What’s wrong with our schools

I talk to kids and young adults every day and can say without a doubt that the majority of parents have no idea it’s 2104 already. No, I’m not including all parents. Some do take an interest in their kids’ education, take them to the library, get them tablets, and given them advice. But the ones that don’t take an interest, if they have a touch screen tablet for their kids, it’s loaded with games and movies and the kids only get to use it rarely. You might as well be living in a grass house and wearing a poske’ again. Actually that doesn’t sound too bad.

No, no, we’re in 2014 and your children are probably smarter than you are and need more than they are getting at PSS, and the private schools, to compete in this world. Every single child and young adult needs a tablet of their own. All ages should be grouped, four to seven to a group. For the smaller kids up to age 9, it needs to be loaded with a hundred or more educational apps of varying difficulty for up to age 15 and mostly in the 3R’s. For 10 year olds and above, they need Internet access. By high school, kids should be given the freedom to design, implement, and complete real life, real problems and real solutions in their real communities, with student-designed and student-based community projects. By bouncing ideas off each other, they will learn more, faster, retain more, and surprise you with the maturity they display in coming to their conclusions. They need to record every project and upload it to YouTube for others to benefit from their experiences.

Teachers, stop stonewalling these kids, you are there to help them learn, not lecture them. Parents, teachers, administrators and students, everyone with a stake in education in 2014, watch this video and demand changes before school starts in September: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBJMdV1jGGY. It’s time for the CNMI to enter the 21st century. This is not just for PSS, it’s for every school in the CNMI.

Students, you have rights and you aren’t getting what you need out of us adults. Just YouTube your grade and see what classrooms all over the world are doing and ask your teachers to integrate some of the ideas you find in them into your classroom. Demand more, demand change, now!

Is it time to rethink NMC’s mission?

With a graduation rate of about 16 percent, does the Northern Marianas College justify the almost $4 million it spends? Good question. Quick division and that’s over $22,000 per graduating student. Maybe it’s time to think online education and technical training. NMC could very easily be converted to teaching technical courses to 9th grade and above utilizing online courses where feasible, and acting as a monitor to academic online students. Good, online schools cost under $300 per credit, and very little monitoring is needed. Its 2014 and time NMC joined the rest of the world in innovation in education.

Gary DuBrall
Chalan Piao, Saipan