EDUCATION
My wife and I recently had a discussion about the importance of a formal education. Her position is that formal education is an absolute must for a successful future but, not for the reasons that the majority of individuals think. My position is the opposite. How can we have different positions on education even though we both have extensive formal education? So I meditated as I usually do and I came up with ideas that to me seem to go to the core of societal problems. Before I start, I want to inform the reader that my articles are thoughts on my opinions. It is the way I view the world. I am not any more intelligent than you are. I am not anymore powerful or special than you are. I respect all ideas and opinions. A diverse, robust, opinion filled society is a recipe for success and tolerance. If whatever I write about or opine about can be useful to stimulate someone's creative thinking then great, use it. But, if on the other hand you find my articles or opinions useless then discard them. So, I started thinking about what is currently going on in our country of late where individuals with opposing views seem to be cancelled and, many are upset with an economic system that seem to benefit a few while leaving the majority behind. So naturally the revolt is against our economic system that seems on the surface to be unfair to the masses. As I see it, this anger is displaced. You see, the economic system that we have today which is capitalism and which built the most advanced and richest country on the planet, the United States, is not the problem. The real problem lies with our educational system.
I believe, our educational system is broken and needs to be re-imagined. I use the term re-imagined because we hear this word lately about re-imagining policing. Rarely do we look at, probably the most important institution in our country, which are schools. Schools were set up to teach children to comply. And, if the students obey they will be rewarded with a job. A job that they will have for 40 plus years, pay taxes, retire and die. In particular, I focus on public school but, private and religious or parochial schools operate the same way. Politicians allocate enormous amounts of money to a completely broken system. That is what politicians do. They seem to have an open check policy to fund a system that has consistently failed our students. That is probably because their only concern is getting the support of the powerful teacher's union to remain in power. To begin with there is no accountability for the product that schools are producing in the form of students who will be left behind. Ironically the "No Child Left Behind Act," was created to fix our public schools but in fact has done more to damage the system than to fix it. A huge component of the no child left behind act is test scores and punitive action. However, a one size fits all system that the public schools adhere to is a complete failure. How is it that despite the United States spending more per capita per students in K-12, than any other nation, they lack considerably behind other countries in educating and preparing our students for success? Finland is currently ranked as the number one K-12 education system. Finnish students consistently have the highest scores in math, science, and reading. Finnish schools also have a very low key model that allows students to learn at a more relaxed pace. They seem to understand that a one size fits all model of teaching is counter productive. Denmark, South Korea and many other countries rank ahead of the United States. By any benchmarks, the United States is lagging behind. Some will blame politicians and some blame the teachers unions. They both are contributors to the failing educational system for sure but I believe in fairness. Therefore, parents need to accept responsibility for this catastrophic failing system. I believe, it is time for parents to demand accountability from teachers, school boards and politicians. If one good thing came out of the Covid-19 lookdown and school closures is that this decrepit educational system was exposed for what it is. This failed system isn't a new phenomena. I believe it was set up purposefully years ago during the industrial revolution to get a compliant work force. Students are treated for the most part the same. Cookie cutter systems of education, are unacceptable. Maybe a cookie cutter system is fine for building houses in a suburb but not to educate our most precious commodity which is our children. And, if doctors should not be prescribing the same medication for all their patients why is our school system prescribing the same form of education for all our children, knowing that they are all different? I remember growing up when being a teacher was admirable. It seems that the Covid-19 pandemic, as aforementioned, has changed that perspective. By this I mean that it seems that teachers would rather listen to there union representative and stay home or teach remotely than to be in a class room. Teachers bare a large portion of the responsibility for our broken educational system. Maybe a good start to fixing the system is a grading system for teachers and if they miss the grade fire them. If you really think about it, public school teachers are just typical government workers. It seems that they can't get fired regardless of their work production. They need to say to their union bosses enough is enough. But, instead seem to hide behind the union shield.
I read once where it stated, "Everyone is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." If we continue to judge children based on standardized test scores alone, we are saying they are all stupid. Stupid because if you passed it, it is a standardized test that is useless. Where it only teaches you to memorize and not necessarily learn anything. Or, stupid because if they failed it, even though it is a useless way of grading and evaluating student progress, they failed so they are stupid. Grasp that concept for a moment. There was an experiment performed in a remote village in Ethiopia by, One Laptop Per Child organization, where 100 lap tops were dropped off to children with no formal education or ability to read and write and they figured out how to operate the laptop and taught themselves how to read and write. They did this on their own without teachers. But yet, here in the United States, our educational system seems to be in shambles. All of us are empowered and programed to succeed. Our teachers instead of taking conference trips to a resort in Hawaii in the interest of learning new concepts, at tax payor expense, should learn themselves how to really teach students. They should be teaching the concept of empowering students. Teaching is not a business. It is a true calling for individuals that truly want to make a difference in people's lives. Ironically, if it was a business, the majority would have been fired based on the services and product they are producing. I leave you with a quote on point by Albert Einstein. "The wit was not wrong who defined education in this way: Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
Just a thought.
