The current system of education in the U.S. and most of the industrialized countries revolves around a factory mentality that was designed to serve the industrial era. Just as the assembly line worked for producing goods, it was thought that a similar approach would produce the appropriate workforce to serve that economy. We are now two centuries and many economic transformations beyond early industrialization, and we have not re-imagined our educational system in all that time. We try quick fixes, but with tragic results.
For example, we know that our brains do most of their developing, and the most quickly, by the age of three. For much of last century, the most stimulation infants received was a few “Cootchy Cootchy Coos” in their cribs, and then lots of toys in their playpens. Today, from the time they are born, many children are being read to and provided with educational toys and games, toy cell phones, and computers. These youngsters have their brains challenged in many new and exciting ways, with multimedia and constantly interactive learning. Then, at the age of 5, we send them to the same schools our great grandparents went to, and when they are quickly bored, inattentive and hyperactive, instead of completely changing the system to fit the new brains, we drug the children to fit the antiquated system.
In many neighborhoods, extremely high percentages of children are on drugs like Ritalin, which will affect their innovation and creativity for years to come. If you study successful people, you will probably learn that many of them were bad conduct cases in school. I was. I was always bored and cutting up in class. I was punished. But I was never drugged. So I was able to take my out-of-the-box thinking into my adulthood, and it has served me well. What will happen to the most innovative young minds today? Will they survive the drugs and remain innovative in the future? Shouldn’t we be studying the way they learn and adapting our systems to their brains instead of our ancestors’?
Another example: Why should anyone sit through hours of instruction about biology or anthropology or geology when, today, virtual reality video gaming technology can project students directly into the subject. Having fun, they can fight off invading bacteria, live in an ancient city or watch the formation of the Ice Age. They can learn more in 10 minutes of game playing than we learned in hours of classes and reading boring textbooks. Who says education has to be painful?
A third example is the push to force every student to go on to college. What is that about? College used to be for those who wanted to go on to “higher education,” not just have a job credential for entry level work. There was a time when whatever you did, whether it was drive a bus or manage a building, your work was respected. You were even paid more then teachers! Today, because not everyone is ready or able to go on to college, we are tossing 50% of the high school students in many towns and cities out onto the streets with no diploma, and there are several year waiting lists for good upholsterers! How about getting a good plumber or electrician when you need one?
And a fourth example is the promotion of children into the next grade by age. We assume that all children learn all subjects at the same pace, and that is ridiculous. Some kids are faster at everything, some slower. Some learn certain subjects easily and have trouble with others. What has age got to do with it? Why shouldn’t a five-year-old who can read at a fourth grade level be doing that? Why can’t an extremely artistically talented child be taking classes with others on her level? Why can’t someone who is brilliant in math but not so good at history be able to be sorted that way, instead of being held back in one and advanced too quickly in the other?
Working towards a positive future would require us all to pitch in and put pressure on the educational system to completely change. Band-aids will not work. The system needs to be overhauled. If you are a parent of a school-aged child, object to the dispensation of drugs and insist on more entertaining and engaging learning formats. If your child is not interested or advanced enough to go on to college, pressure your congresspersons for more funding for vocational alternatives. Write your representatives about the need for alternative schools that are experimental and break the mold. Children should encourage each other to develop their unique talents, and find ways within and outside the antiquated system to hone those talents. Good teachers who take their students beyond what the guidelines call for, or individualize their lessons to fit the children rather than the grade, should be rewarded and not punished by other teachers, parents and the administration. If there is enough public outcry and protest, perhaps legislators and administrators will have to listen and get on with preparing our modern children for the age in which they will live, as opposed to forcing them into a mold that no longer works for the 21st century.
By Jared at 3:29 AM ON 08/01/08
In total Agreement that industry drives the curriculum, the new human machine in lower education has children & teachers being left behind in a No Child Left Behind program, and College that is market driven where upon graduation, there are newspapers full of companies seeking employees that never get filled because there aren't enough qualified with experience candidates.
It's also tragic that Ritalin is given to children in schools, was mentioned by Tom Cruise on National Television, and no-one really paid attention. To even further, now we have politicians who want to create a universal health care system to pay for that garbage.
The good thing is that "active participation learning" is catching on, should be in well developed stages in the next 5 or so years, and if teachers take those newspapers and do continuation studies throughout every grade in staggered successes that exercise these challenges in real life activities, maybe, just maybe we'll get to 2020 with eyes wide open.
As for the extremely brilliant, they are everywhere I see just looking for the right shoes to fill in the center position to match their exit left stage personalities just hoping they can make a career of it.
Ousty...
By JLGates at 1:26 PM ON 08/03/08
Edie Weiner makes an excellent point in her article when she says:
"If you study successful people, you will probably learn that many of them were bad conduct cases in school. I was. I was always bored and cutting up in class. I was punished."
Your parents punished you because when you went to school, parents and teachers were on the same team -- the adult team, the team that made the rules.
As a public school teacher for the past 10 years, I can tell you that most parents today are not on the teachers' team -- they are on their child's team, and will believe their child before they believe their child's teacher. I have sat through countless parent conferences during which the parents protested that their child couldn't have possibly done anything wrong, that the teacher was grading too harshly, that it wasn't their child's fault. The biggest misconception in education today is that children arrive at school ready to learn and that they know how to behave in a classroom. The large majority of parents simply do not prepare their child to learn in a classroom with 24 other students. I agree that the educational system needs overhauling, and frankly the "No Child Left Behind" act, while well-intentioned, tries to put every child on the same level. All its efforts go towards bringing up the lowewst 25% of children to the standard. Students who excel at subjects (like your "extremely artistically talented child") are given less attention because the push is to bring all the students to the same level, not help those who already excel become better.
