I have a question, how was your agora week? Did you have fun? Was it relaxing to not do "academic" work for a week or did you miss the rigorous activity of ordinary school life? Do you wish it was longer or shorter? As you contemplate these, here are my opinions.
I am a senior at Uni and Agora days have always been a part of life here. I remember when I was younger how my brother would get home from the agora week and tell tales of different classes he would take. Video games, cooking, capture the flag, and much more, all of this sounded amazing to me and really made me want to go to this school. After I got into Uni I realized how amazing it really was. I felt as if I had a lot of freedom in what I took (despite the limited options a subbie has) and was very excited for my classes. I took classes that I chose and because of that I found pleasure in learning and tried my hardest to learn as much as I could. This brings me to this point that if one chooses exactly what they want to do, something they enjoy doing, would they be able to learn better? You might find a passion and work with said passion until you master it. It sort of makes the saying "the sky's the limit" more of a reality. With the world we live in now-a-days a lot of people don't have enough time to truly follow what they want to do, whether it's painting, music, sports, math, you get the point. However if agora week were to be say 2 weeks maybe you would have a better chance to learn more about your preferred subject as well as yourself. Just some food for thought.
Remember Uni is a unique place with many opportunities and one should try to take of advantage of the freedom of this place. Whether it's campus or agora week, try and find something you love and go deeper. This sort of turned into a pep talk so I'll wrap it up. Basically would you think a school that focuses on ones passion would be a good idea or would it all crash and burn? Let me know.
I do agree that Uni is a unique place and agora days is one of things that makes Uni so unique. While I don' think that every week of the school year should be agora days, although that would be nice, I think that the learning environment should be more adaptable to each individual and catered more towards ones passions. A Utopian school week for me would likely be a combination of Agora Days and the regular school day. I would take the more passion-oriented education that is offered by Agora Days and implement some of the academic standards that is expected of students during the regular school week.
ReplyDeleteUni is definitely very unique, in particular during agora days. Agora days creates a utopian environment because the learning is mostly based on students taking classes that they find interesting with very little pressure attached. This leads to both learning and a sense of security and happiness with their environment among the students. I agree with Krishna that an imitation of such an environment would be extremely beneficial to students, as long as some standardization was implicated.
ReplyDeleteI think yes it's obviously good to learn about things that you are interested in, but learning a wide variety of things, even if you don't like them, I think is important as well. Who knows if you'll fall in love with a topic that you didn't previously know you would enjoy. Agora is a nice refreshing time within the school year, but should it be extended too far, I think it would actually be harmful
ReplyDeleteI personally didn't learn a lot from this Agora run, maybe it was just my classes. They were really fun though and that's not to say I didn't take away anything from this experience. Also a school that focuses on one passion wouldn't crash and burn, because it's kind of been done before in the instance of fine arts schools. Sure they focus on theater and studio art (which are two different things), but they still don't teach stem fields. Art schools only teach fine arts, so if you wanna switch majors it would be iffy.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if I’ve really taken Agora classes that have majorly deepened my love of a subject or anything, but they’re super fun and I do like how they differ from the normal curriculum. I’m generally against people being pressured to have a “passion,” mostly because I don’t think that’s something the majority of people will experience, at least in a career-related way. A school focused on people’s passions might not work out so well, especially for people our age, when most of us really have no idea what we’re doing or what we’re interested in. I could see it working for some people though. I know in certain countries, people split off into trade schools or academic schools, and that seems reasonable because it still keeps your options open while allowing a certain degree of specialization/training. My ideal school would be a typical school but with multiple little Agora Week things every once in awhile to broaden our interests and keep things fresh.
ReplyDeleteYES! While agora is an extreme meant to be fun and not realy focused on education, a system that is more focused on the interests of the actual students would definately work better. One you figure out what you want to do, you want to do it. However, in high school, there a lot of things in the way. Art classes, TONS on english classes based of stuff from a million years ago , PE; the list goes on and on. But if we were able to choose exactly what we wanted to do, I feel like not only would high school be shorter, we would also reach our end goals faster. (This is for people who know what they want to do. If you still don't know, take the regular classes to gain exposure. Everyone wins.)
ReplyDeleteI agree. A school system where you got to choose what you take would be great -- in moderation. While I definitely think that being able to choose what path you take in learning would make it more engaging & you'd get a lot out of it, I think there still needs to be some standardization so that you can be exposed to new subjects and possibly develop a passion for them.
ReplyDeleteI guess Agora is a decent break, but I wouldn't say that it really focuses on the interests of students, since relatively few classes have much educational content. I don't think I've really learned much from any Agora classes, although it's always been more fun then a regular school week. I think 4 days is a good length.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I love agora week, I don't think it has sparked any passions for me since many of the classes are meant to be a relaxing break from our normal classes. As such, I wouldn't recommend having agora week every week. However, I do notice that people tend to be happier during agora week since they don't have any assignments to turn and have a greater variety of classes than they might usually have. It's interesting to think about the possibility of adopting some of the features of agora week to promote students' happiness such as starting at 9 everyday and having a 4 day week.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. Agora week is always a nice break from the usual 8am school days, but like others have said before me, it hasn't really sparked a passion. I definitely think that dabbling in many different things is the right thing for teenagers so that they can have a wider scope of what is out there for them once they graduate, so maybe incorporating that in the school system wouldn't be a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteI think that school could leave more room for people to explore their passions. So much of the curriculum is centered around STEM fields like math and science. Maybe there could be more options for people interested in art and social sciences. I don't think that we should only focus on those though. We should get a well rounded education, while also leaving room to find our interests.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love agora days because it reminds me of the hobbies and activities I did when I was younger. Agora days hasn't sparked a passion, but it is always a good way to take a break from the hamster wheel that is school work. During Agora days I'll usually do things that I've put off because I simply felt that I didn't have the time, such as walking in parks or having hour long conversations with my family. I've never looked at Agora days as a time to explore future careers but as a time to recalibrate and revisit childhood joys.
ReplyDeleteI think that the freedom of a system like that would produce a seemingly utopian environment for the students, but would also require plenty of sacrifices. The biggest problem would probably be responsibility and accountability - many people would undoubtedly create a stress-free, low-intensity schedule if they had the option to. However, this would produce issues later on in life; sacrificing a good education for fun would be great in the short term, but over time it would bring many detrimental consequences. Furthermore, even if someone takes the opportunity to focus entirely on something that they consider to be their passion, there's always the possibility that they eventually lose interest, and ultimately gain little from the experience. Balancing the freedom of such a system would be crucial, and while I don't think it could ever be a perfect utopia for everyone, it could definitely be an improvement upon the current system.
ReplyDeleteI think that similar to a utopia, agora week sounds great on paper, but ends up not really accomplishing much in reality. I honestly think that having the whole week off would be far more productive than agora week, because it would keep people from being trapped in classes they don't really want to be in and allow them to be out in the world pursuing genuine interests or just relaxing.
ReplyDeleteI see Agora Week as more of a break from regular activities. Four days is honestly too short to seriously dive into a new subject. Moreover, I think 2 weeks is also too short. There's a reason why classes are taught every semester and not two or three weeks. I like Agora the way it is right now. Agora classes aren't necessarily classes that are going to help me with my career interests to be honest. I try to have fun with my classes.
ReplyDeleteAgora days has always been a nice break from the regular school routine, but four days is not nearly enough to pursue a hobby or passion in depth. I don’t know if even two weeks would be a sufficient time. I enjoyed the agora week every year, and I think I will make it a point going forward to take a week off every once in a while and do things that genuinely interest me. However, in reality, I don’t think that having a completely stress free life will be as fun as we would like to think!
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