2007/04/25

Don't We Get a Say In All This?

I would love to do a survey right now. I think all students should be able to do a survey right now. 14 years, on average. Everyone spends about 14 years in school. There's no way out of it. You are sent into it when you are 4 years old, and stay in until you are 17 (at least that's how the school board around here does it: Junior Kindergarten - Gr.12) and not once during this entire experience, at least not to my knowledge, does anyone running the school boards ask of students, "What do you think of the way schools are run?", "How do you feel about the selection of books that are in the curriculum?", "How many hours of homework do you think are appropriate?" They just assume that students like reading books written circa 1950, and that you can't have too much homework, the problem must be with your time management, and that the schools are all running fine. I'm not saying that student's should have total control over the way the schools are run, but (in some places) even criminals can vote for the government, which gives them some say over how the prisons work, student's don't even get to help decide who the minister of education is. We're all stuck with whatever the people in charge say were stuck with. I guess they wouldn't have to even take the surveys as binding in any way, but at least read the results. We all spend about six hours a day at a school, it would be nice to feel we have some sort of say in how it all runs.


Am I complaining again? Or am I trying to make a point?