The Schooling System
The first American
schools were founded in the 17th 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 standardized tests, but they will not acquire
the skills that are needed to do well in college or in their future work place.
Another problem with the
schooling system is that the schedule is the same every day. In Europe, many
schools have different schedules depending on the day of the week. This can be
helpful because the day doesn’t seem as endless and there is more time to focus
on the homework for each class. When thinking about school most students seem
to think about the long school day ahead of them and don’t usually see the positive
aspect of learning.
In America, school is in session for about 9
months and then there is a 2 to 3-month
break where all the knowledge we have acquired is forgotten. It would be more beneficial
to have breaks in between the never-ending weeks of school to give students
time to regenerate before going back into the school year. In many year-round
schools, students actually spend less time in school because they don’t have to
relearn the old material and can focus on other subjects. The smaller breaks
within the school year also help the students to finish work and relieve some
of the stress that built up during the school week. Overall I think that the
schooling system is meant to promote student welfare but that some changes can
be made to benefit the whole system.
I agree with all your points, our academic system is all sorts of messed up. I especially agree with your point about breaks. I think what could also be beneficial, even more than breaks throughout the year, is having them throughout the week. Say, alternating between one day off and one day one, or making a three to four day weekend. Forget every few months, I have to recharge after every week. Saturday is coming right on the heels of a school day and Sunday is spent dreading the coming week. If we had, say, Friday off, we'd have Saturday padded at either end. That way it's perpetually balanced rather than huge blocks of stress followed by blocks of relief. Swinging at either extreme can't be healthy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your sentiment that our schooling system relies to much on things like standardized testing and a fixed schedule. I think that school could be a lot more efficient and rewarding if their was more flexibility and individuality. I also agree that having a huge summer break has a negative impact on school experience, but feel that starting at high school the large summer can be useful as it allows for summer jobs for students.
ReplyDeleteI think that the recess is something that is completely underrated and should be implemented more into high schools. People need time where they can relax and talk to their friends, this is different from free period because not everyone has free period at the same time. Also I agree with what you say about needing to have a different schedule for each day, because I can see how people can get burnt out. Having a change in scenery helps a lot with stress and getting yourself excited for class. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that the schooling system in the US has a lot to change. One thing this post reminded me of was Utopias and Dystopias class last year. During the first few weeks of class we researched "forward" teaching methods/schooling, basically experimental or otherwise abnormal teaching methods that seemed to result in higher grades and understanding of the material by the students as well as general moral and motivation. These techniques included outdoor activities, breaks, rewards, naps, etc. I think it would be interesting to implement these into the modern school system and see what impact it might have.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of this. The schooling system in America is certainly outdated and strict, and there are so many problems with it! I especially like your point about the schedules being the same every day - it gets so monotonous! I know that in a different school in the area, they use block scheduling, where you have different classes MWF and TTh. I personally would prefer that to break up the monotony.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of your points; it really does seem like we're more being taught how to take tests rather than actually learn the material. Although our teachers constantly harp on how cramming doesn't serve us, it works. If I don't need to commit the material to long term memory, I won't. It's much less work to just study the night before and forget it right after the test anyway.
ReplyDeleteOne additional thing I think could help (although it is quite drastic) would be removing homework. I don't dread school as much as I dread homework. If there were a clear separation between school and home then I feel it wouldn't be as bad, because you have time to recover from the day in the afternoon. But with homework school effectively drags into the night, it feels like you never get a break. Sure, you have weekends, but even then you usually have some homework. It would be a difficult transition and probably require longer school days to give us time in class to work on the things that used to be homework, but I think it would be extremely beneficial.