Public education and the way we educate our children has been the same for years, we send them to school and no questions asked, they come out 16 years later as educated, respectable, ready-to-take-on-the-world young adults, as if it’s as easy as baking them in an easy bake oven. Unfortunately breeding a successful generation to take on an unpredictable economy is not an easy task, at least, not that easy.
Years ago when people went to school they were taught that if they did well and made it through college, you would have a job. Of course, we know that with the economy the way it is now and the increasing number of college graduates, the unemployment rate is as high if not higher than it’s ever been. This in turn makes people question the credibility of the education system and wonder why they should go to college in the first place. The problem with public education is that it was designed with a particular view of the mind. There are only two types of people, that is, people who are smart and people who are not smart. Unfortunately this tells some people that just because they don’t understand or do well with the specific material given, they are not capable when they could in fact be brilliant, even if not by the standards of public education.
This idea that certain people aren’t “smart enough” to do well or obtain commendable grades is bogus. How can you judge someone’s academic ability and compare it to the next persons? One student may have incredible artistic abilities and lack in math, while their peer can be a distinguished math student but have no imagination. How can you judge who is capable and who is not? Of course they have standardize tests, but not only do those have a terrible tendency to limit the subjects a student is tested on but also almost put a target on where a child should be at a particular age, which brings me to another flaw in the public education system.
Educational institutions are more or less organized on factory lines. Students are from the beginning separated into age groups where they are expected to keep up with their peers, as if the most important thing that kids have in common is their age. These kids are then told to learn a series of subjects, the “important subjects. Math, Science, History you know the drill. These are the subjects that students are tested on throughout and at the end of the year to determine who stays and who moves on. To make matters worse, children who do not perform in the selective subjects are considered “slow” almost as if they are marked with a scarlet letter.
Seeing that standardization can be very limiting, I agree with the idea of moving in the exact opposite direction. Rather than making things more and more narrow, why not give stretching it out a try? Why not let students practice what they are good at and feel good about their learning. Rather than teaching that there is one answer to a problem, why not accept encourage the idea divergent or abstract thinking? This could be a good way for students to make the most out of what they are learning, and hey, if we’ve tried everything else, we’ve got nowhere to go but up.
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