Life Through the Looking Glass

Has anyone ever asked you what era you would choose to live in? Most people might say that they want to return to Roman times, the Renaissance, or even the Medieval times. I am usually confused by these ideas. Yes, there were some geniuses during these eras and we tend to learn about the wealthy who seemed to live wonderful lives, but what about the common folk? If you choose an era but not what social class you would belong to, the most likely scenario is that of a poor farmer or even a slave. These people were plagued by disease, there were no sanitation facilities let alone a sewage system, and the average life expectancy was less than 30 years. Many people say they want to go back in time because they don’t appreciate how technology has affected our lives. But the question should be, how has technology improved our lives? Antibiotics did not exist until 1928 and although vaccines were created in 1796, they did not become popular until much later. In high school, we might encou...

The first American schools were founded in the 17 th century. Now it might be easy to assume that by now we have perfected our schooling system, however, I don’t believe this to be the case. The average student is required to attend school for about 6 and ½ hours daily. The schedule will be the same every day. But what is achieved during these hours? Because of standardized tests, teachers are required to follow a certain curriculum to prepare their students. If they do not follow the corresponding syllabus, their class might do poorly on the standardized tests and therefore receive less funding from the government. Although the idea of standardized testing was to encourage schools to put more effort into their teaching methods, this technique has proven to be detrimental towards the students. If the school requests that a teacher prepares their students towards the assessment, they might start reading excerpts in English instead of books. They will learn how to excel at taking stand...