Ifafudafi
January 5th, 2009, 12:38 AM
Note that this applies to the U.S.'s (specifically the Texan) policies. Also note that this is indeed a rant and that fixing most, if not all of the things I list here is either impossible to do or doesn't make logical sense in the long run. But I have to say it.
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Everyone here (hopefully) has either gone through the educational system or is still subject to it. It's a painful but necessary bridge between childhood and adulthood that provides you with the skills and knowledge you need to thrive, as well as the social experience that will shape your interactions and personality for the rest of your life. However, after going through it (and now being not a subject but rather a member of it) I can't help but feel that there are some serious flaws, or at least a hundred cubic meters worth of room for improvement.
One of the things I can't stand is simply the standardization of the educational system. The process, in the eyes of those who run it, is as such:
1. Have kids memorize material A.
2. Test kids on material A.
3. If kids pass, move on. If not, have failing kids repeat steps 1-3 until success.
4. Have kids memorize material B.
5. Test kids on material B.
6. If kids pass, move on. If not, have failing kids repeat steps 4-6.
7. Continue as such for semester.
8. Cumulative test on all material. If kids pass, move on. If not, failing kids repeat old material until success.
9. Repeat steps 1-8 for second semester.
10. Graduate those who pass, hold back those who fail. Begin again next year.
And don't forget to throw in the state-mandated standardized tests. While it's a simple, efficient system, it assumes that all kids have similar qualities, behavior, and such. Which, as anyone should know, is not true. While most schools have departments for those with severe mental and/or physical disabilities, most smaller circumstances are passed off as growing pains or disobedience. None of this seems particularly disconcerting, but my issue is that grades take priority over learning. The purpose of schools is to educate. While people may stick onto a fact or two, nearly every class (both where I went to school and where I'm teaching now) allocates at least a month to reviewing and re-memorizing everything people should've known forever ago. Obviously, basic knowledge (addition/subtraction, difference between animals and plants, solid/liquid/gas, your ABCs, etc.) is exempt from this, but the point stands. My own mother, when she tried to help me with a science project in 10th grade, couldn't even remember what the Periodic Table of Elements was. And she's no idiot.
You may have noticed that I often use the word "memorize" instead of the word "learn." The two are completely different things. Memorization is taking a fact or concept and studying it or repeating the process it describes over and over until you can't forget it, at least for the time necessary to recite it on a test. Learning, on the other hand, does not only include knowing something, but also being able to understand and apply it. Memorization is knowing that "kicked" is the past tense of the verb "kick." Learning is knowing that "kicked" has an "-ed" at the end, and is therefore (most likely) the past tense of the form "kick," and that you can do the same for nearly every verb ending in a consonant.
The current educational system, as alluded to previously, places memorization above learning. It assumes that if the kids pass the test, they know the material. One fact keeps this from leaving all our kids in a hobo-hole when they grow up: Interests. If someone wants to be, say, an astronaut, logic dictates they will have an interest in and therefore put in more effort into knowing and understanding aeronautics, mathematics, and such, while barely skating by their poetry unit and forgetting what a stanza is by their first year out of high school. Those who don't want to put in the effort to achieve their career goals are deemed unworthy to fit the job. This is one of the few safety nets that prevents the educational system from collapsing on itself, and it heavily softens the next argument I'm about to make.
At the risk of sounding like a snob, kids these days just don't have an appreciation for all the shit we're trying to put into their heads, and a good bit of it isn't their fault. Force-feeding them all the same information within a time limit works as well as force-feeding them all spinach in the space of five seconds. A select few may at least tolerate the process, but more often than not you're just going to see a lot of leaves regurgitated in your face. And that's exactly what's happening. Give material, regurgitate material, move on. It's only once kids have taken their time, and chewed, digested, and processed the material that they can eject it in the form of the beautiful fecal matter of understanding.
Which brings me to my next point: subject variety. Until halfway through college, you will be taking the same core math, language, science, and social studies courses, with few electives to explore more exotic interests and some required communication, technology, and physical education courses thrown in to please the general populace. There are two main reasons for this: develop a variety of knowledge & skills, and to not determine what your immediate interests are, but rather give you the tools to choose later. All well and good, but 98% of the time little Billy simply doesn't want and isn't going to use Algebraic Matrices at any point in his life. While it does take a while for the "I WANT TO BE A ROCK STAR/FAMOUS ACTRESS/PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYER" mentality to wear off (and even then there's uncertianity; it took me until, again, 10th grade to realize my interest in teaching) it's not hard to predict when somebody simply doesn't need to know whatever you're trying to cram in their heads.
