Your highschool, how is/was it?

[runesmithie]

After reading a recent Slashdot story on Science in the US, I wondered how other highschools compare to mine in all areas =\

 

 

 

I just finished my junior year a few weeks ago, and in our American Government class we had just barely barely finished the unit on World War 2.

 

 

 

In the sciences department, Principles of Technology (think Applied Physics) and Chemistry are standard fare for juniors and senior year we can take Physics (Our only AP class offered).

 

 

 

In math, I feel we are behind, as I know that it's pretty standard for a sophomore in one of the mediocre highschools in a bigger city nearby to be taking what would be in the senior curriculum here. This last year I took Algebra 2 and it was really the only class offered. I'm getting kind of worried that the last year of math offered at my school was Trig and College Algebra (which I heard is simple enough that freshman could do it =\), so this summer I'm enrolling in a trig course through a community college and will be going into calc 1 through a community college and if I'm doing good enough, calc 2 for the second semester to get on a competitive level for a college I'm looking at. This will cost me around $800. >.<

 

 

 

What are your schools like, and have you had to do anything on your own to get past the 'confinements' of your school?

 

 

 

 

 

For those not in the know, highschool is from 14-18 for the most part

[knives669]

As far as Math and English goes, we're doing pretty good. We have a pre-AP Math and English program.

 

 

 

Our English programs simply consist of either basic English throughout your high school career, or Pre-AP for three years and finally AP English in your senior year.

 

 

 

Our Math is sort of the same way as English, ending up with AP Calculus in your senior year, if you want to take it.

 

 

 

We're a bit behind in Sciences, with Physical Science or Biology for Freshman, Chemistry, Zoology, and Physics for anyone else, but they're not a huge requirement to graduate. (Only two years of Science, I believe)

 

 

 

Our History classes are alright... We have Civics for Freshmen (It is a required class for graduation), World History for Sophmores, US History for Juniors, and Competitive Goverment or AP US History for Seniors. I wish they had some sort of Pre-AP class for AP US History. Apperently, that class is no walk in the park.

 

 

 

We are behind in Foreign Languages, with French and Spanish being the only languages offered. Spanish is through Distance Learning, and it's doubtful that we're even going to have a Spanish I class next year.

 

 

 

The only problem I really have with my school is that many classes are only offered once throughout the day, causing many many schedule conflicts. ALOT of the higher level classes such as Zoology, AP English, Pre-AP Englishes, Physics, Calculus, Trigonometry, AP History, Psychology, and Competitive Government are only offered one hour a day.

 

 

 

Someone who wanted to take Psychology and Zoology, couldn't take both because the classes are only offered once per day sixth hour. It's quite frustrating when trying to plan a schedule.

 

 

 

Alot of people I know simply take classes at the community college here to earn any extra credits they may need. One thing about our school is that it's always changing. We're not having a Spanish I class this year, but we may next year. Many people get tired with the inconsistencies and just go out to the college where they know they're guaranteed a class.

[Necromagus]

The Dutch high school system is more tiered than the American system. After elementary school, you either go to VMBO (which is then split up in theory or practice) which is most directly aimed at practical work, welding, carpentry, that sort of stuff. It's a four year education.

 

 

 

Then there's HAVO, which is five years. It's more theory based than VMBO. After HAVO the students usually take a two or three year MBO or HBO course which prepares them for more educated jobs like management or elementary school education.

 

 

 

Finally there's VWO, which prepares students for university. It's six years. This is the most theory oriented study of all. At the beginning of the fourth year each student chooses a set of courses that manages one of four general directions: culture, economics, health care or engineering.

 

 

 

The school I attended is called a Gymnasium. It's basically a VWO, but with the option to take Greek and or Latin. You have to take at least one up to your sixth year, the other can be taken as an optional class. In addition to the classical languages, we also had a course that replaced the 'regular' culture studies course all high school students take with a course that's more focused on classical art and culture. The course ends in the fifth year with a week long field trip to Rome.

 

 

 

Over all, our school is very focused on supporting students with special needs. Last year, a blind girl graduated even though a lot of the school books she needed weren't available in braille. There's also help for dyslexic students or students who have concentration problems. There's also a lot of extracurricular stuff. Our debate club recently won the national tournament, and there are a lot of programmes you can participate in if you have the time and high enough grades, like following a doctor in a hospital for a day.

 

 

 

There's also a lot of pressure to perform though, mostly because our school is pretty much the highest level of high school available in our country. You can only go down. Most other high schools offer multiple levels at the same time, so if you'd fail a year at HAVO you can just drop down to VMBO without leaving the school. At our school you can fail a year twice, but most students choose to leave the school entirely after that.

[Faux]

My school is a Self-Directed Learning Program thing. All it means is independent study. We don't have classes, etc. It's one of the two schools in Ontario based on it like that. We also receive international visitors (mainly from Australia) as they want to base their program on my school's.

 

 

 

Our school is also regarded as one of the best of the TCDSB schools in here. We excel academically, and sports as well. I actually got a PM from a person here on TIF asking if I go to the school he's talking about since he knows how good our track team is.

