Just like a seed grows into a tree, everything around it progresses into better versions of itself. Without progression, where would we be?
What would happen if we just stopped growing our fruits and decided that seeds are enough? Planting your seeds means watering them frequently and making sure the soil has enough nutrients for it to flourish.
Given that the school system has been pretty much the same since the 1850’s, there are little to no nutrients left on that vine, and the leaves have already turned brown due to negligence. Learning is about real engagement and care for each and every student. Caring isn’t just about giving students the solution to their problems, but showing them that we understand them.
Our current curriculum tells students that in order to succeed, they need to figure out their path as an individual. Successful business people have shown that succeeding not only requires cooperation, but also failing many times beforehand. Schools make students fear failure, rather than embracing those failures and learning from them during their next attempt.
To start off, teachers are underpaid for all the work they are expected to do. They are just as drained as their students are. Their paychecks don’t cover the time they spend on long, meditated lesson plans. Teachers would rather stick to offering their students videos and worksheets, even if they may not fully comprehend the subject.
The American education system is also built on standardized lessons and expectations that are simply unrealistic. The focus nowadays is more on which school’s students earn the best median grades, rather than if those students are actually learning something.
Educators seem to forget that students are also human, and they aren’t just robots that you can program with new information. Each unit in a class is taught for a couple weeks, and students will study the content only so that they can later throw it back at a test and forget everything afterwards.
But is this really an effective way of learning?
In an article by Paul Boyce for the Fee Stories website, he argues that testing is completely inadequate for student learning. “The very nature of tests relies on memorization, repetition, and regurgitation,” he writes. “Tests infrequently harness the analytical mind. They train students to know the answers. However, they don’t train them on how to find the answers.”
Boyce continues on to explain how ineffective this learning style can be, especially when every student has a different way of capturing information. There are four common types of learning: visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinaesthetic.
“Not every student will fall under the same umbrella of learning,” Boyce states. “You can’t teach a fish to climb a tree. Molding into new ways of teaching with different types of learning will give you real results. If this education system truly cared about teaching, these issues would not happen to exist in the first place.”
School systems are still dependent on the same militaristic ways of teaching. We still have the same school bells that our parents had. We sit at lined-up desks and suffer through mindless instructions that don’t teach you to learn, but teach you to obey.
However, if we change the way that students receive information, this could result in a new generation of inventors and geniuses.
The same basic schooling model has been around for over 150 years. Not every student should be measured with the same ruler. These extra years in high school should be used to learn actual life skills that young people will need in order to be cooperative members of society.
Even after spending over twelve years in school, general education courses are still required in college before you can begin focusing on your major. The effort spent throughout those years will not guarantee a stable job with enough pay. Without purpose or motivation, how do they expect young adults to abide by this system?
School systems teach students to obey and not to actually think. They fail to inspire them or to help them progress into their interests. We should be guiding young people into pursuing the fields of study that will lead to opportunities in the future.
We should not simply be forced to take exams and turn in pointless assignments, only so that we can get a nice picture with a cap and gown. It’s time to refresh our school systems. Otherwise, these dead roots will fail to bear any further fruit.
