Education runs deep, like religion
or politics, it is central to our being and we certainly all have our own
opinions, defined by extensive experience, on the subject.
Attempting to reform the education system in America is
treading on hallowed ground. All systems of public education came into being in
order to meet the needs of industrialism, in the 19th century. Ever
since then, they haven’t really changed. They’ve been churning out generations
of Americans, all instilled with a very similar scholastic formula; there is
only one way to do school. Ironically, such a concrete system is based on very
abstract concepts.
The education that molds us today
is meant to take us into a future we cannot grasp. Children starting first
grade this year will be graduating high school in the year 2024. We have no idea what the world will
look like next year, much less in 12 years, and yet, we are preparing our children
for it.
We place them on the tried and true
track to college, completely predicated on the idea of academic ability. The valued subjects are the core
subjects—mathematics, sciences and humanities—because they are the ones that
are going to land the greatest number of students a job, once they enter the
“real world”. Yet, it completely ostracizes an entire chunk of young minds, who
are told that what they are good at—painting, dance, violin—is not valued, not
only in school but in the “real world”.
Imbuing millions, literally
millions, of children with the single goal of getting into college is extremely
detrimental. It truncates the entire learning experience. It creates this
notion that there will come a point where one will no longer have to learn, because they’ve learned
everything they need to know. They’ve reached the finish line.
However, we continue to extend that
finish line. Degrees aren’t worth what they used to be. MA’s and PhD’s are
becoming the new norm. It’s a process of academic inflation.
Reforming such a rigid, complex and
increasingly ineffective system isn’t a task for a single
politician in Washington D.C., nor is it something that can be dealt with by
building a few progressive and creative schools. It’s an entire mindset that
needs to be altered and a society that’s going to have to change along with it.
- Caroline
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