Hunter

Posted on 7/01/14

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I hope I'm not the only person here that realizes the current education system is
useless and a TOTAL waste of time for all of our students. Often the blame is put
on the teachers (which in some cases is absolutely valid), but have people ever
thought that maybe it's the curriculum?

Education is not just a delivery system (like it is now), it's supposed to be about
teaching kids how to apply the concepts of the subjects to real life applications.
It's not about trying to remember & repeat. Tell me how long your memory can
hold onto information you find boring? Exactly, not long at all. The chance of a
student actually 100% remembering the things taught to him/her, is slim to
nothing. Instead of trying to teach the technicals to them, lets teach the
technicals, but with an emphasis on how to apply these CONCEPTS & the process
to real world problems.

Here are the current problems with the education system:

1) There is no creativity & does not allow for individual uniqueness

2) We deal with conditioned learning, the students can not think for themselves!
They're being taught what to think, instead of them finding the answers on their
own.

3) It's BORING, students HATE going to school! Lets change that! You're not
going to make it into a place they love to go to, but at least lets make it
enjoyable!

4) There are no classes that apply to different problems in the real world.

5) After freshman year in high school, a lot of the information is recycled from
previous years!

6) Tests are way too standardized and determine whether the student passes or
not. They should HELP with learning, not DETERMINE the student's fate.

7) Kids are not taught how to fail, and how to take risks. They are scared to fail!

8) We try to teach kids while they deal with temptation from technology.
EMBRACE the technology, allow it in the class rooms, use it as a tool for learning!
We live in the 21st century, we have to adapt to the social changes!

9) We tell students how to live in a democracy, instead of having them actually
participate in a democracy.

---Solutions (Open to revision & advice)---

1) Allow kids to work from their own point of view. Let them learn in their own
unique way.

2) Have them do more hands-on learning, labs, and exercises. Make them draw
their own conclusions & interact with the exercise to find the correct answer.
Don't just tell them what they need to know, make them figure out how to find
out what they need to know. For example: In math, don't just give them a
problem to work out, give them a visual of a real world problem (like filling up a
glass of water), then ask them how long it takes to fill it up. Make them ask
questions, intrigue their curiosity, and make them think about what they need to
figure out in order to solve the problem. They need to figure out the dimensions
of the glass, how much water is coming out of the faucet per second, etc.

3) Let them have classes that pertain to their interests. Less standardization, and
more personalization! Why do you think they're bored at school? Because they're
being force fead stuff they don't care about. Let them expand on their passion,
allow them to study what ever it is their motivated about, embrace their curiosity
& allow them to feed that curiosity. Curiosity is the #1 thing that will promote
learning, why are we shunning it?! Allow the learning to be open to their
uniqueness, allow for them to learn in their own way.

4) Make classes that apply to the world they will live in, in just a few years. Such
as, a class on taxes, opening & maintaining a bank account, job interviews,
parenting from a psychological standpoint (how different tactics impact the
development of a child), managing money, nutrition & physicality, etc.

5) Allow students to take classes that pertain to them & what they want to do. In
high school, they will be graduating in a few years, and most kids have NO idea
what they want to do. Why not allow for students to take a path that will help
them find what they want to do while still in high school, such as them taking
courses towards their future career (and will make up most of their curriculum),
again, feed that curiosity! If they change their mind on what they want to do,
fine! They're young and still learning, and they're still under the roof of their
parents, what better time than to change your mind instead of when you're off to
college? (Yes, there will always be exceptions to this).

6) Tests should help the teachers know what the child is having trouble with, not
whether or not the student will advance to the next grade/class. If they fail a test
why is it that it fails them in the class, and makes them scared to fail? Instead, if
they fail a test, help them with their problems & get them to figure out what they
did wrong and to get them to think critically about how to correct the mistakes.
This is where you teach kids how to fail, how to mistakes, and then how to be
able to look at failures from a learning perspective in order to make it better
next time, not from a perspective of being scared to fail.

7) The above question pretty much answers this. Allow kids to take risks & to
fail without them being afraid of it. Look at all entrepreneurs & people who have
significantly impacted the world, do you think they were scared to fail? Sure, but
not to the point of where it inhibited them from trying. How many of you have
maybe wanted to pursue your passion, or a great idea, but was scared to try?
Probably many. Lets change that! Lets take that trait out of our children and
teach them how to embrace failing as a learning experience, and not teach them
to be scared of failing to the point they don't want to try and take the risk. Teach
kids how to fail, by getting them to fail.

8) Allow a trust between the teacher & the student to use their cell phones
during class. A trust that the student will use it moderately in an adequate
manner. When abusing of that trust starts to happen, THAT is when disciplinary
actions or compromises can take place. They suffer from severe temptation from
technology, just allow it! In other cases, use it as a teaching tool! Have them get
on their phones & find a way to incorporate it into the lesson. Let them get on
their favorite apps or websites, and find a way to incorporate it into the lesson.
We are in the 21st century, it's time to adapt.

9) Allow the school to be ran in a manner similar to a democracy. Allow trust
between the students and the governing body. You want to teach kids how to be
good members of society, and how to support a government of democracy? This
is how you do it. Make it adequate. Obviously they are children and don't fully
know how to behave correctly, but make it adequate to where they have a say in
their education and how things are ran. As they increase in age from elementary
to high school, increase the power they have. Why do we feel we should run
things that we think are best, when they are the students that are actually the
ones learning? They are not robots, we don't just program to a
schedule/curriculum that we think is best. They are humans that need to have a
say & make things better for themselves. They are the ones in the learning
process, they know how to make it work better than we do.

--- What The Objectives of a School Should Be---

Bring creativity back into schools. There need not be punishment for failing &
mistakes. Mistakes are simply just kids trying to do things form their point of
view, who are we to tell them why are wrong in doing that? This allows to create
leaders & innovators, instead of kids who are taught what to think. They will now
think for themselves and take advantage of their unique abilities and creativity
that they are born with. We need to recognize their talents and let them expand
on those talents.

Create students that know how to think divergently, outside the box, and how to
recognize & solve problems. Education is not about just remembering and
regurgitating, it is about learning concepts of problem solving, and being able to
use concepts taught in school to apply in the real world. Education is about
inspiring one's mind, not just filling their head. The objective is to intrigue
students, get them curious, and to ask questions.

Look at all majorly successful people and look at what they have in common.
Richard Branson (Virgin Airlines), Elon Musk (SpaceX, PayPal, Tesla, & Solar City),
Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook), Henry
Ford (Ford Motors), etc. What do these people have in common? They all have the
ability to recognize a problem, and think critically to solve that problem. Do you
think it matters what they got on their 12 grade calculus test? No. They all were
not afraid to fail nor to take the risk. They all ventured into the darkness to try
something new, and to take a chance at creating something big. This, along with
the general curriculum, is what we need to teach our children.

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