rant #1, my take on notes

hello everyone, starting now I will post my rantings on various subjects, mostly related to the idiocy of the american public school system. these will also be mirrored on my myspace blog ( http://www.myspace.com/rancidmoose )

Mr __________,
you said to voice our opinions on how to handle note taking so here's mine. Notes are designed to help students by serving as a memory aid, not to be a burden on them. Note taking should be the responsibility of the student who feels they need notes to remember the material being taught in class, not the responsibility of the teacher to take make sure the student writes down every inane detail of the days lecture. For people like me who have learned much of the material already from outside reading, and who can learn
nearly anything just by hearing or reading it once, notes are nothing but a waste of valuable time that could be spent learning new material.
The purpose of school is to give students the opportunity to learn, not to take that opportunity away.
Sincerely,
Thomas




The american school system, despite all cries that we as a nation losing our edge, seems to have shifted its focus from providing an education opportunity for everyone to hindering the gifted students from actually learning anything, and to help the less intellectually fortunate feel good about themselves without actually teaching them anything that could help them catch up. Take note taking as an example. For about 50% of the school-going population, taking notes actually helps them remember stuff. For about 40% taking notes just distracts them from listening to what the teacher is talking about. For the remaining 10% they aren't so much a distraction as a flat out waste of time. And yet for some strange reason teachers seem to feel an increasing need to
come up with cutesier and cutesier ways of coercing students into taking notes, often by actually trying to make the note taking an assignment and grading it. Awesome for that 50% who it actually helps, but for the other half its useless or worse than useless. The responsibility to learn falls squarely on the shoulders of the students. The teachers are merely there to provide as much information as possible to the people who want to learn about it. Their's is not the responsibility of forcing a learning style on those who don't want it, and even worse, their attempts at doing so merely hinder those who most want to learn from actually doing so. Fie on you teachers, for you are no longer the suppliers of coveted information, but the feared dollers out of grades that determine who will get an education later in life, using a system that hurts those most interested in doing so.