The condition of the American School system

The american school system is in an abysmal state. It is oriented towards one direction; getting the best scores to go to the best college so you can get the best job. Do we learn anything in the process? Sadly, it seems we do not. again and again it is shown that the current school system is geared towards blind memorization and not learning subject matter, to understand it completely. However,t his problem is not limited to the united states, but has been shown to spread across both time and place

In his book "Surly your joking, Mr. Feynman" Feynman relates to us the condition of the Brazilian school system when he began his short period of teaching there. He later, at the end of his year, goes up to the school board and tells them that there entire school system is a failure. That the students, so intent on passing quizzes, were clueless on the subject matter, but could memorize the information easily. he said that, barring two exceptions, every single student was completely and utterly unfit for the career they wanted to join (Engineering). The two exceptions turned out to be people who had resorted to teaching themselves the proper way as they didn't have access to school. That the Brazilian school system had a %100 failure rate. Thus we can see that this problem is not only limited to the united states.

Mark twain once said "I will not allow my schooling to get in the way of my education" he was referring to the way that school doesn't teach you everything you need. While I have learned a ton of specific stuff at school (Math, History, English) the thing that I use the most was taught to me out of a class room,and completely indipendantly. How to properly use a computer, how to code, and how to basically build a robot (Although to be fair that was partially done on school property, in the robotics club.

Thus it becomes clear that the school system of the entire wold needs a massive revamping, with more hand-on exercises, and more freedom of the student to pick what he wants to do. More the entirety of school be more like college with the core classes, basic history, English, and science, while the student can decide what he wants to focus on.

1 comment:

  1. I think you did this for a different class but let's discuss this and figure out how we can create a better experiential learning experience.

    ReplyDelete

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