 

 

 

Our school is really an all-around school. Music department goes to Europe every couple of years to perform. Art department goes to the US for their annual trip of art galleries. Our History/Geography department is also planing a trip to Europe for a visit of WW1 & 2 battlefields. In business, we have a DECA organization (which I'm proud to be an executive of) and is planning trips (Washington DC & New York) to practice for next year's competition.

 

 

 

For courses, there's a selection of Academic/Applied courses. There's also open courses. Academic -> University. Applied -> College. That's the main difference.

 

 

 

You need a minimum of 30 credits to finish high school. A course, if you work hard enough can easily be done within 3 month's time. I know a lot of people in my grade having senior (Gr. 12) and junior (Gr 11.) courses. You can also summerschool a course on another school and even have nightschool and such.

 

 

 

Depending on what you're planning to focus on, you can have certificates. I'm going for a business certificate (needing 5 business credits - gonna have 3 by the end of this school year). There's also one for Tech, Music, etc. It's pretty much just a show-off for your application forms.

 

 

 

In my school, you can probably finish within two years if you work hard and finish all your courses easily. I'm lazy so I'm gonna take the whole 4 years here.

[knives669]

Oh. I forgot to mention our extracurricular stuff.

 

 

 

Our Senior High band is really amazing. This year, they got about 21 trophies in competitions, some ranging as far as nationals in Texas. Next year, for marching season, they're probably going to go with a Final Fantasy theme and play some music from FF7, which is pretty cool.

 

 

 

We have a few sports teams including football, baseball, golf, and track. Our football and baseball teams are decent. Our golf and track teams are pretty awesome. During football season, the school is fun because we have pep rallies almost every friday. Our school has alot of spirit. Everyone in the town shows up for the football games.

 

 

 

Our FBLA club cleaned up at the Tomorrow's Outstanding Professionals competition at a local college this year. (I earned a second place medal in the Desktop Publishing event) Our Science club got to go to Six Flags, and our Spanish club got to go on alot of field trips to several different places.

 

 

 

We're pretty big into the Foreign Exchange program. We had quite a few kids come from Thailand and Germany this year to graduate, or just to go to our school for a semester.

 

 

 

There's always something going on at our school. :)

[insane]

My ex-highschool (public) was very upper class in all areas except for English and physics. All other areas were taught with excellence.

 

 

 

It is a general trend that high school students in Ontario going to university will experience a 10% grade drop - coming from my high school, I experienced a grade increase because it was an extremely difficult school.

[rm2k_champ]

(public school)everything is taught very well, extra classes and lots of sporting facilities, the staff are mostly great and as for the people i got to school they are fantastic. But I hate some classes and i am so happy to drop a lot of them as i move into my fith year of secondary school.

 

The Scottish school system is completely different from Englands and American is un-comparable. I also believe the higer course is harder than the American equivilent.

[runesmithie]

I guess I might as well elaborate a bit more.

 

 

 

We have one language .. Spanish, and only Spanish 1 and 2 are available. The teacher is horrible, but it doesn't matter too much as we got our lessons from the tv :P (Telecourse from a big uni in the northern part of the state).

 

 

 

For sports, we really only have the basics, Football (American), Volleyball, Basketball, and Track. Outside of those activities, we have a Scholar's Bowl team (which is about the only extracurricular activity I'm good at :P ), Forensics (think Debate/Speech, not CSI), the Allschool play, and a few other organizations that really just sit around and twiddle their thumbs, like SADD. The past 2 years we were in the BEST robotics competition, but we didnt do that this year and were promised a better science related extracurricular activity next year >.<. Mainly the reason why we don't have it anymore is because we had a horrible machine design and very few people that would actually work on it and knew what they were doing. Infact in my sophomore year we had to rely on point donations, as our machine *did not* work at all =\

[azntemplar_00]

My high school is pretty well off in the Math/Science department (a whole bunch of post APs for both those subjects, a good portion of the school takes AP calc in their junior year or before) seeing how it's a magnet school for science and tech :) . People have said we've been lacking in the humanities department, but there's been a whole bunch of courses added within the past couple of years. Our sports teams aren't that spectacular overall, but we have some excellent teams such as our tennis, track, crew, and golf team. Our football team hasn't been that bad lately either. Chess, debate, and it's academic are all quite good too. The one thing we need is a new building.

[Lionheart_0]

My school seems to be very into the opposits, having great programs for Athletics and then For science.

 

 

 

There are many courses at our school for athletics, and m ost focuse on those who acutly want to get fit, so people can acutly get a free work out through half the year of school. Also there are many leadership courses tied into these.

 

 

 

As for science. The first two years is just straight science, teaching basic chemistry, some physics (our school kinda lacks in physics because of lack of interest from students, and only one teacher can teach it), and biology. After this, the students can chose to continue into specific class for each subject. Most students chose either chemistry or biology.

