Change

One of the common practices in school that I would change is how, specifically, teachers are using tools to teach students. Schools currently have failed to adapt to changing times are are still getting by with outdated theories - in short - they’re still acting old school in a new school world.
Books, chalk, even dry-erase markers on white stencil boards is antiquated. There is an immediate need for the education system to utilize technology that is in its infancy now - when students can still help adapt and improve those devices. The theory appears to be to wait until the technology has advanced, again, beyond the needs of the classroom, leaving those professionals two-steps behind the need of the business world. If educational demands are based on the social, community and business world - the current model leaves children ill prepared to advance into higher positions within their career choices. Businesses are more than capable of working with school districts to equip children with tablet, netbook and laptop devices outside of the parameters of their parent’s income. Already universities are utilizing blackboard-type interfaces to allow students to access their learning materials regardless of location, emergencies or other roadblocks to success associated with the current model of education.
By adapting this significant upgrade to the current model, professionals in the educational field are able to put education directly at children’s fingertips.   

My most memorable teacher was Mrs. Shiply. She taught junior high math in a way that was fun and energetic but also informative. Mrs. Shiply was great with her students and yet kept us in line. She combined knowledge, patience and understanding to make the time in her classes easier on all of us. I don’t recall a time where she lost her cool in front of the students. “The world is one equation,” she would always explain. Her skill at maintaining students’ attention combined with a sense of humor allowed us to see her - just simply as a teacher - but a role model. Her theory of equations was expressed in the idea that if a person took the time they could accurately calculate each mystery as another complex mathematical formula; once you understood the process there would be no more mysteries.