Success Blog: Academic Excellence for Academic Success...
Success-Blog Posting 10 - Academic Success: December 19, 2007
Success Blog posts insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domain of the success facet of life.
Success-Blog: Academic-Success News
KIPP: A model for academic success:
December 15, 2007 by Steve Giegerich
Doris Fisher, left, one of the co-founders of the GAP and KIPP Charter Schools takes a photo of the Philadelphia's schools principal, Marc Mannellla, off camera, while the students wait in line to go to class in May 2004.
PHILADELPHIA -- Aqueelah Beyah admits she didn't exactly excel at mathematics or, for that matter, any other subject during her formative years in this city's public school system.
Now, four years after she first stepped through the door of a converted fur warehouse in what was once Philadelphia's garment district, Aqueelah can do the math, the English, the science, and everything else her teachers throw at her.
The reason, plain and simple, is a high-intensity urban education experience some view as an integral to turning around the educational fortunes of thousands of St. Louis students.
If the consortium of civic, business and education leaders who this fall petitioned the Knowledge is Power Program to come to St. Louis has its way, the city's first KIPP charter school will open in time for the 2009-10 academic year. By 2017, the group hopes, St. Louis will have five KIPP charters. As Aqueelah and her fifth- through eighth-grade classmates at the KIPP Philadelphia Charter School can attest, St. Louis students headed to the program should brace themselves for a rude awakening. Literally.
"When I found out about the hours, I thought, 'I don't know if I can do that,'" she recalled.
Classes for the 328 students at KIPP Philadelphia begin each day at 7:30 a.m. Dismissal is at 5 p.m. Then there's the four hours every other weekend. "Saturday school" is the fun stuff — art, music, drama, sports. But, still…
The long hours are a product of necessity, says the school's director of development.
"It's a long day," explained Shawna Wells. "But they're so incredibly behind when they get here that we need all the time we can get."
Data indicates the school puts every second to maximum use.
Success Blog Comment:
It's very clear from the given description that KIPP charter school is overstraining kids for the eccentrically over-ambitious goal of achieving academic success as fast and as soon as possible.
They will turn our human kids to computing machines!
They will turn them perfectionists for all through their life!
They will make them obsessive-compulsive personalities!
Success blog refutes such a kind of mechanical success in life.
These so-called educationists don't even know that the human brain doesn't require knowledge and information as much as it requires insight.
Success blog also opines that insight doesn't require long hours to pursue.
We have to decide for once and for all whether we need computer-like human puppets on earth or the men and women of real knowledge and insightful substance in them.
And if we need the latter, academic success - the way it is adjudged in the present scenario of our decadent education system - has almost no role to play in it!
Maxwell Dorian, Valedictorian
(Start by clicking the player button down left, not the center screen.)
Thank you.
Watch the video!
Think you got what it takes to be Valedictorian? Maxwell Dorian takes us through a day in his life.
I invite you to subscribe to my E-zine titled Life Coach, free of charge.
This E-zine publishes insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life.
A not-to-be-missed opportunity!
Subscribe to it here:
I also invite you to subscribe to my Life Blog - no need to provide your e-mail address here.
This RSS feed keeps you informed about new developments taking place on this site.
It also harbors 25 journal bloglets posting insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life.
In order to subscribe to the blog, right-click on the orange RSS button (see buttons up to the left) and then paste the URL into your RSS reader.
Or click on add to My Yahoo! button or My MSN or Add To Google button if you keep a personalized home page there.
If you are not sure what RSS or blogging is all about, click on What's an RSS Feed? here: