Education in America - Cultural Analysis
Many Americans consider themselves to be citizens of the sole superpower in the world today. Many Americans consider the economic power of the United States to be unrivaled, the technological prowness to be unmatched, and our research to be cutting edge. Increasingly, however, this is not the case - now, more than ever before, our top researchers come from other countries - and increasingly the top researchers from other countries don't want to come to the United States. Our companies are basing their research and development in other locations.
Why is this? There are only two possible reasons: That Americans are inherently more stupid than other people, or that our education system needs improvement. The first argument can be discarded - which means that our education system is greatly flawed. Research indicates that our K-12 schools are ranked 14th amongst the top 20 developed nations - but even that title is misleading. There are only 31 countries in the world that are considered developed - we are ranked 14 out of 31. Furthermore, other countries such as China and India are not considered developed. It is an embarassment that the richest nation (as we like to call ourselves, though our national debt may show otherwise) cannot be ranked in the top 10 for education.
Over half a million children drop out of high school each year - graduation rates in some states for Native-Americans and African-Americans are below 50%. Graduation rates in many states for Mexican-Americans and below 60%. But even worse, graduation means significantly less and less. California recently imposed a high school graduation exam in which basic English and mathematics were tested. There was no calculus. There were only a few questions that involved algebra and trigonometry. Most questions didn't go beyond adding fractions. As for English - basic comprehension and writing skills were all that were needed; there was an article on mockingbirds that was early middle school level.
The results were horrific - approximately 50% (error: delta 1%) of the students passed. That means of the already few students who graduated high school, even fewer students had obtained a basic education. Our high school diploma, which seems so difficult to obtain - does not certify even a basic understanding of English and mathematics. I understand that many students go through difficult times with their families. I understand that many people live in poverty and studying to get an education takes a lower priority than working to stay alive. Other countries, however, have poor people too. Other countries also have a poverty situation - in many cases worse than ours. Yet some of those countries consistently have higher graduation rates - and their graduates are subjected to much higher standards.
What then can we do to solve this situation? It is not only a problem of graduation rates, but of graduation standards - what good is a 100% graduation rate if only half of them can understand algebra?
Much of it is a cultural problem. We live in a society that consistently popularizes short-term happiness over long term gain. Our commercials are 30 second TV spots - and they are starting to advertise more than one company within each commercial, because let's face it, 30 seconds is a lot of time. If your child has a problem - send him the ABC training tape and watch his grades improve immediately! Books over 200 pages are considered unapproachable. Academic recognition in schools is consistently overshadowed by athletic recognition. My old high school had over 30 athletic assemblies, with names permanently threaded in gold strands on a tapestry dangling from the high gym-ceiling. We had one scholarship recognition program: those who had a 3.0 to 4.0 GPA had their names posted on a sheet of paper for a couple weeks. Honor roll, they called it.
Before I get a mob after me, however, let me make it clear - athletic pride is important. Sports is all that keeps some kids in schools. I am not arguing for fewer sports, just more education as well. They are not mutually exclusive. In today's society popularity, athletic ability, penis size, coolness, hotness, and acceptability are considered inversely proportional to scholarship. In TV shows, the smart kid is inevitably small, skinny, pushed around, and single. This is obviously not the case in the real world - but the children of America are not exposed to the real world until it is too late.
The second cultural problem is a culture of blame. I've worked in a motel - and when we had to remove a tenant due to the fact that they couldn't pay the rent, the child started accusing us of discrimination. Nevermind that there were Africans, Asians, Hispanics, Native-Americans, etc. Nevermind that his argument had no base - where did it come from?
It is true that prejudice is a problem in the United States. But it is not the source of every problem. Increasingly, the problem of not taking responsibility is a more severe problem. In school, teachers are often called by parents who complain that their child doesn't have enough time to complete a project - doesn't matter that they were given a month to work on it. It's the teacher's fault for expecting the child to have a little maturity. A friend who taught in Korea said that when she told the kids to write for 5 hours: they wrote for 5 hours. Didn't talk. Didn't ask to use the restroom. Of course that is extreme, and that by itself creates problems with maturity, individuality, and innovation. Instead, however, we lie on the other extreme. Most kids can't pay attention in class for more than a few at a time and teachers increasingly need to employ more and more tactics that sacrifice depth of education to reach the target audience. Many children can't handle 30 minutes of homework. Hard and impossible are synonyms. Challenging and impossible are synonyms.
It is very easy for the parents, who do not want to deal with their kid, to blame the school for being too challenging. Schools are asked to be more innovative. Children, as a result, blame their teacher for being too strict or too hard when they do poorly - instead of looking to see what they themselves could have done. Well parents, unplug your kid from the TV and acutally pay attention to them. Nobody ever said raising a child was easy. If you teach your child to take responsibility for their own work, they will do better. After a while, they'll start taking responsibility without you demanding for it! What's that word - mature?
Ah, well that would be interesting wouldn't it.
Why is this? There are only two possible reasons: That Americans are inherently more stupid than other people, or that our education system needs improvement. The first argument can be discarded - which means that our education system is greatly flawed. Research indicates that our K-12 schools are ranked 14th amongst the top 20 developed nations - but even that title is misleading. There are only 31 countries in the world that are considered developed - we are ranked 14 out of 31. Furthermore, other countries such as China and India are not considered developed. It is an embarassment that the richest nation (as we like to call ourselves, though our national debt may show otherwise) cannot be ranked in the top 10 for education.
