What It Is: Schools = Useless diffusion. What It Should Be: Schools = Job Training
As a slave of the current American school system (and yes, I mean slave), I know a lot about what high schools are teaching. One thing especially, is that they have taught very much useless information. When looking at what school should be, it would seem that it would be a place that would prepare adolescents for the jobs that they will pursue. Instead, it remains a dreaded institution with underpaid staff, memorization, bullying, drug trade, and creativity smashing.
One thing that's a basis in schools is to not ask "why?". This is because most teachers don't want to (or can't) venture out of the written lesson plan by taking on new subjects. I admit though, this isn't always true. In fact, this year, I have found many teachers who gladly delve into other subjects. These people are truly good individuals who teach because they love to teach. Every high school student, however, knows of the teacher that doesn't want to be there. They bitch at students and don't seem to give off a caring, teacher-esque attitude. These people, obviously, should not teach.
Teaching, nowadays, isn't so much about giving the kids a lesson. It's more about helping them memorize facts. The better they memorize a fact, the better they do on tests, and the better they do on tests, the more funding the school gets (and the more funding the school gets, the more neat toys they can buy for the football team). This, however, seems wrong. Why should schools that have smarter students receive the most funding? Wouldn't ailing schools with struggling students need more funds to open up more programs for said students?
Just because one student gets an "A" on his History quiz, does not mean he knows anything about the subject. He knows dates, sure. He knows names, yeah. But as for answering questions like "why," that's another story. Students are taught not to ask "why" for one huge reason: because they themselves don't know why.
Confusing, I know, but if a kid doesn't know why himself, then he won't ask.
Schools are infamous for filling kids up with life skills like calculus, trig, the cell reproductive patterns in bacteria, and sentence diagrams. Also, in the hallways, kids that are less fortunate or deigned "bad" by the system struggle through dealing with abusive students (who happen to be on the football team, and the school won't compromise losing a season for some poor child), backstabbing and other problems with friends and family that they must ignore and put to the side during classes, no matter how much it troubles them.
However, high school should instead work on giving kids classes that reflect their job choices. Elementary through middle school should stick with almost the same structure, but high school should veer towards what teenagers want to go after during college. For example, in my case, I want a journalism/political science involved career, so I would be given more English classes and Government, Economy, and social science classes. But, alas, I'm forced to take silly classes like "ICP" and "Algebra II."
Oh well, maybe things will change. Maybe.
posted by k. edward warmoth @ 5:27 PM
3 Comments:
I feel this. As a 22-year old who just finished her BA, I can say that the difference between my high school and my college couldn't have been bigger. I attended a small liberal arts place where professors WANTED students to ask why. Classtime was all about discussion and debate with a little lecturing thrown in, and ultimately professors didn't care much about what you wrote as long as you could back up your argument with facts.
My little sister is having difficulty in middle school right now for the exact reasons you described: it's all about memorizing dates and names. It wasn't until I put things into context for her that she even understood (i.e. McArthyism to today's Guatanamo and the current administration's flagrant abuse of civil liberties ... can you tell I was a political science major?).
The high school where I graduated is thankfully starting to offer some nontraditional classes such as Holocaust studies. I wish everyone could get an education at a place like Montessori, but those schools are private and cost money so again, if your parents aren't rich, you get screwed. This country needs a major education overhaul. I'll tell you why you're being taught the way you are, though: it's because adults aren't comfortable with you asking why. It's taking a risk, because you might not agree with the way previous generations have acted, and you might try to change how things are.
People are very uncomfortable with change. They prefer an uncomfortable known to a comfortable unknown. The idea that one's children could look at how adults mishandled a war or some other great event and say, wow, look at how my elders have deluded themselves, that's a risk that many people don't want to take. People don't like getting the boat rocked.
A truly wise adult is one who says fuck it to all of what I just wrote, because they want to teach you to think anyway. It sounds like you have a few teachers willing to do that. Hang on to them. They're the true mentors. Sometimes you have to wade through the bullshit. It's a lesson you'll get again in college when you run into various professors and have to decide which one you want for an advisor for your four years.
It's very nice to see such an articulate young man as yourself. We need smart young people. It's the only way change is accomplished.
You are noticing the chief problem with schools, and there is serious historical reason for it.
The short story: the modern school (including "Kindergarten", which was not supposed to evoke the image of children playing in a garden, but rather was based on the ideas of the time that gardens were places where man's will triumphs over nature; where children can be domesticated into cabbages, rather than be children) was developed in Prussia for the purposes of population control by weaning them to complete dependence on the state/centralised authority rather than be persons who would question the bullshit the oppressive government was putting upon them.
I could go on for a long time about this--even at its best, the idea of "teaching people to think" is really a question of undoing the damage the school system has already done. It's a messed up little world.
All I can say as someone who graduated high school almost eight years ago is I understand. Just get your diploma and get the hell out, and then you can go to a college where you'll be among, at the very least, semi-adults as mature as yourself.
I remember feeling the same way back then, but I doubt I ever came close to expressing it as well as you did. I wish I could say that the emphasis on standardized testing and funds is a more recent, Bush-era thing, but it's not. Listen to what yggdrasil says, and seek out the real mentors, and try not to blame the teachers too much for being beaten down and reduced to zombie cogs in a system of half-truths. Yggdrasil is right, in college they want so badly for you to ask questions, though it also sounds like she went to a private school as I did, so I'm not sure if it's true for state schools. That's just a whole other problem and post right there for a later time, I'm sure.
Keep it up and don't lose faith.
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