My high school was great, living life to the fullest. Education? Yes! I studied in a good international school, I graduated with a score of 90%. My biggest fear at that time was the university that I wanted to complete my studies in. Everyone else suggested that the fashion career fits me the best, and I started to see myself as a fashion designer. In between these visions, I saw a gap, and a feel of depress awaken me up. In the same day, I gathered with my best friends, who were not in the same class of mine. We decided that we want to stay together, at least, at that time; and at that day, we chose to join the Academic Bridge Programming. My father was against this choice, he told me that the ABP does nothing to the person and that it is an absolute waste of time, but I stood in my position until I convinced him.
When I joined the ABP, my first thought during the orientation days was to have fun with my friends, so I did not take it seriously; I was arriving classes late, and I did not do my work as I had to, especially, for my Academic Composition and Literature classes. The biggest reason was that the classes’ levels were beyond my English knowledge and understandings, which means that if I wanted to succeed on them, I had to suffer. Two weeks later, I realized that if I did not start to change myself, I will not have a well-shaped curve in my life; and from that point, I saw myself learning.
I blamed my primary and secondary high school English teachers, I blamed them a lot. I still remember my struggles and tries to understand The Lumber Room short story by Saki. Saki is a British writer who writes a really, really deep short stories in both words and ideas. And for me, who barely knows the basics of English, I spent exactly 5 hours to get what in and in-between the lines of three pages of it. Whereas for writing, I worried about the contents of the essays. In high school, all that matters was the number of words, thus, when my Composition class's instructor told us that we must not care about the number of words, but to think about the text and most precisely, the purpose of the paper, I gave up. I then ended up going to the English room to ensure my literature class's understanding and Composition class's articles, where I found a great help in there. I kept struggling that whole year keeping in mind that the more I work at that meantime, the less I will have to suffer in future.
In the ABP, I understood what the real physics is. My English skills improved and I got more confident while speaking the language. I realized that physics is interesting and so, I knew what major to choose. Until now, whenever I think of my major, I remember my hesitation and my classmates’ visualizations. I thought for a while that all of what high-school did was literally wasting the students’ time. It did not really give me a good English, nor helped me decide for my future. I believe that there are a lot of students that go through these thinking fights, exactly as me. And I am mostly afraid of the chance that they might take the wrong path on life, following what people they trust suggests, instead of trying to figure out their interests, which is, exactly as what my cousin did, spending 2 years and a half on a major that she does not want to continue the rest of her life in. So now, as we are asked to do a research paper, I decided to grab the chance and satisfy my curiosity in knowing how the high-school and ABP teachers think of their teachings, why they teach that way, and do they really prepare students to find their creativity and interests?
Methodology
To find out the answers I am seeking for, I had to make interviews to teachers from both the communities. All of them had been interviewed with the exact same questions that lead to the answers I wanted without asking that questions directly. And to be fair, I carefully picked the advanced-studies high school teachers who are in the same level of the Academic English and Physics ABP’s instructors. I recorded the interviews I made with my ABP’s instructors, but took notes and wrote the most interesting sentences I heard from my high school teachers, and this was done because of the school rules. However, the answers I heard from my ABP teachers were exactly as I expected, but the case is totally different with my high school teachers.
Discussion and Results:
When I think of myself as an Engineer student, I repeatedly choose to first discuss the physics part of the interviews. I went to the school, and blew a question that required some time to catch the interesting facts from my teachers’ answers. "How do you teach your students? In other words, what strategies do you follow?" I asked.
Physics
High School
I heard a brief but long answer from my teacher, Mrs. Menni. And while she was speaking, she said a sentence that attracted my attention since it is similar yet different from what my ABP's professor said, Dr. Sami. "We want to teach them in a way that improves their thinking, but some students are actually too lazy to think, so they just apply the rules to get points and pass the class." she answered. Mrs. Menni, in the other hand, taught me from that interview that the classes' sections chosen in high school makes a difference on the way of teaching too. The fact that two advanced physics students receive two different teaching strategies surprised me all the way until her point was finished. Unfortunately, my section, called the Engineering, was the one that should learn an advanced physics, but in a way that does not really necessitate the thinking part. We were taught and asked to 80% plug the rules, and to 20% think. While another section, called the IB, had to 50% deal with the questions by thinking.
After the teaching, comes the grading, and so, I asked my teacher whether they care more about the students' knowledge and learning, or their use of rules and calculations, and I was confident from the answer I was about to hear. "Every teacher has a different opinion, and to me, I do care more about the learning. However, we all have to grade students according to their calculations. If a student had a wrong final answer, she is going to be subtracted, and this is because the grading depends on the government rules." Mrs. Menni said. My expectations fooled me.
ABP
Dr. Sami is the only physics teacher in the ABP, and so, I interviewed him with the same questions. “I teach my students in a way that show their thinking. I ask questions that are related to real life, and I want them to know the strategies that lead to the solutions." He stopped for a moment, then continued, "I honestly do not care whether that student is going to pass or fail. Once he put an effort and start learning, he will certainly be rescued. I can therefore help him with the grading. A student who plugs the rules without showing me his way of thinking, can barely get C with me.” I strongly agree with what he said, since I tried him. And this time, my expectations took the right path.
English
High School
Mrs. Shazia, is an Advanced English teacher, who is really ambitious in teaching. While interviewing her, she showed me the different techniques she uses for teaching, she obviously stated that the English teaching changed in a better way these two years.
