My boss and I have been discussing where to send children to school. Now, I don’t have children (no husband, no children – not even a remote possibility in my life without a boyfriend), so it’s not an immediate concern for me, but she and her husband definitely have a concern as their oldest enters Kindergarten. She went to a big school in Arlington just like I did in Victoria, however, her husband is from a small town, and he went to a very small school. He insists their children would get a better education in a small town school than a big city school. When she started telling me the differences between these two environments, my jaw dropped. There are good and bad points to either size, so which direction should she go? She and I share the opportunities of large population schools. Back when I was in high school, I graduated with a class of nearly 400 seniors. Back then, I used to think we were getting gypped out of a lot of opportunities because VISD didn’t care about us on the south side of the tracks. I always point to the canvas painting on my wall – the ONLY canvas painting I’ve ever done in my life. Imagine knowing that my art teacher held off on giving this assignment until she had enough wooden frames for a good class she thought would benefit the most from this experience. We learned how to build the frame, stretch the canvas, prime the canvas, and use our entire arm to paint (just in case you were wondering, artists have a lot of upper body strength... and I didn’t, so I felt that). We didn’t have enough easels, so I used the studio desk and stool to rotate the frame in order to paint the entire canvas. Sadly, due to the ridiculous politics in Victoria, my canvas painting as well as the others chosen from our class to represent our school were rejected from entry into the Juried Youth Art Show that year, a show that would have earned me an art scholarship just by merely entering. Yet another nail in the coffin for my true desire to have majored in art. This was only one of many issues coming from going to Stroman, but in truth, we really had it good compared to small town schools. They don’t always have an art program, or a music program... or theatre, dance, or any other arts and culture programs. I started freaking out from this news, and I asked my boss if they had clubs, organizations, or any other extra-curricular activities those students could join to get these experiences. That really depends on the area. If there is no certified art instructor or art enthusiast living in the area, these children miss out on this opportunity in or out of the classroom. It’s not a requirement by the state to have these programs, in general. My jaw dropped further to the ground. But think about what they do have. Given that their classes are much smaller, each student has a better opportunity to participate in activities, including every sport offered at that school. One of my co-workers jumped into the conversation. Being from a small school, he told us how he would play six man football, march in the band at half time after switching into his band uniform, and finish the game back in his football uniform. Everyone has a chance at everything. No real competition occurs in these small schools. They participate in every sport, every academic program, and basically become the “greatest killing machines in the universe.” Remember how we had to fight to get from class to class during passing periods? They easily move from classroom to classroom with the smaller population. How about those soybean hamburgers and the occasional [wire from dentures, hair, live worm, you name it] that we found in our food? He told us they had home-style meals. They’d use fresh meat that someone would catch/kill for lunch. And the smaller classrooms meant fewer students to watch and discipline as well as more focus on actually teaching. Are certain things lacking? A social education? A cultural education? Which is better? Is competition good? Keep in mind a lot of people in big schools miss out because of competition, but is there less of a fire in their hearts pushing students to achieve in small schools? I found this data to be interesting, from the Victoria Advocate on the TEA results for all the schools around the area: media.victoriaadvocate/news/documents/2013/08/09/TEA_results.jpg. Obviously, there is no absolute correlation to size on here, but the numbers look very interesting when you think about it. Here I have been thinking my whole life that at big schools we get a better education. Maybe not so much. Maybe?
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:36:56 +0000
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