Progressive vs Traditional Education

Monday in class we discussed progressive vs. traditional education. When asked to sit on the side of the room that favored the type of education you thought best, I sat in the middle. I think that education needs to be a mix of both progressive and traditional. I feel that when students are younger, they need a little more direction in the classroom. They don't really know what is best for them, and may not have yet discovered their talents and what they like best. The traditional education in younger years helps give students a look into the core subjects and a taste of everything. As students get older, I think that giving them a little more freedom through progressive education would be beneficial to the learner. Once students have touched into different areas, they will hopefully have been able to figure out their interests. Now, they will be able to choose for themselves what things they would like to study. I think the transformation from a more traditional education towards a loser, progressive education, would be something that students could really excel with.

Response to article "Firing Bad Teachers"

I was reading over the comments people posted on the article "Firing Bad Teachers." Firing bad teachers seems like it would be the simplest and most appealing thing for schools to do, in order to make sure students have the most beneficial instructors. However, if we were to do this there would be other serious problems we would have to deal with. Think of inner city schools, for example. If we were to fire teachers there because the students grades did not show improvement, it would be even harder to find staff to fill their positions. With this being said, however, I feel that teachers do need to take responsibility for their students success, to some extent. I also think that administrators need to look at the personal of the students, and their personal achievements. Maybe they haven't quite met NCLB standards, but are they improving? I feel that this is a very important component when considering to fire or not fire a teacher.

Should schools specialize education more?

This week in our group meetings and also brought up in class, was the discussion as to if we should let students "specialize" in something more than we do now. So many students get to college and even graduate, still not knowing that they want to 'do' with the rest of their lives. Would giving students more chances to dip their feet into different areas before college, lead students down a path suited for them? I feel it would be really helpful if schools would build in time for job shadowing or somehow getting the students to explore professions. I have never really looked into other occupations besides teaching; who's to say something else would have clicked had I had the chance to have been exposed to different fields?
My group in class talked about how Switzerland has a built in time where students go to a junior college and specialize in something, then go to college and major in it if they like it. The junior college is required, and a time built in to explore different fields.
I'm not really sure how or where schools would find the time to do this, but I think it would be a very helpful thing to preventing so much daddling once college arrives.