“Not every teacher between the 8 of us, as you can see, has the same way of teaching, however, we follow the rules given to us from the government. For Writing, we have to check the spelling along with caring to the length of the essay written, so if it is very short and doesn't fulfill the criteria, then we deduct marks. And we do consider the grammar specifically when it effects the cohesion or structure of the sentence.”
She talked about everything, and a short interview with barely 2 questions had took more than 15 minutes from us. The time was flying and what really caught my attention from all what she said, were that not every teacher puts the same effort(I agree, I strongly do) and that the government, again, specify the grading forms, which rely on the importance of the words counts and spelling and grammar checking the most.
I was amused, and the answers I heard were like a ball of shockness thrown at my face. I thought for a while that, if perhaps all the teachers were teaching the same way Mrs. Shazia does, then I might not be in that helpless situation in the ABP. Or if the government did not straightly give those rules, then the other teachers might not feel lazy to teach the students the way they had to.
When I asked about literature, my teachers’ answers were short and summarized. A short story is given to the students in the exam and they are supposed to answer the questions followed. I still remember how straight forward most of them were, to the point that I sometimes used to not read the stories or articles, but the questions and then search for similar sentence to find the answer next to it. All that matters at that time, was the understanding of the general ideas of the stories. That is why, when I went to the ABP, I was wondering about the unfamiliar phrases I heard, such as the exposition, climax, metaphor, and so much other terms.
ABP
In the ABP, I made interviews with two English teachers who both conversely taught me both Composition and Literature. Mr. Robert Marcacci, who I liked his literature classes more than the composition ones, since he uses a sarcastic way of teaching on it which I find unique, had taught me a lot about literature, starting from how to use the literal devices, how to find them or figure their importance in the sentences, and how to respond to or comment on them. Mrs. I also learned a lot from Mr. Nancy Lovelace, my Composition class’s instructor, whose strategies made me feel more confident in writing. This, nonetheless, does not mean that I did not get advantages from them in the other way around, because I really do appreciate the effort they had put for teaching me and my other classmates in both the subjects.
Literature
Mr. Bob, however, said that he likes teaching students that way not only to be different, but to allow them give and take with each other. He, in fact, likes the class to be active and does not really grade the students according to their answers only, but by showing how they think critically and by making connections to the story.
"Literature is not a writing class, therefore, I do not wait from my students to rewrite or summarize the story to me, what I expect from them is to make connections from their life, if possible, to the text; and to look for metaphors or contexts from that story. So in other words, a story about a rabbit and a turtle that are racing each other, and the slowest animal wins the race; those are actually stories about us, so we can apply these stories to our lives. In fact, I usually do not mark my students wrong for being wrong as long as there is a logical approach and evidence from the text. This, in fact, will help in improving their negotiating skills and benefits them for their future, which is the goal I am aiming for."
Composition
Mrs. Nancy tend to give reading assignments which in the same time is either an important piece that the students must respond to, or a sample that shows how the structure of the next piece should be; and this idea, had personally helped me a lot as a beginner student writer that was not sure how the layout of each piece have to be. Even though what she do helps a lot, but she is not the type of teachers who gives everything straight forward, in oppose, she tries to make her students become more and more independent. An A grade is not an easy to get with her.
"I show my students “this is what is wrong”. Or I get to where I just take a line of type and I just put a checkmark out there, which means that somewhere along there, there is a mistake, and they have to find it and correct it. This step, as I think of it, makes them aware of their individual errors, and that they need to be responsible for the final product.”
When I was an ABP student, I first took the composition class with Mrs. Nancy and Literature with Mr. Bob, and in the second semester, the teachers were switched. I know that I was blessed to be in that academic teachers order, because Mr. Bob, as a writer teacher, does not tell us how to do the structure of the papers, but leave us to do everything by ourselves to up-stretch our independency. As for physics, I am really grateful that I took it, since it guided me to the major I belong to.
After the answers I heard from both Physics and English high school teachers, I really do not know who to blame. The government who restricted their rules, that it my opinion, does not help the students that much, or the school’s administration who did not come up with good-enough, or perhaps, practiced-enough teachers? Regarding this, I in fact am thankful to all my teachers for the background they gave me about their subjects, and I am and will always carry even the tiny details I learned from them.
In the end of this piece, I really want to thank all the instructors who approved to make the interviews with me. And a special thanks to Mrs. Shazia who did not only do the interview, but also gave me a sample that shows the strategy she follows for teaching.
Table1: Overall Comparison between Different Studying Strategies
Literature
|
||||
Mr. Robert Marcacci (%)
|
Mrs. Nancy Lovelace (%)
|
High School Teachers (%)
|
||
How Effective it was (Students’ Confidence
about Learning)
|
80
|
90
|
55
|
|
Participation in Class (In Total/All
Students)
|
95
|
75
|
50
|
|
Composition
|
||||
How Effective it was (Students’ Confidence
about Learning)
|
95
|
85
|
55
|
|
Participation in Class (In Total/All
Students)
|
70
|
80
|
45
|
|
Physics
|
||||
Dr. Sami
|
High School Teachers (%)
|
|||
How Effective it was (Students’ Confidence
about Learning –by Thinking)
|
70
|
20
|
||
Participation and Concentration in Class (In
Total/All Students)
|
70
|
45
|
||
#Each Box
is meant to be Per 100%.
|
||||
