If America wants to stay “on top” of the world pyramid one
thing in its culture is going to have to change- the way it educates its
young. The United States ranks 17th
in educational performance out of forty developed nations. So what is wrong
with the American education system?
Well for many the real problem began with the No Child Left behind
Act of 2001. The intentions behind the act were positive, but all it has led to
is standardized testing that disables a teacher from truly teaching and a
student from honestly learning to think.
States with tenure and teacher unions, struggle with
incompetent teachers, and the harsh reality of grading their successful teachers
off of their students test scores. But no matter which state you go to a test
will be given and it will be the deciding factor of your whole education.
This “test” mentality has carried over into secondary
education as well. The SAT, and ACT determine if a student will or will not get
into specific colleges and programs. One test. But really several tests. In truth
America is preparing a generation for a test that will never come, because sadly
real life isn’t just filling in the bubbles.
The United States can reinvigorate its education system. By
intensifying curriculum, raising teacher pay, and adding incentives for those
teachers who are getting inventive with the way they communicate with their students.
Make the students ability to employ the information that they have been
learning be seen not just by multiple choice test, but by the students
themselves.
There is one thing American students excel at past all the
others, Creativity. By ignoring their strength
while creating the way we will teach them, we handicap their use of it. If
creativity is what will keep America on top, why isn’t it on the test?
I agree with Claire that the educational system needs reformed. We have become too traditional in the ways we teach. In the military we have mandatory classes we must attend and majority of them are boring PowerPoints reading slide after slide that will put you to sleep thus getting the nickname “death by PowerPoint”. At first I thought it was just a military teaching style but however I have recently discovered some civilian teachers also use this ineffective method. PowerPoints are a great teaching AID but are not meant to do the teachers job, so I agree 100% when Claire states “adding incentives for those teachers who are getting inventive with the way they communicate with their students”. Getting students involved and interested in their education is key to learning and developing critical thinking skills.
ReplyDeleteContinuing off of what Claire said about the education system in the system in the U.S, as a student who recently graduated from the California school system I can completely testify for every point made about testing. Most of my high school career was spent wading through the menagerie of "teachings" which were no more than thinly veiled test standards. Standards became the hot button word to describe why our teachers could not teach us things we deemed as fun or interesting. There were some teachers who attempted to break the mold, but none got very far as their jobs depended on their students' performance on these tests. Creativity is, sadly, a dying trend in most Californian, if not national, high schools because of the crushing influence of performance. Creative writing is methodically weeded out in most English classes for the sake of critical analysis skill. Mathematics are taught without application to the world as a whole and more as a series of formulas to memorize. These "standards" that we hold ourselves to is tearing apart the idea of creativity in the classroom.
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