Education Reform

I’ve always liked knowledge; learning new things peaks my interest. So why did I feel like I hit a brick wall once I got to what was supposed to be a higher-level learning environment? Bogged down by busy-work, overwhelmed by rigid rules, bored by countless power points, it really doesn’t feel like I’m learning anything.

In recent years, the United States has been pegged as lagging behind other countries in its education system. Other countries have started innovating and holding students to different, more effective standards. Now I know it’s not a competition, but if it was, we should be the ones at the top. I can’t vote, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the classroom, and I know it needs to change.

Creativity

Maybe school stopped being fun when everything got boring. I understand that the days of finger painting and playing dress up are as much a thing of the past as Ferbies and fax machines. But that doesn’t mean we have to just sit mindlessly and taking notes off power points and copying things out of hefty textbooks.

I want to expand my brain. I want to look at a question and come up with several ways to answer it. I want to learn how to think critically and create solutions myself. I want the opportunity to express myself through different formats and get to know my peers and their views. Our minds are being squandered by the rigid black and white of exams and long-term papers, by x’s and y’s. I’m fatigued by the year-in and year-out similarities of school.

Creativity is one of the most sought-after qualities in the workplace. People with minds that flex in different ways and can see one thing from multiple perspectives are successful. Maybe it’s not playing with blocks, but if we were encouraged to do things differently, adding our personalities and being proud of our work, society as a whole would benefit. We’d be a

generation of people with open minds, both creative and innovative. We would have the capacity to create change.

Teach To Learn

Crammed into a desk, number two pencil ready, two cups of coffee downed, time to test — again. Regurgitate the information, fill in the bubbles and store the notes until the final. Done.

I put a lot of time into school. But a lot of that time just feels like I’m preparing for Doomsday, excuse me, I mean a unit test. If I didn’t have to spend my nights memorizing formulas I might have taken interest in what we were learning about. Theories and ideas are fascinating. The world, with its recent tech boom, is changing before us. There are interesting things out there for us to learn about. School doesn’t have to be boring. The up-chuck of information purely for a certain letter grade, that’s boring.

We’re turning intellectuals away, dumbing everyone down. I know I’m only sixteen but I’m pretty sure I won’t have to bubble in my answers on the first day of a job. I’m going to have think critically, ask questions and problem-solve.

We study to pass tests, but what if we all started studying because we were genuinely interested in the subject? Memory fades, but perspective and discussion builds upon itself.

I can study and study chemical formulas, but in ten years I probably won’t be able to recite them. Heck, I probably won’t be able to recite them next week. That’s because it isn’t important to me. I want to learn the why’s and the how’s not just the what’s. I want to learn for understanding, not for the multiple choice.

Pressure

Arguably the biggest problem with the high school system is the incessant pressure to do well. Early on, we get a seemingly harmless seed planted in our heads; achieve in high school and you’ll get into college. But  who knew achieving meant a laundry list of leadership positions, unimaginable amounts of community service hours, an essay to rival Shakespeare, a fantastic GPA? Combine all those things and we might, emphasis on the might, get into a “good” school.

We’re told it’s the formula for success. But really, it’s more like the formula for insanity. We’re not aliens from some ultra-productive, far-off planet, we’re teenagers. And I think adults and students alike need to take that into consideration, myself included. The pressure to succeed has many times made me cave beneath it all. I wasn’t getting full nights of sleep. Things began to feel like a never-ending pattern of stress, write, stress, study, stress, possibly eat and then maybe, just maybe, get some sleep. High school shouldn’t be the four years we spend attempting to get the stamp of approval from a college, it should be spent learning. It should be spent understanding the complex world we’re growing up in. And it definitely, definitely should include full nights of sleep.

generation of people with open minds, both creative and innovative. We would have the capacity to create change.

Teach To Learn

Crammed into a desk, number two pencil ready, two cups of coffee downed, time to test — again. Regurgitate the information, fill in the bubbles and store the notes until the final. Done.

I put a lot of time into school. But a lot of that time just feels like I’m preparing for Doomsday, excuse me, I mean a unit test. If I didn’t have to spend my nights memorizing formulas I might have taken interest in what we were learning about. Theories and ideas are fascinating. The world, with its recent tech boom, is changing before us. There are interesting things out there for us to learn about. School doesn’t have to be boring. The up-chuck of information purely for a certain letter grade, that’s boring.

We’re turning intellectuals away, dumbing everyone down. I know I’m only sixteen but I’m pretty sure I won’t have to bubble in my answers on the first day of a job. I’m going to have think critically, ask questions and problem-solve.

We study to pass tests, but what if we all started studying because we were genuinely interested in the subject? Memory fades, but perspective and discussion builds upon itself.

I can study and study chemical formulas, but in ten years I probably won’t be able to recite them. Heck, I probably won’t be able to recite them next week. That’s because it isn’t important to me. I want to learn the why’s and the how’s not just the what’s. I want to learn for understanding, not for the multiple choice.

The public education system needs to implement a curriculum that uses all parts of the brain. The everyday notion of read, recall, repeat bores us. We need color. We should be the ones asking the questions and coming up with the solutions. Teachers should lead open up our minds, not shut them in. There is more than one way to take in information.

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