ARe+you+really+ready+to+Work?

Hope you can view this file. I attached it to the email folder. I would like you to read this and comment.

Are you surprised?

What are the key points you think are important and some solutions?

Personally, does this affect you?

Does it change any ideas of work that you may have?

April 18: I think personally that the quest for knowledge and learning is the best. For example, I belong to a mushroom group. I am trying to learn about mushrooms ( to learn something new every year after I turned 50 yo). I got chosen for a class because I showed I wanted to learn. Only one or two people are chosen to do this. It was is a free class, but the teacher is a well-known one. Show you are willing to learn.... never let you brain be stagnate. They say it keeps Alzheimer's away. Stretch your brain, LEARN, DESIRE KNOWLEDGE AND BE OPEN TO POSSIBILITIES. MRS R

April 21: I'm not surprised. The whole article was a no-brainer. You go to //work//... you have to **WORK**. WOW. The skills that are considered most important to be successful are the key points to this article: Professionalism/Work Ethic, Oral and Written Communications, Teamwork/Collaboration, and Critical Thinking/Problem Solving.  To address the first one, Work Ethic, I believe that one of the biggest problems, especially for high school graduates, is that there is no appreciation for work, no drive. "I'm finally done high school, now I can slack off, and if I fail at life well enough those over-achievers from high school will pay for my life." I'm not saying everyone is like that, I'm just saying that there are some people like that. I'm a bit of a slacker myself, I won't deny it. I leave things to the last moment, and I don't always put in my best effort. I //know// I have poor work ethic. I think the only way to solve this problem, is to instill in people's minds the value of achieving. Even though I'm a slacker, I still want to go to college, and I'm going to do what it takes to get there. Not everyone has the same goal, and I think that is a big problem. We need to give people something to work for.  Oral and Written communications is a subject that needs to be further stressed in schools. You might think I'm just huffing and puffing and saying we should do this and do that, and that we do just fine in our language courses, thank you very much. We aren't, not really. My stepmother, most of you know her, is the RTI Tech down at the middle school. She works, day in and day out, to help children who are struggling in language arts and math. A while back, the middle schoolers did some tests in these areas. Previously, they had done fairly well in language arts, but poorly in math, so recent classes had been stressing math more, in the hopes of bringing those student up to par. It worked, but at the cost of their writing skills, which dropped. Children are coming up from elementary school with as much knowledge as you expect a second grader to have. Children come to school, and are forced to read out loud, which they do robotically. There are kids who read English as if it were Swahili. People are surprised there are so many workers with problems with oral and written communication? Please.  Team work and collaboration is a skill that has to be worked on at a young age, because it gets very hard to fix as someone gets older. You can hardly teach old dogs new tricks, and they've been bred to obey. Wolves are impossible to retrain. I was reading some articles on developmental psychology (for something completely unrelated), and by the time you've reached twenty years of age you've basically become an old wolf. A big part of teamwork, at least in my experience, is trust, which is something that a person has to learn to do at a young age. To work with someone, you have to trust that they'll haul their own weight, and not just latch on like a barnacle. Think back, and see if there is, at any point in your memory, a time where you were partnered with someone who just hung about doing nothing. They wouldn't schedule time for the two of you to stay after school to work together. They didn't have their part ready, so you had to scrape something together at the last moment. You suffered, and you realized it might just be better to work alone. It's no wonder team work can be such a problem.  How many people tried to solve the blowgun lab without the use of time? How much time did you put into the effort? On a different note, who likes puzzles? Riddles? Mind games? Point and click adventures? Math problems? Have you ever calculated the volume of an object, like a box, because you were bored? Okay, that last one was a little ridiculous (and it's not like I was //bored// per se...). Anyway, these are all chances for us to exercise our critical thinking and problem solving abilities. "A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid." "You are trapped in a room with nothing but a table and a mirror. There are no doors, windows, chimneys, or openings of any kind. How do you escape?" "What rises but never falls? What falls by never rises?" How many difficult problems have you done recently, problems you knew you could do, but were just really, really long and hard? I can't help but think that a riddle or two does everyone a bit of good. "'11 was a race horse. 2 was 12. 1111 race. 2112.' This previous statement can be read to make a sensible sentence." "The man who made it doesn't want it. The man who bought it doesn't need it. The man who needs it doesn't know it. What is it?" "'Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man's father is my father's son.' Who is it?" Perhaps there should be a riddle a day we are tasked with answering. They could give it to us during homeroom. "A man wanted to enter an exclusive club but did not know the password that was required. He waited by the door and listened. A club member knocked on the door and the doorman said, 'twelve.' The member replied, 'six ' and was let in. A second member came to the door and the doorman said, 'six.' The member replied, 'three' and was let in. The man thought he had heard enough and walked up to the door. The doorman said ,'ten' and the man replied, 'five.' But he was not let in. What should have he said?"  This whole thing doesn't really affect me. I still have the same ideas as I always have about work. (After that last bit I feel like I haven't written enough on this bit here.) Answers to the Riddles (Just highlight, they're in white): 1) Egg 2) You look in the mirror and saw where you were. You take the saw and cut the table in half. You put the two halves together to make a whole. You go through the hole to escape 3) Sunrise, dark fall 4) Eleven was a race horse. Two was one too. Eleven won one race. Two won one too 5) A coffin 6) His son 7) Three Mercedes Gurney

Thank you Mercedes. great riddles, I didn't get all of them.

THe next labs will require a lot of thinking.

Working in groups can be difficult. Some business have retreats to facilitate the process.

