The United States is often regarded to as the world's dominant power mainly due to it's excellence in many areas. The nation may have excelled in economy, military prowess, and cultural imprint, but it is far from excellence in the education system. I once heard someone describe the education system as the "bulimic system", a term used to describe how schools stuff their students with facts, which they then have to puke out on a test at a later date. This proves highly ineffective in education and it nothing more, but a memory test that leaves no room for creative thinking.
Everyone always says that you learn from your mistakes, and while this is absolutely true, our tests are designed in such a way that you have to memorize a textbook filled with facts only to regurgitate those facts on a test, and three weeks later receive a grade back. All this grade tells us is how many mistakes we made, or how well we could memorize the book, but it does not tell us what mistakes and how we could have avoided them.
What makes matters worse is that test scores are scored awfully heavy. There could be 30 questions on a test and that will make up literally 80% of your grade. So many students fail to realize their potential because a simple grade tells them they have none when they receive a D, and thus they feel they are worthless. This defeats the whole purpose of the education. Education is meant to build not destroy. Education is progress - not a process of progressing from one point to another along lines delineated by a race to graduation, but a process of progressing towards self-improvement. In no way am I suggesting getting good grades is a bad thing; that would be foolish. Getting good grades is not the problem. Allowing grades to dictate one's life is.
This follows us through college too. It's the mechanical machinery of: cash and student in, debt and graduate out. Now, I am not devaluing education. We really do need school to get an education - just not the kind of school we've been getting. Am I right? And that's why we have disillusioned graduates with useless degrees. Why can't our education system be more of a lifetime deal which guides us on our journey through life? A system where teachers don't simply teach, but are more like mentors. A system which combines learning with passionately working towards one's personal, freely chosen goal. That is a system I hope the class of '31 is exposed to.
- Cynthia Thach
I totally agree with your view on the American education system. There seems to be an emphasis on scoring well on the tests we're given than actually understanding the material. For example, take any history test you've been given. Most students may retain the dates, significant people, and events that transpired for about a week or so, more if the teacher implies it might be on the final. After the test, many students can't remember any of the knowledge they so desperately reviewed. Maybe if the schools focused more on making the students fully comprehend the content instead of just copying down a cheat sheet for every step and praying the test is more or less the same.
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