Over half a million children drop out of high school each year - graduation rates in some states for Native-Americans and African-Americans are below 50%. Graduation rates in many states for Mexican-Americans and below 60%. But even worse, graduation means significantly less and less. California recently imposed a high school graduation exam in which basic English and mathematics were tested. There was no calculus. There were only a few questions that involved algebra and trigonometry. Most questions didn't go beyond adding fractions. As for English - basic comprehension and writing skills were all that were needed; there was an article on mockingbirds that was early middle school level.
The results were horrific - approximately 50% (error: delta 1%) of the students passed. That means of the already few students who graduated high school, even fewer students had obtained a basic education. Our high school diploma, which seems so difficult to obtain - does not certify even a basic understanding of English and mathematics. I understand that many students go through difficult times with their families. I understand that many people live in poverty and studying to get an education takes a lower priority than working to stay alive. Other countries, however, have poor people too. Other countries also have a poverty situation - in many cases worse than ours. Yet some of those countries consistently have higher graduation rates - and their graduates are subjected to much higher standards.
What then can we do to solve this situation? It is not only a problem of graduation rates, but of graduation standards - what good is a 100% graduation rate if only half of them can understand algebra?
Much of it is a cultural problem. We live in a society that consistently popularizes short-term happiness over long term gain. Our commercials are 30 second TV spots - and they are starting to advertise more than one company within each commercial, because let's face it, 30 seconds is a lot of time. If your child has a problem - send him the ABC training tape and watch his grades improve immediately! Books over 200 pages are considered unapproachable. Academic recognition in schools is consistently overshadowed by athletic recognition. My old high school had over 30 athletic assemblies, with names permanently threaded in gold strands on a tapestry dangling from the high gym-ceiling. We had one scholarship recognition program: those who had a 3.0 to 4.0 GPA had their names posted on a sheet of paper for a couple weeks. Honor roll, they called it.
Before I get a mob after me, however, let me make it clear - athletic pride is important. Sports is all that keeps some kids in schools. I am not arguing for fewer sports, just more education as well. They are not mutually exclusive. In today's society popularity, athletic ability, penis size, coolness, hotness, and acceptability are considered inversely proportional to scholarship. In TV shows, the smart kid is inevitably small, skinny, pushed around, and single. This is obviously not the case in the real world - but the children of America are not exposed to the real world until it is too late.
The second cultural problem is a culture of blame. I've worked in a motel - and when we had to remove a tenant due to the fact that they couldn't pay the rent, the child started accusing us of discrimination. Nevermind that there were Africans, Asians, Hispanics, Native-Americans, etc. Nevermind that his argument had no base - where did it come from?
It is true that prejudice is a problem in the United States. But it is not the source of every problem. Increasingly, the problem of not taking responsibility is a more severe problem. In school, teachers are often called by parents who complain that their child doesn't have enough time to complete a project - doesn't matter that they were given a month to work on it. It's the teacher's fault for expecting the child to have a little maturity. A friend who taught in Korea said that when she told the kids to write for 5 hours: they wrote for 5 hours. Didn't talk. Didn't ask to use the restroom. Of course that is extreme, and that by itself creates problems with maturity, individuality, and innovation. Instead, however, we lie on the other extreme. Most kids can't pay attention in class for more than a few at a time and teachers increasingly need to employ more and more tactics that sacrifice depth of education to reach the target audience. Many children can't handle 30 minutes of homework. Hard and impossible are synonyms. Challenging and impossible are synonyms.
It is very easy for the parents, who do not want to deal with their kid, to blame the school for being too challenging. Schools are asked to be more innovative. Children, as a result, blame their teacher for being too strict or too hard when they do poorly - instead of looking to see what they themselves could have done. Well parents, unplug your kid from the TV and acutally pay attention to them. Nobody ever said raising a child was easy. If you teach your child to take responsibility for their own work, they will do better. After a while, they'll start taking responsibility without you demanding for it! What's that word - mature?
Ah, well that would be interesting wouldn't it.
posted by Michael at 4:03 PM
1 Comments:
I agree. The other major problem in our educational system is a simple and complete lack of any sort of consistency within the curricula. Over the past ten years my mom has taught first grade, her school bought and employed six different languages arts programs and four different math programs. Each of these cost the district MILLIONS, and kids simply were not taught in any consistent fashion. It does come, as you said, from the consumer culture, from the insistence on "immediate results." The kid doesn't learn his times tables in one year? Something must be wrong with the textbooks, the counting blocks, the workbooks, the videos, the lesson plans--God forbid anything could be wrong with the child or the teacher--and they are thrown out in favor the next company's bright and shiny product. The topic then gets presented in an entirely different way and the child is told to forget everything he or she learned previously. The fallout of this consumer-oriented education is that if the kids aren't absolutely enraputed and interested in the way the subject is presented, they say, "Fuck it." If the bells and whistles and flashy colors they've become accustomed to aren't there, they're no longer interested. A book entirely in black and white? I'm not reading that!
If I were in charge of the system, I would tell elementary schools that they are forbidden from purchasing any new curricula for the next six years. Leave it entirely up to the ability of the teachers to teach with what they have. Many people I know--myself included--learned to read with nothing more than Dr. Seuss books. And we learned to read before kindergarten.
The biggest problem in our educational system is that it thinks success will be found in new standards (which realistically translate into hours of instructional time wasted on poorly designed tests), new books, new concepts, new approaches, more money, better facilities. Bullshit. Success is primarily a matter of the child's ability/willingness to learn (that includes parental support) and the teacher's ability/willingness to teach accordingly. As long as educational decisions are made soley at the administrative level by people who are NOT teachers, America is going to continue to produce more than its fair share of dumbasses.
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