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Zlatka wrote on 2012-06-01 19:53
alright, so anyway, past 3 years i've been attending one of the only I.T. focused schools in the district and i've come to learn, in the IT "academy" they don't teach you ANYTHING.
my school offers certifications, such as Adobe Flash/Photoshop, A+, Net+, Security+ and so on and so forth. the purpose of certifications is to present that you know the subject-area it says you were taught, well enough to take up internships/jobs. well, my school has some of the worst teachers for this. like, i'm being dead serious when i say they DON'T TEACH.
what goes on in the IT academy? the teachers sit around, throw a book at you and expect you to gain all the knowledge in the world from one book alone. if you need help, they tell you to consult the book. sometimes we "work" on computers, if a glitch pops up, they tell us to either restart the computer or go to a new one.
and near the end of the year, comes the certification exams. they give us virtual pre-tests that are identical to the certification exam and make us memorize the answers. the teachers force it on us so we have no choice, if we pass, they get to keep their job (hence their motivation) and i have one teacher who keeps threatening me to study the dreamweaver books or she'll fail me if i don't pass the cert. so if we get our certifications, it's off memorization and not actual knowledge. i can seriously, only name ONE student that knows A+/Net+/Security+.
ANYWAY, sorry for the long rant but everything i said was 100% true, nothing was fabricated. the point of certifications are to show you KNOW the subject off the back of your hand. not that you memorized the test the teachers threw at you.
i don't even want to bother to go to the principal, i want to take this directly to the district. should i? i need opinions here because this pisses me off, i want to LEARN I.T.
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Claudia wrote on 2012-06-01 20:13
That's just so fucked up, and another sad reality of the failures of our education system.
I myself have no advice for you. I would say start with your principal first.
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Zlatka wrote on 2012-06-01 20:22
the principal is already looking to fire one of the biggest offenders in our academy (from what i've heard anyway, he's had a sharp eye on this teacher), so i guess that's a start. honestly, i'm scared of him, but i might try to go through him first, if that doesn't work i guess i can go through the district? the actual college courses for these certifications costs 1,000+ dollars, from what i heard, and the entire IT academy is being set up for failure if this continues by teachers who just want an easy paycheck :|
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Claudia wrote on 2012-06-01 20:31
Totally agree with you that it's just continuing the failure. It's awesome that the principal is trying to do something about it, so to me it makes sense to present your case to someone who is already on your side.
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Sekwaf wrote on 2012-06-01 22:39
If you think the principal shares your opinion (at least to a degree) go for it. If not, they could make things a bit more difficult if you go to a district level. I actually had a teacher like that this year (read book, if you have any questions, ask them to book, now memorize this stuff for the AP test) for geography, if I had actually thought I'd learn in that class or that it was important, I would've done something. This however is certainly important, especially since they're giving certifications (and sometimes by extent jobs) to people who don't know what they're doing (through no fault of their own).
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Krissyasaur wrote on 2012-06-01 23:03
[SIZE="1"]that's how my school is, and it's not so they keep their job.
it's so the school grade goes up, even if you tried it and failed the test, the grade of the school would still go up. now if you pass, it goes up even higher, i.e. why they want you try so hard. i don't think you should do anything because they can't do anything themselves. they pay to have all these systems and such for your disposal and to get yourself accustomed to them and then you wont practice the test? i personally don't like the test, seeing you have to get a, i believe, 70%+ to "pass" instead of the normally required 50% by normal grade papers.
my computer teachers are sort of like that, others will walk you though the steps for "projects" when others expect you to go up and get the papers, start the project, and finish on your own. but normally those kinds of teachers are laid back and let you do whatever you want to get a grade.[/SIZE]
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Osayidan wrote on 2012-06-01 23:57
I went to an IT school as well and it was no different.
Even if it was different an IT school doesn't teach anything of particular use because by nature schools are very slow to update their materials... I went to school in 2009 for IT stuff, and we used windows server 2000 to practice. I have a better lab in my house and learned more in a week by myself than a semester at school.
If I were in your position I'd just finish with the school so you have that piece of paper, but do your own studies, on subjects that are relevant to the IT world of today.
If you're going for an internship later try to get into an IT consultant firm rather than one of those companies where you'll just shadow a sys admin. You won't learn anything beyond what the admin knows, and gain no experience outside the realm of what that specific company uses.
I went to an internship as an IT consultant and I'm still working there, I've had the chance to get first hand experience with both very old and the very latest technologies, sometimes combined in the same environment. I get to see all kinds of different situations every day and never get bored.
So my advice is to just use your school as a gateway to a very good internship, and some certifications since it seems like they arrange the testing. I don't have any certifications yet because I'm too busy and my school didn't provide any. Do your own studies so you actually earn them though.
And if you don't already be sure to get yourself a virtual lab, either with something like virtualbox which is free or vmware which is also free if you ask piratebay.
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Yoorah wrote on 2012-06-02 04:23
Honestly, IT teachers at the high school level almost always don't know what they're talking about--it's the reason they ended up working as teachers and not IT professionals in the first place. This is also why they tell you to just hit the books instead; it's better for you if you do just that! Going through books on your own is basically how you learn most things in the IT field, and you'll keep doing this lots even after graduating from university. The only exception to the teachers thing is the rare case of the uber pro who just happens to want to pass on their knowledge, so they retire from their IT career and decide to start teaching. I was fortunate enough to have such professors at college and university, but even then that's just a nice bonus.
About the certs.. things like A+ are a joke anyway. I could have gotten my CCNA back in high school, but I was lazy and never went for it. As Osay says, do try to get them because they don't make your resume look worse. :)
So yea, don't rely on the crappy teachers. Learn stuff on your own and you'll do fine!