I believe, our educational system is broken and needs to be re-imagined. I use the term re-imagined because we hear this word lately about re-imagining policing. Rarely do we look at, probably the most important institution in our country, which are schools. Schools were set up to teach children to comply. And, if the students obey they will be rewarded with a job. A job that they will have for 40 plus years, pay taxes, retire and die. In particular, I focus on public school but, private and religious or parochial schools operate the same way. Politicians allocate enormous amounts of money to a completely broken system. That is what politicians do. They seem to have an open check policy to fund a system that has consistently failed our students. That is probably because their only concern is getting the support of the powerful teacher's union to remain in power. To begin with there is no accountability for the product that schools are producing in the form of students who will be left behind. Ironically the "No Child Left Behind Act," was created to fix our public schools but in fact has done more to damage the system than to fix it. A huge component of the no child left behind act is test scores and punitive action. However, a one size fits all system that the public schools adhere to is a complete failure. How is it that despite the United States spending more per capita per students in K-12, than any other nation, they lack considerably behind other countries in educating and preparing our students for success? Finland is currently ranked as the number one K-12 education system. Finnish students consistently have the highest scores in math, science, and reading. Finnish schools also have a very low key model that allows students to learn at a more relaxed pace. They seem to understand that a one size fits all model of teaching is counter productive. Denmark, South Korea and many other countries rank ahead of the United States. By any benchmarks, the United States is lagging behind. Some will blame politicians and some blame the teachers unions. They both are contributors to the failing educational system for sure but I believe in fairness. Therefore, parents need to accept responsibility for this catastrophic failing system. I believe, it is time for parents to demand accountability from teachers, school boards and politicians. If one good thing came out of the Covid-19 lookdown and school closures is that this decrepit educational system was exposed for what it is. This failed system isn't a new phenomena. I believe it was set up purposefully years ago during the industrial revolution to get a compliant work force. Students are treated for the most part the same. Cookie cutter systems of education, are unacceptable. Maybe a cookie cutter system is fine for building houses in a suburb but not to educate our most precious commodity which is our children. And, if doctors should not be prescribing the same medication for all their patients why is our school system prescribing the same form of education for all our children, knowing that they are all different? I remember growing up when being a teacher was admirable. It seems that the Covid-19 pandemic, as aforementioned, has changed that perspective. By this I mean that it seems that teachers would rather listen to there union representative and stay home or teach remotely than to be in a class room. Teachers bare a large portion of the responsibility for our broken educational system. Maybe a good start to fixing the system is a grading system for teachers and if they miss the grade fire them. If you really think about it, public school teachers are just typical government workers. It seems that they can't get fired regardless of their work production. They need to say to their union bosses enough is enough. But, instead seem to hide behind the union shield.
I read once where it stated, "Everyone is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." If we continue to judge children based on standardized test scores alone, we are saying they are all stupid. Stupid because if you passed it, it is a standardized test that is useless. Where it only teaches you to memorize and not necessarily learn anything. Or, stupid because if they failed it, even though it is a useless way of grading and evaluating student progress, they failed so they are stupid. Grasp that concept for a moment. There was an experiment performed in a remote village in Ethiopia by, One Laptop Per Child organization, where 100 lap tops were dropped off to children with no formal education or ability to read and write and they figured out how to operate the laptop and taught themselves how to read and write. They did this on their own without teachers. But yet, here in the United States, our educational system seems to be in shambles. All of us are empowered and programed to succeed. Our teachers instead of taking conference trips to a resort in Hawaii in the interest of learning new concepts, at tax payor expense, should learn themselves how to really teach students. They should be teaching the concept of empowering students. Teaching is not a business. It is a true calling for individuals that truly want to make a difference in people's lives. Ironically, if it was a business, the majority would have been fired based on the services and product they are producing. I leave you with a quote on point by Albert Einstein. "The wit was not wrong who defined education in this way: Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
Just a thought.