Archive for May, 2008

Corporate Volunteering

Along the lines of volunteering to gain beneficial job experience, corporate employees are using volunteering for non-profits as a way to increase their job skills. Corporations have realized that it’s financially efficient to lend out their employees to non-profits so those employees can gain experience and increase their skill set while helping to improve the [ READ MORE ]

Wake Forest University Drops SAT Requirement

If you apply to a school that doesn’t require SAT scores, chances are it’s a liberal arts college. Smith College announced this month that they are now an SAT-optional school. This is a big deal and is an encouraging step in the right direction; I’m a firm disbeliever in the accuracy of standardized testing. I’m [ READ MORE ]

Volunteer to Gain Work Experience (Work for Free to Get a Job)

Catch-22 is safely ensconced in my top ten books list; it’s been there since I read it over a decade ago and I can’t imagine that it will ever be demoted. It’s such a perfect, perfect description of being caught in some bureaucratic, red-tape moment wherein the powers that be are unmoved by your pointing [ READ MORE ]

It’s Not On The Test

I wrote a post a few weeks ago applauding a Seattle middle school teacher who protested the No Child Left Behind-infused standardized tests by refusing to administer them to his students. I loathe the NCLB act and all the destruction and misery it has wrought. It is evil and no good has (or will) come [ READ MORE ]

The $1000 College Admissions Frustration Scholarship

I’ve explained my utter disdain for the current state of the college admissions process here and here and here and also here. It’s completely warped and fubar and several other descriptive expletives that I probably shouldn’t write on a site devoted to all things educational. Mr. Sam Jackson over at The Sam Jackson College Experience, [ READ MORE ]

Best Architecture Program Ever

Whenever possible, I like to point out educators who have used their powers for good. Samuel Mockbee was absolutely one of the exceptional ones. Before leukemia got the better of him in 2001, he was an architecture professor at Auburn University and was the co-founder and co-director of the socially- and ecologically-conscious Rural Studio program. [ READ MORE ]

Community College vs. University

Trying to decide whether to attend a community college or a university right out of high school is a question worthy of pondering. I’ve attended both (university, then CC, then university) and each has its pros and cons. Class Size Community Colleges tend toward fewer students per class, which means more student/teacher interaction. This is [ READ MORE ]

Virtual Schools

According to this article in the CS Monitor, more and more parents are keeping their kids home and sending them to virtual schools in which the teachers and coursework are accessed online. Any extra supplies are sent by mail to the students’ homes. One mom describes the idea of sending her kid to a virtual [ READ MORE ]

Increase in Adult Education

College enrollment has maintained a generally upward trend for the past several decades. (Being educated has turned out to have been an excellent idea.) In keeping with the increased enrollment trend, the number of adults pursuing education has been on the rise. According to the N.C.E.S., the adult education numbers for Fall 2007 were 6,956,000 [ READ MORE ]

College Comparison Tool

High school students are teenagers, and if we were to go strictly along biological lines, teenagers are adult animals. And if we were all still living in caves, teenagers would have moved out of their parents’ cave and found their own well before the modern-day version of adulthood (the 18th birthday). Modern times and the [ READ MORE ]