I don't know about you, but I am very disappointed with the US educational system. There are so many issues surrounding education (I'm referring to primary education). For example, the US is trailing behind several nations including, Finland, Korea, and Japan in education. Not only do US students have lower test scores, they also have a lower graduating rate.
Also, the way that the current educational system is set up it only appeals to two of the seven 'multiple intelligences.' For those of you would are not familiar with psychology, it is argued that there are seven types of intelligences, or learning styles, as pictured below.
http://http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/arts/cabc/oddleifson3_2.gif
US schools put their main emphasis on Linguistic and Mathematical/Logical subjects. It is also how the country's standardized testing is structured. I believe that the standardized testing methods used for things such as college entry are complete crap. A real life example is my ACT score. I took the ACT twice both times without doing any preparation and there was a FOUR point increase in my score the second time I took it, causing me to question the test's ability to accurately asses the intelligence level of a student.
Another thing I would like to address is the way in which the educational system is structured. In his book "The Underground History of American Education" John Taylor Gatto (a teacher of thirty years) argues that the current educational system is structured much like a factory in the 19th and 20th century. You go to class, you sit all day, you learn, you do homework, go to bed, and wake up to do everything over again. He argues that while this system worked in the 20th century, it is now the 21st century and serious changes need to be made. There is a fantastic article called 'How to Build a Student for the 21st Century' in Time magazine. If this post interested you I highly recommend you read it.
What I want to know is what kind of impact do you think not changing our education system would have on the economy? There has been an increase in professions that do not require just logical and linguistic skills. Do you think the Us should scrap the current ed. system and start fresh? If it did what repercussions do you think would be experienced? Also, do you think that the current education system should even be changed? Any ideas as to how?
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I think that improving our education system would definitely make our country more competitive globally. It would likely lead to more innovation and technological development occurring within the U.S, which would allow U.S firms to become more efficient. Moreover, an improved education system would mean a more educated workforce, which would make the U.S more attractive to high tech companies. Attracting high tech companies, moreover, is particularly important, as low skilled U.S workers are unwilling to work for the same low wages as low skilled workers elsewhere (namely China), which makes the U.S a comparatively unattractive place for manufactures to build factories.
ReplyDeleteI think that the biggest change that we need to make to our educational system is to increase the amount of vocational training and job skill training. Many other countries require that their students do internships even while still in high school or middle school. Here it is possible to graduate from college without having any professional experience. Also we need to focus more on alternative ways of doing things for younger children. Right now the pressure of testing makes it so that kids as young as five have to stay in from recess to learn their reading and writing skills. As a daughter of an occupational therapist I know that most of the important behavioral and social skills that are very important for life are learned while at play. I worry that we are forcing our children to become dull and uninterested in the world around them by confining them to the narrow confines of the current definition of success at school.
ReplyDeleteI think the u.s. should deffinitely rebuild the educational system. Recently we have been falling behind a lot of countries because our ideas of how educated you should be never changed as our parents could be fine with out a college education. If we do rebuild it i think it should be over the course of five years starting at the younger levels and proceeding forward. I think it will put some people out of jobs but bring in more due to the type of education/intelligence learning. I think they should start changing the languages offered to chinese, spanish, and arabic or german due to the way the world is forming. Also since your mind takes in more when you are younger i believe they should push more at younger ages and bring all higher levels down grades so more kids can reach higher levels before college.
ReplyDeletePrivatize Education. Instead of having slow and ineffcient government handle a system that is already failing let the administrations run themselves given a set of loose curricular guidelines and let parents and students decide which one fits thier child best. There have been ideas tossed around that would allow a 7000 dollar voucher for children to attend private schools.Allowing parents to get the money back that they pay in taxes to fund schools that the children dont attend. I think this is the right track.
ReplyDeleteTwo comments:
ReplyDeleteA, in response to Evan: If you can afford to come to K privatized education doesn't sound so bad, but it will end up in the same situation as health care, which has led to the need for public health care. While agree that the current approach to education is flawed, I don't think that's because it is public. The foreign countries we are competing against have public education. Rather, it is the way in which we educate people. Which brings me to point
B) I agree with Ali and Hannah that the US deemphasizes alternative forms of intelligence to our loss. I also think one of our major problems is over-compartmentalizing subjects so that we get into a recession because economists don't have an understanding of sociological influences that make their theories impractical. or chemists that don't understand the ecological implications of their technological "advancements". If we had a more well-rounded curriculum we would be more competitive.
The U.S. education system is known to teach a variety of things and a common phrase used is that it is "a mile wide, and an inch deep". Because of this US students learn to think creatively and also other courses including shop, home ec, and others that are not offered in other nations. The reason the US doesn't have test scores like other nations is that it doesn't concentrate on some subjects as intensely, nor is it in the constitution that the federal government can mandate certain conditions to the education system, including the drop out age as that is a state right. I would also like to say that a vast majority of people want to come to the US for college.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to change the education system overall, and I don't think scores should be taken too seriously. It's best to find a way of education which suits the country most.
ReplyDeleteEducation system in America is definitely flawed. But nevertheless, it seems to be working to a certain extend. As someone mentioned, a lot of international students are coming for College. We have to think of the alternatives, if there are none, then there's no changing in the system. Also, we have to consider the consequences of changing the system. It will take a lot of effort. And we wouldn't really be able to tell the actual effect for quite a long time.
ReplyDelete