As I said a the the start of this series , there were several hats to wear in telling about my education. Sometimes it switched from student to teacher to just a kid in the same post.
Even though I was a classroom teacher for 37 years I have a healthy skepticism about some of the things that go on in education.
When I was finishing Gr. 12 we had to fill out a form for the exams we wished to write . In that way, the powers that be, knew how many exam copies to send out and then there was less risk of extra copies circulating.
As I was carefully filling out the form so that I would get all my exams , the teacher came along and said , "Why don't you order the exam for Agricultural Economic?" What? Write an exam for a course I didn't take? The teacher told me that I should get the exam and on the day to write the exam , I could look at it. If I thought I might be able to pass it I would write it. If I thought it was too hard I could get up and leave the examination room. The teacher told me that he thought I had a good chance of passing the exam as I was a farm kid and followed news on agriculture. I was also active in 4H.
Well you know the rest of the story. The exam came and I wrote it and got a good mark that increased my average.
So there's my learning things that are out of the classroom!
So my skepticism is this. There is something wrong with the curriculum if somebody can pass an exam and get credit for course they didn't take. So over many years I realized that in some cases we did not teach much. I 'm not worried about teaching a whole lot of facts but teaching skills that help a student to evaluate, analyze and make judgments. With world events and elections right now, I don't think we got these skills got across to the students.