Any teacher worth her salt is already taking her students beyond "what the guidelines call for", and anyone who works with children will tell you that individualizing lessons is the ONLY way to make what you teach relevant to today's children. But for an educational overhaul to be truly effective, parents must realize that teachers are on their side, and that all adults must work together so that students have consistency in behavioral and academic expectations.
The key to overhauling the educational system is to give the students ownership; it is amazing what lengths a student will go to in order to learn something they are interested in. If they are interested, then learning is fun. The push to send every student to college is ridiculous -- there are so many jobs for which college is not necessary, and so many of our students are not ready for college, nor do they want to be there. And yet two of the main statistics used in rating high school is the percentage of students graduating, and the percentage of students who go on to college.
The suggestion that you pressure your congressperson for more vocational alternatives is brilliant -- and I'd go one step further. Mandatory education should stop after middle school. Students should be given the option to attend a vocational school if they have no desire or inclination to move on to high school after their middle school education. That will ensure that they are engaged in becoming productive citizens while learning a skill, and saving billions of dollars each year in teacher salaries at the high school level. A high school diploma doesn't mean what it used to -- let's make it mean something again! And then those students who genuinely want "higher education" can go to college.
Yes, the system needs overhauling. When can we begin?
By GoneFishnn at 12:52 PM ON 08/05/08
The world does not need saving... The Humans need saving. (Free market rule.. Not Gov. Reg.)
By SMC at 7:47 PM ON 09/11/08
JLGATES ...excellent thoughts
I have two: first as a parent then as an employer.
I've just been involved in bringing my 5 yr old granddaughter to kindergarten this month. Her mother is my younger one that HATED school, dropped out, ran off, blah, blah ... you all know the sorrid tale.
She has a GED and a crappy limited job future ahead.
The older daughter was gifted, won the math and engineering awards and HATED school for a completely different reason. She finished and went to college.
Her options are somewhat more numerous. She needed to be reminded on occasion that intelligence was only useful when applied. We both know quite a few that have squandered their brain power.
I think about the girls when I talk to the little one now, already whining about school ...
"This is your job as a kid. Grown-ups go to work. Kids go to school. It's the law. Everybody goes to school. Thats how we learn stuff."
I am also an employer. And like many American businesses, we are not necessarily looking for "out of the box" creative types but pragmatic problem solvers, able to read and comprehend simple to complex instruction, capable of deductive reasoning, multi-taskers, responsible.
One of the main functions of an education system is to prepare the children to become productive members of the work force. Good solid work ethics can have their start in school practices. Responsibility, ability to complete tasks, success, teamwork, individual application are all things we begin in school. Community, competition, peer approval & interaction, all the social learning as well.
It's really not surprising to hear most employers want the body occuping the chair to do the task they were hired for. Unless you were hired for creative imput, your "thoughts" on the matter at hand really aren't required. Think you were bored in the 13 years of school? Try the next 40 in the workforce.
I'm gonna keep telling the little one to listen and learn .... learn all you can for as long as you can.
By Anon at 5:16 PM ON 09/14/08
I for one and very upset with my education. I remember elementary school, I was ignored because I acted differently then other students. Teachers do not care about you, most of them... We should make universal education... We should make advanced education gaming. We have advanced technology for education that has never been used... Imagine everyone now is using level 1 education. If we made education universal with advanced technology we could jump to level 10. Imagine what can be done for this earth and for the future...
Some people say that the present is all that matters and the near future does not... So who worries about it? not many people.
By Boundless at 10:47 PM ON 09/21/08
I agree that education needs to be modernized. I have read about the top high schools in the United States and they seem very up to date in their methods and resources. They should be the standard. The schools are not measured on methods and resources, but rather, how well they prepare their students for college. I think that the fact that the most modernized schools have the highest quality of education speaks louder than all of our words.
How can we achieve this level of education in all of our schools? Let's break it down into its components:
Most of the teachers are inexcusably under-trained and underpaid. Most of the schools are overcrowded because there are too few schools. The no-child-left-behind program is preventing the brightest students from advancing at the rate that they deserve and leaving most students less prepared for college. Students are bored in class because there is very much less stimulation than when they are out of class. Parents tell their children that they are so smart, leaving the children to view study as unnecessary; instead, parents should be telling their children that they are proud of their work hard.
I don't want to seem like I am hijacking this discussion, so maybe an article will be written to discuss all of those "lesser" problems.
By Opieus at 10:27 AM ON 12/01/08
I agree that our school system is grossly outdated. I think the biggest issue that stands out in my mind is funding. The government can subsidize rediculous things like E85, but we're paying to go to required education. Not much, but I distinctly remember paying for middle school and high school.
With the US supposedly a service based country, college or vocational schools are practically required. However, many of our service jobs are being exported, and our education is utterly lacking. Students aren't interested, and don't retain the knowledge. I can honestly say I don't remember anything from the history classes I took because I wasn't interested.
Schools have strict requirements in all the fields, so that students don't get much choice in their learning. I was required to take an English and a Social Studies class every semester in high school, and didn't have any electives in middle school at all. I was only required to take four semesters of science and math in high school, and one semester of computers. I ended up taking at least two science classes every semester, and by my senior year I'd taken every computer class my school offered. Those classes account for all of my electives.
Our foreign language programs are rediculously underdeveloped where they exist at all. Languages are easiest to learn at a young age, yet we don't start learning them until middle or high school. There should be a course in elementary school that introduces students to many languages. My middle and high schools offered three languages: Spanish, French, and German. What about Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and the multitude of other languages around the world? We need to accept that we're part of a larger world that doesn't speak our language.
All in all, I agree our education system needs an overhaul. But to overhaul, our government has to provide funding, and our teachers have to care.