Concerns on How Curriculum is Taught

From: wongtong@connect.ab.ca
Subject: Concerns on How Curriculum is Taught
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 18:09:34 -0700 (PDT)

As in the webchat archives I've read, I too think that school instruction 
is based too much on a test or the end-of-year exam.  Back for the first 
day of school, (I'm a grade 9 student) I strongly noticed that teachers 
were already pressuring us by saying things like: "There's no time to waste! 
The finals are coming soon.  You even have to work harder because of the 
departmentals.  Final this, final that, blah, blah ,blah," with no mention 
of anything that does not have to do with the final.  There should be 
educational material that includes fun activities, like the Quest projects.  

Even with strict curriculum, we still have to rush to finish everything 
in time for the finals.  But, there are many repetions in the curriculum.  
I say, if things go faster, without repeats, and rid the the useless things, 
we could learn what is found in the real world (life is not in a book) 
instead of right-from-the-text learning (I don't even remember when we 
had a class without an entire focus on the exam material!).  It    
could even make the student more interested in school.