You see, occasionally, after the aformentioned feces of understanding have been created, Billy decides that what he just ate doesn't agree with his stomach. I, for one, have never been a math whiz. I can multiply 2 and 2, but put X and Y into an equation and my mind melts. I've realized this fact since elementary school; however, I've always read constantly, had an excellent sense of grammar, and found myself looking forward to my English classes. Even the ones with the crappy teachers. And, what do you know; my profession involves exactly that. I could easily have not taken anything past Algebra I and I'd still be doing just as well. Unfortunately, the state disagrees. (Before you comment on this, YES, I REALIZE THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS AND I AM BUT ONE INDIVIDUAL. But if any of you employed folks use everything you learned, I wanna hear it.)
Lastly, now that I've covered what kids are taught, allow me to finish with my grievances on how kids are taught. Tying in to the memorization vs. learning point, one thing I've noticed most during my student teacher days is the heavy generalization of every kid in the classroom. According to those teachers' logic, if one kid can understand it when she teaches it, everyone else should be able to as well. This couldn't be more wrong. The irony is that, as I've picked up on occasionally, a ton of the kids' understanding was facilitated not by the teacher, but by their fellow peers. Since the teacher can't be bothered to come up with any other way but notes to educate, the children have to find their own ways to tell each other. While it's a wonderful example of collaboration, it just makes me feel as if the teachers aren't doing their job.
While this is my first year as a full time teacher, I've tried something: Once every six weeks (we have a six-week grading period), I'll spend a day simply calling up each individual student to my desk and having a talk about what they learned, what they didn't, and how I can fix that. I'll find what they learned the easiest and try to find ways to apply whatever I did there to everything else. This has proved miraculous; I have dozens of kids who tell me horror stories about their English grades who are coasting by comfortably, and every single one says that these little conferences played a big part. That kind of individual attention, I believe, is absoutely necessary if kids are to not only succeed, but thrive in whatever they're doing.
---
Well, there went 40 minutes of my life, so enough blabbing on my part. I congratulate you if you've actually managed to process the entire thing. No, I'm not sticking a tl;dr at the end because if I compressed this to a sentence, my point would be lost.
Love and raeg,
-Ifafudafi.
Thoughts?
--
Everyone here (hopefully) has either gone through the educational system or is still subject to it. It's a painful but necessary bridge between childhood and adulthood that provides you with the skills and knowledge you need to thrive, as well as the social experience that will shape your interactions and personality for the rest of your life. However, after going through it (and now being not a subject but rather a member of it) I can't help but feel that there are some serious flaws, or at least a hundred cubic meters worth of room for improvement.
One of the things I can't stand is simply the standardization of the educational system. The process, in the eyes of those who run it, is as such:
1. Have kids memorize material A.
2. Test kids on material A.
3. If kids pass, move on. If not, have failing kids repeat steps 1-3 until success.
4. Have kids memorize material B.
5. Test kids on material B.
6. If kids pass, move on. If not, have failing kids repeat steps 4-6.
7. Continue as such for semester.
8. Cumulative test on all material. If kids pass, move on. If not, failing kids repeat old material until success.
9. Repeat steps 1-8 for second semester.
10. Graduate those who pass, hold back those who fail. Begin again next year.
And don't forget to throw in the state-mandated standardized tests. While it's a simple, efficient system, it assumes that all kids have similar qualities, behavior, and such. Which, as anyone should know, is not true. While most schools have departments for those with severe mental and/or physical disabilities, most smaller circumstances are passed off as growing pains or disobedience. None of this seems particularly disconcerting, but my issue is that grades take priority over learning. The purpose of schools is to educate. While people may stick onto a fact or two, nearly every class (both where I went to school and where I'm teaching now) allocates at least a month to reviewing and re-memorizing everything people should've known forever ago. Obviously, basic knowledge (addition/subtraction, difference between animals and plants, solid/liquid/gas, your ABCs, etc.) is exempt from this, but the point stands. My own mother, when she tried to help me with a science project in 10th grade, couldn't even remember what the Periodic Table of Elements was. And she's no idiot.
