Why do we still educate basically the way we did in the 1800's? Yes, we have our computers that students get to use, but students are still expected to sit for 7 hours a day in hard wooden chairs in some of the most institutional types of buildings, listening to a teacher lecture in pretty much the same way teachers have lectured since "mass" education made its premiere in the 1800's. At that time there was a need for basic literacy. Until the post-WWII era, basic literacy assured a workforce for the agricultural-industrial needs of the economy.
We now require "scientific-technical" literacy to enter into the 3rd millennium workforce that is now global. Unfortunately, in the USA most schools of education continue to "educate" the new generation of teachers in teaching metohodologies focused mostly on how to manage the behavior of bored students. The lecture, paper-pencil, textbook reading is a verbal-linguistic way of conveying knowledge. Yet, we now know that many individuals do not learn that way. It isn't that classical education of literature and the arts is not important, but it is that these areas are disproportionately represented at a much higher level than our current culture needs. Math and sciences are a small part of the pie of education because of the lack of willingness to change how we educate our students and the teachers who will teach them. We have many soft-ware engineers and other types of engineers who would love to have a second career of teaching, but school unions keep them out.
The solution appears to always be more money. Yet, it has been shown time and again that a dedicated teacher, with creativity can achieve amazing heights with their students with little money. Where are our engineering classes for primary students? Where are our hands-on scientific research classes for our primary students? We are now competing and losing jobs to India, China, Taiwan, Middle Eastern Countries because of a bureaucratic educational system that keeps the masses shackled.
With the exception of maybe 10% of our students who are fortunate to get into a special program that provides unique instructional models, the majority of students, who are quite independent at gathering knowledge via the Internet and other knowledge reservoirs, who are going 100 mph in their gathering of knowledge, and who are suddenly tossed into school prison for 7 hours to endure lectures, worksheets, even poorly designed computer "learning" modules, are simply tired of being caught up in this traffic jam of knowledge acquisition.
Think of speeding down the most open highway in a Ferrari (or pick your hot conveyance) at 100 mph. All of a sudden there is a traffic jam. The traffic jam last for 7 hours in the heat of the day. You move only 10 miles in 7 hours. After the 7 hours, suddenly the highway opens up and you are going 100 mph again. This is what is happening to our 3rd millennium students. Once they are let out of prison-like schools they run with the technologies available to them.
Our educational system is making itself obsolete. One promise of America is it is always reinventing itself. Revolution is painful but necessary.
Dr.Swank, I agree with you that the school system and, generally, education principles are well overdue for a revolution. One that is based in our scientific understanding of how the REAL learning process takes place instead of the force-feeding followed by forced memorization and then regurgitation of DRY material - the prevailing form of education throughout the world. The current methods focus on reward/punishment system using grades as a measure of a student's excellence in a subject. Is an "A"-grade student guaranteed a success in life after school? Scholastic - maybe. Statistics shows that there's no correlation between the two - in fact, majority of those who succeed were average or had no formal schooling. Thus it is an unfounded myth that good students do well in life. "Go to school-get good grades-get a good, secure job" is an anachronism of the Industrial Age that does not fit well in our Informational Age. Such system is concerned only with a transfer of a textbook material into one's memory banks bypassing the purpose of the process. The original meaning of the word 'education' meant 'to develop one's mind', 'learn to think, understand, and prove'. The current system of "education" is killing the very basic principles of learning - development of Critical Thinking.
ReplyDeleteHere I must say, that the reason for why the system so archaic is not that we can't develop a better system of education, but because it was designed to serve the interests of certain people that some will call the Super-Elite, those that operate from behind the curtains of secrecy, the Master puppeteers of society. Most folk bound by their beliefs can't or afraid to comprehend the scope of control the Super-Elite has over their very lives. How can they? They were not taught to be independent thinkers - they were spoonfed lies since birth, all they are a mash of borrowed/given ideas and constructs. If one has the courage to look at the overwhelming facts often left in plain sight, one discovers then a different world where reality is stranger than fiction, where con-artists rule the herds of sheeple. So, my point is - until we understand that the game is rigged we will chase our tails forever! Trying to patch and band-aid symptoms of sickness is futile.
ReplyDeleteWe must start at the root of the problems plaguing this country and the world in general. First, people need to be taught to see how manipulation of mind works to decipher the Matrix of Lies we're all plugged into, to free the minds from the chains of fear and confusion. Second, people need to be shown that each and everyone of them have the power to change themselves and the world around them, no matter the age. ("As A Man Thinketh" by James Allen is a start) Third - it's action time. Once understood - it is all about attitude vs fear. If we let the fear-mongering propaganda get to us - the society will decline into dark, tumultuous times, if we have the guts to be open-minded, ask tough questions and truly seek the answers we have the chance to prevail and see a new renaissance of a man. There're some big dark agendas at work here backed by an octopus of corrupted political and financial circles - I'd call'em organized crime no less. To stand up to this monstrocity the masses need the real education, not the waste of time and brainwashing that take place in the public (and private, too) schools. We are not powerless - we just give it up to the bullies. You reap what you sow. America as it is now is a very sick society and like Krishnamurti said “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” The choice to get better or stay sick is ours to make.
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