April 7, 2011 by Rachel Jespersen
I think the most obvious shortcoming in American elementary and secondary education is the lack of individualized hands-on learning available to students. Because most public schools receive funding based on student’s performance on mandatory standardized tests, and because of a lack of resources and faculty, most classrooms follow one curriculum geared solely toward test performance with no allowances for individual differences in learning style among children. Teachers are forced to teach specific materials in certain ways that may improve test scores, but may seem abstract and useless to students. Many US schools rely on “bottom-up processing” so that students will have the basic math and verbal skills to achieve on state tests, but do not focus on letting students be proactive in their education and finding real world applications for what they are learning. Although some schools have started to integrate programs like Realistic Math Education, public school curricula have so little wiggle room that students continue to have little say in what kind of problems they might be interested in solving and in coming up with plans for their own learning.
This focus on “teaching to the test” leaves many students feeling like they are passive in their own education, and promotes a performance orientated type of motivation. Students, through no fault of their own, are more focused on performing than on the process of learning and suffer for it in the long run. The students who do not perform well on standardized exams feel as if they simply aren’t intelligent enough, develop a negative attitude toward school and learning in general, and eventually give up on themselves and their education. Public schools foster these negative, self-deprecating attitudes by placing students who do not test well (many of whom are highly intelligent in other ways) in “resource room” and “alternative school” programs. Students placed in these programs often conclude that academics is just not their strong suit and do not attempt to find ways of learning that work for them.
In order to reform public schools, I think the entire funding and testing system must be fixed. Standardized tests, especially those implemented by the No Child Left Behind Act force teachers to ignore student’s individual needs and strengths. If schools had more funding and more leeway, they could focus on evaluating students for their personal interests and abilities. Class rooms and teachers could be reorganized so that students with all types of learning styles could benefit. More interactive lesson plans including reciprocal teaching and play world practice could help students feel that they are active participants in their own education and help those students who are struggling to develop a sense of control and pride in their own education. Finally, with no standardized tests to worry about, school districts could make all students feel equally intelligent and worthwhile, and foster a life-long love of learning for the sake of learning without emphasis on grades and scores.
Posted in School and Schooling, Social and Emotional Development | 4 Comments