You may have noticed that I often use the word "memorize" instead of the word "learn." The two are completely different things. Memorization is taking a fact or concept and studying it or repeating the process it describes over and over until you can't forget it, at least for the time necessary to recite it on a test. Learning, on the other hand, does not only include knowing something, but also being able to understand and apply it. Memorization is knowing that "kicked" is the past tense of the verb "kick." Learning is knowing that "kicked" has an "-ed" at the end, and is therefore (most likely) the past tense of the form "kick," and that you can do the same for nearly every verb ending in a consonant.
The current educational system, as alluded to previously, places memorization above learning. It assumes that if the kids pass the test, they know the material. One fact keeps this from leaving all our kids in a hobo-hole when they grow up: Interests. If someone wants to be, say, an astronaut, logic dictates they will have an interest in and therefore put in more effort into knowing and understanding aeronautics, mathematics, and such, while barely skating by their poetry unit and forgetting what a stanza is by their first year out of high school. Those who don't want to put in the effort to achieve their career goals are deemed unworthy to fit the job. This is one of the few safety nets that prevents the educational system from collapsing on itself, and it heavily softens the next argument I'm about to make.
At the risk of sounding like a snob, kids these days just don't have an appreciation for all the shit we're trying to put into their heads, and a good bit of it isn't their fault. Force-feeding them all the same information within a time limit works as well as force-feeding them all spinach in the space of five seconds. A select few may at least tolerate the process, but more often than not you're just going to see a lot of leaves regurgitated in your face. And that's exactly what's happening. Give material, regurgitate material, move on. It's only once kids have taken their time, and chewed, digested, and processed the material that they can eject it in the form of the beautiful fecal matter of understanding.
Which brings me to my next point: subject variety. Until halfway through college, you will be taking the same core math, language, science, and social studies courses, with few electives to explore more exotic interests and some required communication, technology, and physical education courses thrown in to please the general populace. There are two main reasons for this: develop a variety of knowledge & skills, and to not determine what your immediate interests are, but rather give you the tools to choose later. All well and good, but 98% of the time little Billy simply doesn't want and isn't going to use Algebraic Matrices at any point in his life. While it does take a while for the "I WANT TO BE A ROCK STAR/FAMOUS ACTRESS/PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYER" mentality to wear off (and even then there's uncertianity; it took me until, again, 10th grade to realize my interest in teaching) it's not hard to predict when somebody simply doesn't need to know whatever you're trying to cram in their heads.
You see, occasionally, after the aformentioned feces of understanding have been created, Billy decides that what he just ate doesn't agree with his stomach. I, for one, have never been a math whiz. I can multiply 2 and 2, but put X and Y into an equation and my mind melts. I've realized this fact since elementary school; however, I've always read constantly, had an excellent sense of grammar, and found myself looking forward to my English classes. Even the ones with the crappy teachers. And, what do you know; my profession involves exactly that. I could easily have not taken anything past Algebra I and I'd still be doing just as well. Unfortunately, the state disagrees. (Before you comment on this, YES, I REALIZE THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS AND I AM BUT ONE INDIVIDUAL. But if any of you employed folks use everything you learned, I wanna hear it.)
Lastly, now that I've covered what kids are taught, allow me to finish with my grievances on how kids are taught. Tying in to the memorization vs. learning point, one thing I've noticed most during my student teacher days is the heavy generalization of every kid in the classroom. According to those teachers' logic, if one kid can understand it when she teaches it, everyone else should be able to as well. This couldn't be more wrong. The irony is that, as I've picked up on occasionally, a ton of the kids' understanding was facilitated not by the teacher, but by their fellow peers. Since the teacher can't be bothered to come up with any other way but notes to educate, the children have to find their own ways to tell each other. While it's a wonderful example of collaboration, it just makes me feel as if the teachers aren't doing their job.
While this is my first year as a full time teacher, I've tried something: Once every six weeks (we have a six-week grading period), I'll spend a day simply calling up each individual student to my desk and having a talk about what they learned, what they didn't, and how I can fix that. I'll find what they learned the easiest and try to find ways to apply whatever I did there to everything else. This has proved miraculous; I have dozens of kids who tell me horror stories about their English grades who are coasting by comfortably, and every single one says that these little conferences played a big part. That kind of individual attention, I believe, is absoutely necessary if kids are to not only succeed, but thrive in whatever they're doing.
---
Well, there went 40 minutes of my life, so enough blabbing on my part. I congratulate you if you've actually managed to process the entire thing. No, I'm not sticking a tl;dr at the end because if I compressed this to a sentence, my point would be lost.
Love and raeg,
-Ifafudafi.
Thoughts?