Procedures at Parkmont School in Washington, DC.
A Statement about Personalized Learning
by Spencer Smith
Personalization in the school system, to put it simply, is the only way to reach children, teens, and young adults. I know this from my experience of growing up and starting school in a depersonalized public school system, then I moved to a friendly, healthy, and nurturing environment that comes with going to private/ smaller schools that can focus on student-teacher relationships. Below, I will share with you the difference between the two.
The public school system, to be fair, is not horrible or flat out wrong; it is just not built for everyone. Children with learning disabilities like myself are a prime example of those that get left behind or falter. Tens of thousands of students graduate middle and high school every year with passing grades and go on to college to make something out of themselves. The main problem in my opinion with public schools is that they are too generalized or categorized. Standardized testing, block scheduling, and large format classrooms can support this. Why should your entire high school career be based on state standardized tests? My guess is laziness on the board of education’s part. Why does the whole school have to adhere to scheduling that may make certain classes too short or too long? Each school not taking the time to go through compiled information from years before too see how students did in classes that needed less or more time for them to stay focused. Finally, why do public schools cram as many students into one classroom as possible? Why put such an unfair load on one teacher, who might be lucky enough to have an assistant from time to time? If you are one teacher, with forty to fifty students in a classroom, how do you know you helped all of them? How do you know you did not leave any of them behind? How do you remember all their names?
The culprit behind all of these issues is poor funding for public schools and overcrowding, which has led to the depersonalization of public school relationships between student and teacher. Not being able to spend more than a few minutes with each student in the classroom has crippled the teacher's ability to make sure each student understands what he or she is teaching. The teacher is so swamped with work load, that he or she is forced to rush through lesson plans in hopes that enough students understand and pass so that he or she does not get fired. This is not how things should be for the general population.
So where do I come in all of this? My story, like most others; involved me not performing well in school. I was not getting the individualized attention that i needed to excel in school. I was sitting in classrooms that had thirty five to fifty students in each class since 5th grade. All in all, i was getting left behind and losing my footing without even knowing it, by the time i was in seventh grade i was barely passing classes. Any of the classes I was passing were the few subjects that I was passionate about, or I was cheating my way through the semester. This was what dealing with public school was like for me and many others. When I dropped out of school in the beginning of junior year, I had lost hope years before, it had just taken me years to gain the courage and realize that i was not going anywhere. But all that was about to change.
I had been out of school for a year, working dead-end jobs and not being inspired to do anything with my life. My aunt up in D.C. knew of a small private school that she had sent some of her elementary students too. She said the school was from sixth grade to twelfth and that she would help my parents pay for it (it was a little pricey). I went up and visited and really enjoyed my orientation. They never pressured you into making a decision, all they wanted you to do was commit to your education and they would help you the whole way.
CREATIVE PRACTICE #1: Small School (smaller than 200 students)
I loved the school from the get go; with a total of 65 students from sixth to twelfth grade, ten teachers was more than enough for everyone to get the attention they deserved. You knew your teachers and administrators by first name, there was only a casual dress code enforced, no uniform. The school day started with home group, which was the entire school coming into the main commons to discuss anything that was coming up, announcements, roll call, and preparations for what food was going to be provided for lunch that day.
The classes were at most twelve students per class, which made it ideal for each student to have the teacher's undivided attention for up to 10 minutes. This made it possible for you to get something you were not fully understanding.
CREATIVE PRACTICE #2: Frequent Feedback (Weekly Progress Reports)
The school had weekly progress reports instead of once a semester like in public schools we had been in before. This meant if you were falling behind in any area of any class, you were only at most a week behind, unlike in public schools where you could get up to six weeks behind. It's easier for anyone to catch up on only a few assignments or lessons instead of half a semester.
CREATIVE PRACTICE #3: One teacher teaches several subjects
(Teachers can blend subject material -- find the math in English and the History in Science)
The teachers all taught every subject, so it was very possible to have one or two teachers the whole day instead of three to five in public school. So your teacher could really build a relationship with you on every level, they could gauge how you were feeling throughout the day, and most importantly, if you did not get something from last class that you forgot to mention in that class, you could always bring it up and have the issue addressed.
I went from barely passing in public schools, to almost having a 4.0 grade average at Parkmont. I went from being bored out of my mind in large classes, to being unable to get distracted from learning in small classes. So if I were to sum up this experience in a sentence, i would say: (1) small classes make for engaged students that actually retain the information they are given, (2) they make for lasting relationships that i still have with my teachers to this day, and (3) they most importantly, treat the students like they are an individual student, not just another number for the teacher to crunch and try and get through the year. If the reader of this paper would like to look into the school I went to, you can check it out on the internet by going to Parkmont.org. I strongly recommend it.
Now, where does this all tie up with West Hollywood Private School?
It is a school that wants to think differently and outside of the box unlike public schools,
it wants to build a relationship between the teacher and the student, and most importantly,
it wants to nurture students that have come from being lost and hopeless in the public school system, to an independent student that wants to ask for help, wants to succeed, and wants to be able to know that their teacher or professor will be there for them.
Thanks for reading, and I hope this story has enlightened you on the matter of thousands of children who need help out there.
I put this list together and these examples called "OTHER" are gathered from ten years of attempting to put the words of Big Picture into action. Please send me your suggestions ManyPosters@gmail.com)
