ejumakation

so last night i am sitting in what was, essentially, my last small group session with my senior guys. twice the topic of my views on the education system came up, but it is such a long rant, that i thought i best to save it for another time. odd that i feel that time is now, on the blog, where i will have to type the entire rant. not sure why i do this to myself, but here goes.

i will start with what i think is right with the school system: it does encourage learning and it is vital that we all be lifelong students. by student, i simply mean that we are in the process of learning something, not that we be enrolled in a school of some kind.

what schools do wrong is continue to funnel people into more narrow views of thinking and more focused fields of expertise that we are no longer creating smarter people, we are creating specialists in a single field. ryan said this in group last night, and i believe he is very correct, that higher learning is basically like a vocational school. this is true in that, once one reaches the masters level and above, school really only teaches you one thing. it makes you a specialist in one field, which, by definition, is a vocational school.

the ancient greeks had a very different view of schooling. they believed that we were to be lifelong students, always learning, always growing. we are also to be lifelong teachers, sharing the knowledge we have with those behind us on the journey of learning. this was so important to them that, even their olympic athletes were required to spend as much time learning about astronomy and math and philosophy as they were practicing their events. it was very highly regarded to be a well-rounded human being and i think our schools should do a better job at instilling that in our students.

my second problem with the schooling system is that creativity is regarded with such contempt and is often the first to go in the education system. when children are young, they are allowed to express themselves. kindergartens are full of art classes, and glitter, and music and things kids can use to express themselves in a creative way (at least mine was. sorry if yours wasn't that way. you really missed out).

as we grow older, those things are slowly stripped away (for the most part) and removed from the regular classroom. they are pushed into their own section of the schooling process and are often the first thing to go if a school goes through cut backs or has to tighten its budget. these elective classes are also regarded as secondary, even unimportant. if a child gets straight C's and comes home with an A in art, people rarely notice. these classes are expected to be easy and a child who excels in these areas is not regarded as highly as one who excels in math or science. even language is regarded as a second-class citizen when put next to math or science.

by funneling us into these areas and pushing the importance of certain disciplines over others, they are basically teaching us to be better students, not better learners or more intelligent people. i know i knew my fair share in high school, and i am sure some of you know people like this; those who get straight A's and have no common sense. they are simply good students. put them in a class room and they are albert einstein.

take them out of the class room and they are patrick from spongebob.

i know the einstein pictures doesn't really do justice to his level of intelligence, but you get the point. the idea is that, by creating good students, we are saying that the highest level of accomplishment is to become a college professor. now hear me out, i want to be a college writing professor, so clearly i'm not saying this is a bad choice of profession (either that or their brainwashing worked on me and i should be ashamed of myself), but i am saying that by teaching students to be the best students they can be, the ultimate destination is to then become the person doing the teaching.

in the real world, experience and practical application skills say more than degrees. my mom doesn't have her college degree, but she has 30 years experience working in human resources and will likely win a job over a book-qualified applicant with less experience.

so what is the answer? i think there are some newer schools out, and in my area, there are some magnet schools that are trying to get this right. they have a magnet school that focuses on engineering, or mechanics, or the arts, or languages for the children who have shown a greater aptitude in these areas. they foster the things the child is already gifted in rather than trying to force them to excel in the areas that our school system values. while these are great programs, i think they are too few and far between.

here is a video by sir ken robinson where he talks about just this subject.