Distance Education (1 Viewer)

[yulia]

Is anyone doing any HSC courses by Distance Education? If so, what subject are you doing, and do you like it?? Do you find it's hard to get all the work done??

I do Ancient History through Distance Education, the amount of work they give me is MASSIVE, and I manage to read it all but completing the exercises is another matter, I'm getting through it though! And my marks for it are pretty good too, had to fight my school to be allowed to do it though which was just stupid...

 

[chepas]

I do 3U French and German beginners through Open High School, correspondence, and I like it. Though at the moment I have no motivation to do the work. What I find really crap is that there is no teacher there personally to push you to do the work, what I am experiencing lately That and speaking for LOTE is really crap because no one else is around there to speak it!

If you had to FIGHT the school to do it, that's pretty stupid. I suppose that they didn't get an ancient class running so that is why you did it? Or there is no one that teaches it at your school? But I think the reason I got explained to me is that schools aren't big fans of letting students do courses by correspondence is because you're actually doing it through another school, not your home school, so it takes away from your home school's student numbers and therefore affects things like staffing and resources by depleting them, and affects the school in an adverse way... I forget how or why though.

But doing 5 units by correspondence is good - I have virtually no classes at school (except English, and Music 2 that I do, but that didn't run on the timetable either so I arrange it with the music teacher to do outside of it.), so I have free periods all over the place. 3 days out of the two week cycle I don't have to go to school at all!

 

[yulia]

I suppose that they didn't get an ancient class running so that is why you did it? Or there is no one that teaches it at your school?[/B]

My school refuses to talk to kids and find out what subjects they're doing - and despite complaints, the subject lines haven't changed in about 3 years, and they consist of an all english line, an all maths line, a line with half the subjects on it, a line with the other subjects on it, 1 line with extensions, and another line with 2 sciences and d and t. I didn't want to take up an extension - if you did an extension, you HAD to do P.E, which I did not want to do - not that I don't enjoy sport, I was on the soccer team, but the town pool here is basically a bathtub for people, and most of the sport involved in the extension P.E is water sports. I had to do chemistry, because for a university I was thinking of going to, they wouldn't let me in unless I had done chemistry - but I really wanted to do Ancient History but it was on the same line (and every year before me there have been kids stuck in the same situation as me, but the school never seems to learn to change the lines...) so, my school tried to force me into extension english, extension maths and P.E, and I had to fight with them to be allowed to do the Distance Ed. They said I can't because the school offered it - but funny enough, my application was accepted - and when I met my teacher for the first time, I explained the difficulties I had trying to do Distance Ed, and she thought it was extremely stupid the protest my school had given - and even though she tried to explain that one of the reasons Distance Ed is there - is for students that were put into my situation, the school still chucks a fit when kids try and do classes by Distance Ed. My principal and careers adviser even tried insulting me and making me feel bad about it - they told me I was a lazy student and I'd surely drop the course when I got into year 12 (my school doesn't like students dropping units) but what do you know, I'm in year 12 and I'm still doing it - oh, and I'm ranked 2nd in my class too.

 

[chepas]

Wow, that's really disgusting in a way, that they try to talk you out about it and pay yout out. I thought the whole objective in senior years was to sort of find out what your interested in and then try to do it and achieve it whatever way possible, and if that equals dist ed, so be it.

As for their timetabling system, sounds pretty lazy on their part. For some reason last year we had about 3 timetable changes but they made things a little more streamlined for students and the staff (even though it meant free periods would usually be sandwiched between 1st and last periods, not allowing us to go home ), also it wasn't arranged in a way which seems to make some subjects unreachable...

English and Maths always have their own lines, but the other subjects are just arranged according to student demand. Those who hate it either leave to another school or just take up a few dist ed/Saturday school/TAFE/private courses...

Btw, congrats in your rankings in your ancient!

 

[yulia]

Thanks! Through the arguing too, my year adviser and the school's ancient history teacher were arguing for MY side but my deputy principal was SO stubborn. My mum tried to transfer me school's too, but either their chemistry or anc. history classes were full, and Newtown was full and I was on the waiting list, but by the time there was a spot for me, my mum thought it was pointless.

Yeah and our lines are pathetic. They put things like drama, legal studies, chemistry, ancient history, art, aboriginal studies etc all on the same line...there was a lot of frustration within my year.