PBR

April 24: I'm not at all surprised, considering the state of public schools in America. If anyone has seen the movie //W////aiting for Superman,// they'll know what exactly what the article is talking about and why this has become a problem. If you haven't seen that movie, I suggest that you do, because it's truly eye-opening (and slightly terrifying).

The key point in this article was that people are failing at: Work Ethic, Critical Thinking, Oral/Written Communication, and Teamwork. The first three of these things are a direct result of the public school system's failure to prepare people for the world in the current state it's in. All public schools in America are "track schools", meaning that the level of your education depends on your intelligence level upon entering the school (consider AP and Honors courses v. normal classes). This educational strategy served America's needs greatly during and after World War II, when it was created, because America needed a variety of white- and blue-collar workers to satisfy all of the needs of a post-war economy, and track schools give a good mix of both. Today, however, as technology and society advance exponentially, our school system is staying exactly where it was years ago. To compete in the global market and keep our marginal prosperity as a country, we need to fill X number of intelligence-demanding jobs with Y amount of people who are qualified to fill them. We are reaching the moment of truth, where Y will become less than X, and we will start to fall behind. This is already happening, and articles like this one just lend evidence to that fact. Eventually, we need to reform the public school system or suffer the consequences. In my incredibly harsh opinion, EVERY student in the same public school should be held to the same high standard, and if you fail, you fail. This way, students who are normally on the lower track would be forced to keep up, and be taught critical thinking and work ethic in the process!

The main problem is how to increase our work ethic, critical thinking skills, and oral/written communication skills without leaving the other skills in the dust. As Mercedes said, this is becoming a problem. At Meroby Elementary School, it was found that students are a grade level behind in their reading, writing, and math skills. As a solution, teachers //stopped// teaching science and social studies to have more time to teach the other subjects. However, when students now reach middle school, they're doomed to fail in the subjects that they weren't taught. This is something to be avoided.

This doesn't really effect me at all. Being an "upper-track" student, I feel like I will be better prepared for life after high school. I don't think it should change my opinion as much as it should change educator's opinions, because they actually have the power to do something about it.

-Nick Hamel

Is MVHS correct in allowing students to self select honors classes? My question, should we have no tracking/ Would you still be engaged as a learner if there were no honors physics?

My personal opinion is that we should go to school more as there is a lot more to discover and learn since I as in high school in the early 70's.

How can I inspire all my students to learn for learning sake? The goal of my teaching profession.

Mrs R

MVHS is correct in allowing students to pick honors classes. The problem arises when people //could// take them, but don't. I know a few people who, while in high school, were easily capable of taking honors courses, but chose not to because they wanted to take the easiest way out. This is one of the problems, and ties into the "work ethic" issue in the article.

Also, you're right, we should probably be going to school more. Other countries do it, and we're falling behind.

-Nick Hamel

I'm not surprised by the article one bit and I knew that the lacking of these skills was going to become a problem at some point. I see kids all the time not do their work, and I think to myself "how can they just sit there and not do any of their work?" whereas I try my hardest in school, although I'm not the brightest kid I believe that having the initiative to work hard, will out weigh everything else.

The main points in the article is that students are lacking in: Work Ethic, Critical Thinking, Oral/ Written Communication, and Teamwork.

I agree with working with younger children (specifically around the K-5) to try and develop these skills early in their life, but it to a certain degree. Just do little things, just get their feet wet in a sense, if they learn these little by little throughout their life instead of trying to force them to develop these somewhat mature skills all at once, they will become overwhelmed and push themselves away from the skills. I hope that makes sense, all I'm trying to say is don't expect the younger students to be perfect in these skills right from the gate, these skills should be something that they work on for most of their careers as students.

The main point I would like talk about the most is the work ethic, as I believe that this is the biggest concern. Just like the article mentions, I believe that parents have a big role is this field. My parents have always taught me to work hard and try my hardest at anything I do, because if it is something that I want then I will work hard for myself. I also naturally get my work ethic from my mother, who has always told me do what needs to be done first then do what you want to do so that you do not have that stress of knowing you have to get something done on your mind. Kids are just not being raised like they used to, I know that sounds like an adult or something your grandfather would say, but it's true. Having a good work ethic and time management is one of the keys to success.

This article does not really affect me, I still have the same ideas about work as I did before.

Jess Kane

** [|katierose13] **

I'm not surprised that the majority of graduates from high school in the United States are not ready for the workforce. Comparing our coutry to the rest of the world, we're really falling behind. We go to school less, our courses are significantly easier, and in my opinion, our public school system needs major revisions. Kids are graduating from high school without being ready to enter the real world. These younger generations with lower standards and less education are the future of the country which is a bit scary to me. Even being enrolled in all the honors and AP classes offered to me, I know that when I enroll in college I'll be less prepared than others going to the same college because of the school I went to. If I were to go to school overseas I wouldn't be close to ready for their universities because the kids there would be miles ahead of me.

The work ethic part of the piece is also an aspect that I believe the United States struggles with. Our schools encourage kids to develop a good work ethic but it's not necessary if taking core classes at an average high school. This means that the majority of the students will graduate high school with little responsibility and work ethic.

How does this affect me? I'm a student that will soon be entering the workforce and though I've applied myself in high school, compared to other countries, I'm behind. Being part of a generation that's soon to be the future of the nation, I'm worried that our lacking public school system will reflect on the preformance of our country as a whole when these students grow up.

Also, I agree that we should go to school more, not because I'd enjoy it, because I wouldn't, but because as a country we're in need of some more rigorous educational programs to turn out a more intellectual generation of people and compete with leading nations around the world.  

Thank you, Katie. It is important to be a life long learner. These skills don't end in high school. It is important that all people embrace them to be the best person they can be.  