Education

            The process in which the school systems are set up today is inadequate.  It is setting up both students and faculty for failure.  Teachers are being laid off and having their salary cut in massive percentages.  Standardized tests are increasingly becoming the focus of the education system.  Schools are spending the government funded money on unnecessary things that are not beneficial to the students.  The school system we use today was designed for the characteristics of the past.  A lot of changes have occurred in the last several decades that are not essential to the educational needs of today.

            The article, “Teachers Wonder, Why the Scorn,” explains how teachers are getting salary cuts, or even laid off because they don’t have “seniority.”  Why is this happening to the people who dedicate their lives to help shape our futures?  Seniority privileges should not be an excuse and have nothing to do with laying off.  As a student, the younger teachers are the ones I find more relatable and active.  They can incorporate more activities in a whole new interesting way.  If a teacher can’t hold the students’ attention, the students are going to have a lot harder of a time learning the needed material.  If the students don’t learn the needed material, they won’t be prepared for the tests; which now does not only affect the student themselves, but the teacher as well.

            Like Ken Robinson says in “Changing Education Paradigms,” the school system is set up like a factory; with ringing bells, separate facilities divided into separate subjects, and students being grouped into “batches” by age.  Students are being tested on what they are expected to know because of their age.  Not every seven year old should be held accountable for knowing what another seven year old knows.  Everyone learns at different paces and some students are better at different subjects than others.  Students should be tested on what they know and placed accordingly, rather than placed by age.  Students also need to be taught how different subjects connect to one another.  Just because math and science are broken up into two different classes doesn’t mean that you won’t do some math in science class.  All of these subjects can relate to one another, but students are often taught differently.

            Standardized tests not only put pressure on the students, but on the teachers, too.  Teachers can now be penalized for students not doing well on standardized tests.  By giving these tests, it teaches students that there is only one right answer.  It doesn’t teach us to “think outside the box.”  Teachers focus on just teaching what is on the test, and nothing else.  Learning about how these subjects connect with the world, rather than just learning what’s on the test, expands the students’ horizons.  It is important for students to know how to apply what they learn in school with everyday life, which makes it also very important for teachers to tie in “current events” with the lessons they teach.  Rather than forcing a student write about something pointless that they do not care about, why not let them write about something happening in the world or something that interests them?