ME AND EDUCATION
I
went to school in Erie, PA. The name of my high school was Northwest
Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy. NPCA is a public charter high school that
students have to apply to and meet the requirements to in order to get in. When
I was accepted NPCA had only been open for 3 years, it was still fairly new.
I did like my school for the most part; it was
unique compared to the other high schools in Erie. It focused solely on
academics and preparing its students for college. If you chose to participate
in any sports you had to join one of the surrounding high school’s teams.
According to Jean Anyon’s study I guess my
high school would fall between Affluent Professional and Executive Elite. NPCA
prides itself on having a 100% 4 year college acceptance rate for its students.
It ranks among the top high schools in the country.
NPCA
is a public school so the students came from a mixture of social classes. When I
went there the majority of the students came from middle class families. But
there were some students from upper class families and lower class families
too. What I do remember is that it seemed that the students tended to be
friends with other students that were from similar financial standings. For
example the kids from this one area of town which was considered a rich
neighborhood all hung out together at school.
NPCA
did provide me with some necessary tools for college. It encouraged independent
and creative thinking. However I do feel there was a lot of emphasis on memorization
and significant focus on getting the right answer. I remember memorizing the material
presented to me not necessarily learning it. I would memorize it to pass the
tests and forget it afterwards. This technique has made it harder for me now as
I am attending college.
Its interesting to look back at our lives in school and place them into the different readings we did. I experienced, " The Banking Concept", while your experience was in line with Jean Anyon's study, "The Hidden Curriculum". You mentioned that your school had a mixture of social classes, were teachers indifferent to any student based on their social class? Did social determine the classes or level of classes you took?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Lakshmi
DeleteI feel the teachers did not treat the students
any different based on their social class and social class did not determine the level of classes the students took. The social backgrounds merely seemed to be the bases used to form clicks among the students.
Lakshmi's questions are great! I would have asked the same thing. Social classes are often mixed in high school, which is unlike elementary school. Your social class determines a lot in America! Were there different tracks in your charter high school?
ReplyDeleteNo there were not different tracks in my charter school, but students could focus on certain academic areas that interested them by taking AP classes and obtaining college credits for them if they pass the AP examine at the end of the class.
ReplyDelete