 

 

 

Ther are also many good arts programs, having music classes, art classes, and drama classes. But there are slightly more specific programs. In grade 10, kids can take a dance class (usaly only girls though), and there is also a grd 11/12 musicl theater, wich put on two preformances a year..

 

 

 

Other then that, our english, and math are kinda normal, just its a big step from m iddle school because the ammount of homework expected is upped alot.

 

 

 

Edit: Forgot to mention we have probably one of the best technology departments (i.e. Mechanics, electrical,ect) in ontario.

[runesmithie]

Another thing I was thinking of... If my highschool was any bigger (~18 kids in my grade), it would definitely be very very poor. Right now the teachers are able to spend a lot of time talking to the kids about problems with homework or anything and are available 99% of the day as long as you come in a free hour when they aren't lecturing and in the case of my math teacher... she always knows what problem you're going about on and doesn't really have to look at her answer key to check o.O

[MyPurpleCrayon]

Oh man, I love my Highschool. But I mainly love it from a social aspect. I don't really do that much learning, but it's no biggie. So I'm sure from a actualy school standpoint, it sucks... Which is why Ghost hates our school. He actually hates our school more than anything I think in the whole world. Haha, it's funny because I don't mind it at all. I'm going to miss it a whole lot when I graduate, and he just graduated and doesn't miss it at all. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen him happier. :P

[Guest GhostRanger]

Oh man, I love my Highschool. But I mainly love it from a social aspect. I don't really do that much learning, but it's no biggie. So I'm sure from a actualy school standpoint, it sucks... Which is why Ghost hates our school. He actually hates our school more than anything I think in the whole world. Haha, it's funny because I don't mind it at all. I'm going to miss it a whole lot when I graduate, and he just graduated and doesn't miss it at all. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen him happier. :P

 

 

 

Man, you're right about that. I still can't believe the parents made[/] me walk. :wink:

 

 

 

The high school MPC is referring to, the one I just graduated from, has a fantastic English department, if you can manage the right teachers. If not, and in almost every other subject, you have to deal with chaotic nonsense that is the educational buraucracy. Teachers who have been tenured in teaching a subject they don't understand, principals enforcing ridiculous rules instead of concentrating on the merit of the school, and an overall system that seems to rejoice at mediocrity. I came from a school that doesn't even acknowledge valedictorian for crying out loud.

 

 

 

I'm fairly confident that I'd have a problem with almost any high school I went to - but I was stuck where I was stuck.

[No_OnE]

Our high school isn't the best. The departments are good, its just that there aren't that many kids in the AP classes. I'm one of the honors students going into high school. I start ninth grade in August. In ninth grade, I will be taking Algebra 2, Honors Biology, English 2 ( or something like that), and World Geography. I'm taking nice classes for my level. I could have taken Algebra 2 over the summer and taken my Junior year math course in my Freshman year but I would have had to go to school seven hours a day for my entire summer and I really didn't want to do that. I'll just settle for taking Algebra 2 in ninth.

[Mr_Putter]

You can pretty much take any course you need here. There's always several different times for the biggest courses (you can always get into whatever English course is right for you, because every single person in the school has to take it every year). There's plenty of math and chemistry courses aswell. We have a wide variety of more obscure courses aswell that you may or may not get into (accounting, architecture, stain glass and so forth). These courses, and the tech courses (auto shop, woodworking, computer tech) are mostly available, but don't have the best or most qualified teachers as it's simply difficult to find anyone else who wants/can teach them. We also have some cool courses like guitar, percussion/drums, and weightlifting. There's plenty of variety. Though I wish there was a film studies course :|.

[vladmoney]

Have to say that I'm pretty proud of our school. We have a lot of great teachers and we have a great program all together. We got pretty much everything, just gona list the tough stuff

 

 

 

Science: AP Bio, AP Physics (ele & mech), AP Chemisty all offered

 

Math: most people take up to AP Calc BC, but if smart enough they let you go to Linear Algebra/multi-variable Calc which is taken in HS but is given in local college credit, we have one of the best math teachers in ohio, we were ranked 1st among these tests in our state

 

 

 

Our other departments are pretty sweet too, we have 3 tiers of english for every year but obviously AP is offered only senoir year. We also AP Econ (1st in state 2 years in a row), AP GOV, AP history.

 

Granted its only possible because we have a big public school, and since like 1/4 of the people in my town go to private schools, the public school still gets the tax money but doesn't have to spend it on as many kids.

[malo2]

Im pretty sure were not behind on anything, atleast not in any of the classes Im in (im only about to finish fresman btw), my shool is pretty high rated in the country so we get alot of good teachers applying for jobs :?

[unknownmasterofnothing]

My high school is pretty tough. Well all high schools in new york have to take regents, which are tests in the years of high school. In freshman yr, it was the biology regents. Then later years are english, american history, spanish, math, physics, chemistry. Our sports teams are horrible though. Juniors can take ap art, ap government, ap english. Seniors can take that too and ap bio, ap calc.

[Tigra00]

Crappy.

 

 

 

Teachers didn't care, didn't teach crap, didn't help.