I'm tired of hearing that the US Educational System is a failure. President Obama says it all the time. My question to him is if the American educational system is a failure then in theory it failed you. If it did fail you, then why are you fit to run my country? I should not vote for someone who believes himself a failure. That does not instill confidence in you or your administration, who I assume are also graduates of the American educational system. and therefore, in your opinion, also failures.
Now I will not say that our education system is perfect, far from it. However, spending more hours in school is not going to help the children. What it will do is make it more convenient for working parents. School is not meant to be a babysitter. If we are currently not reaching our students in 8 hours a day what makes you think we will have a better chance of reaching them in ten or eleven hours? If we cannot reach them during the school year, what makes you think that we will reach them during the summer months when the heat is oppressive and every child longs to be outside enjoying the fresh air? If they cannot concentrate because they are hungry, or being bullied, or suffering from boredom - more exposure to these problems is not going to help. The problem is that we are not reaching them, pure and simple. 1.2 million kids drop out of high school every year. Most 8th graders graduate at a reading level 2 years behind where they should be.
Our methods of teaching are archaic. We assume that most people learn through rote memorization, sitting in desks, not getting respected by the teachers who are frustrated with their jobs because no one wants to learn. The fact is, most people do not learn through rote memorization. Manipulatives and hands on experiences are much more effective learning tools. We cut every program we can because education is too expensive. Without the programs, the education is not well-rounded. If you think of how you studied when you were a child or a teenager, were you sitting at a desk or laying on your bed? Was everything quiet or did you have music playing? Things like this matter though you think they might not. When you work, you are more productive when you have mementos of yourself around you. Workers sit in comfortable chairs. They sit in temperature regulated rooms. What do we do to our kids? We sit them in over-heated classrooms, packed like sardines, with a harried teacher trying to get through to them, through the noise and the hormones, to teach them about things they could not possibly be interested in. You want to reach kids? Find out what they want to do and instruct them accordingly. Teach them important things like how to cook and balance a checkbook, how to invest and stay out of debt. Teach them reading by using sports or the entertainment industry - things they are interested in. Teach them history the same way and geography. Teach science by explaining how things work from car engines to video cameras. The principles or learning are all around you, if you just look hard enough. Math needs to have practical applications. You have to show them that they are going to use this information. Find their interests and gear your lessons according to that. Dick and Jane do not cut it anymore. These kids are not from the 50's. This is a modern world and we have to update accordingly.
To go along with this though, we have to realize that the dropout rate has something to do with the socio-economic status in the US. Did you know that people that dropout of school are more likely to commit crimes; that in the long run dropping out of high school can cost the US as much as $300 billion? It is a staggering statistic. So what to do? My guess would be teach people to parent because schools are not the only ones responsible. Fix the economy. Stop trying to fix the economy in other countries and fix America first because our children should be important to us. Yes, other countries need our help and we should help, eventually. First and foremost though, we need to take care of our kids. Arrest the drug dealers and make their sentences mandatory and long. I know that we don't have money for it and the prisons are over-crowded. They are over-crowded because our education system is failing our youth. This is a catch 22 and we have to break out of the cycle.
If we address these issues, the US won't be the 21st out of the top 30 countries in educational standards. The key is not to become like China. We don't want to be China. We don't want to take creativity and imagination out of our schools. We want to learn to work with our children in ways that matter to them.
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