American Education System=Garbage
BipolarNation’s very own Dan Kenitz had a column published in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel concerning the sad state of our education system.
Dan, this was an amazing column, and I have heard nothing but good things from family and other friends who read it in today’s MJS. Way to go!
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=645272
Here is the full column. At the end of it is a link to leave a comment on our message boards, so please feel free to join this important discussion!
Want to fix schools? Start with fixing the institution itself
Oscar Wilde once quipped that “everything popular is wrong.” Although that generality doesn’t apply itself to everything, it’s a good way to view a lot of popular American thought.
The best example, though - by far - is the popular idea that institutionalized schooling is the way to educate our young.
I was always a good student throughout my career in the “institution.” I got good grades, placed in advanced classes and even earned an academic scholarship. Then, after 17 solid years of education - more than enough time to make anyone brilliant at anything - I graduated, entered the real world and subsequently realized that my 17 years would have been better spent sitting in horse manure. And I didn’t even attend Milwaukee Public Schools, which has a less-than-stellar record.
It’s not that we have to improve our schools. The problem is in the system itself.
Consider the following:
• Awake human bodies aren’t built to stay still for much longer than 20 minutes. If you’re a creationist, that means God doesn’t like school, either. Upon entering the “institution,” one of the first things children learn is how to sit on their butts without complaining - as they’re going to do a lot of it over their next 12-plus years.
• According to a recent study by the University of Washington, the “Baby Einstein” videos and other educational videos for infants might actually make kids dumber, reducing their ability to understand new words by 17%. Researchers literally recommend letting children simply bang on pots and pans instead.
• The failure of “Baby Einstein” and similar videos is due to one particular fact, according to the book “Education and Learning to Think” by Lauren B. Resnick: No matter how clearly a teacher or book or video tells a student something, a child cannot learn a fact without first constructing his or her own knowledge of it.
• After numerous studies, researchers discovered the Pygmalion effect, or the “teacher-expectancy effect.” The Pygmalion effect suggests that a child’s self-image and expectations from the teacher are more important to his or her performance than so-called natural ability. This means that children who view themselves as poor test-takers become poor test-takers.
Fortunately, there are a few exceptions to the Pygmalion effect: Neither Ludwig van Beethoven nor Albert Einstein took their idiot teachers seriously when told they would never amount to anything.
• Every one of our teachers is a graduate of the same rotten system. To educate your children, do you really want people whose life experience consists of going through the motions, graduating and returning to the system that made them? The “institution” has evolved into a widespread baby-sitting service, affording parents the illusion that their children are being prepared for some teacher’s ill-conceived notion of the real world.
• College is just subsidized alcoholism. According to Medical News Today, 49% of full-time college students indulge in binge drinking or other drug abuse. With four years of education, it’s the students who undertake proactive pursuits (of their own volition, usually) who are capable of mastering marketable skills that they can use to support themselves after college.
Only through the invincible power of social reinforcement would an institution such as school - which denies children their childhood, forces them to unlearn their natural curiosity and innate self-confidence and teaches them how to bumble through life with world-fearing, adultlike egos - seem anything less than totally cruel.
It’s time to realize that our concept of education sounds good only on paper.
Dan Kenitz of Hartford is a writer who runs a political Web site, BipolarNation.com. His e-mail address is dan@bipolarnation.com
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