our topi...

Permission Slip

  Dear students, we are looking forward working together with you. As we already mentioned we will need your parents to sign the following Permission Slip. Of course we have also provided informations for your parents that will be published in the following blog post. Best regards, the Team Learning Stratgies https://learningstrate.blogspot.com   I allow that my son / daughter can contribute blogs to the following Email address as well as I agree that these blogs will be posted into the internet anonymously: informationalblogvienna@gmail.com   First and Last Name of the student:   School year and class:   Signature and date: