Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence in an Urban Context

Although compared to many underdeveloped countries where the availability of education is scarce, the United States has been able to establish a universal access of education to anyone. However, this required education standard in America is unequal and insufficient especially in low income communities. The experience of elementary and secondary school should be overall positive and successful because it is the stepping stone of a child motivation towards furthering their education. Solely basing my assumption of the education system today on my personal experience in elementary school, I don’t think my attitude toward education would have been the same if I didn’t have strong social support at home.

Growing up, both my parents worked for most of the day and so I would often go to their workplace and do my homework there. An employee that worked for my mother would often help me finish my homework and provided the guidance of a tutor. With the growing number of double income families, it is hard for children to get aid that is missing in schools. When I was in elementary school, I now notice some shortcomings in the structure as to how the education system worked. The entity model of intelligence assumes that intelligence is a fixed amount in everyone.  I believe that the school system has adapted this form of assumption such that unless students have a learning disability, everyone else should be taught in the same way. Mixed with large class sizes, and lack of individual interaction, students are basically forced to learn on their own it they don’t receive help at home.  Many foreign countries view education as a privilege, however in the United States it is tarnished my falling standards and unstructured curriculums. The major goal of school was to pass mandatory state-wide examinations in order to proceed to the next level. This leads to the teaching practices to be more based on memorization rather than analytical. Math problems were not based one realistic mathematical instruction and made no real connection to real life problems. Although there was some reciprocal teaching methods, because the class was so large the teacher could not possible work with every child.

I feel children are underestimated in their capabilities and should be education to express their own ideas of how to solve problems. Rather than providing a systematic way of teaching, teachers should be more creative and allow for children to think outside the box and still relate to the real world. I’ve never actually found homework to be useful when it is mandatory. From my experience, children will always find shortcuts to do something and homework just wastes time for everyone. Even if the teacher assigns work, it’s hard to know if the child is even doing it themselves. With the growing use of technology children could easily find answers online faster now than when I was growing up. Class sizes should be smaller, or the assignment of teachers per classroom should increase. It’s hard for teachers to interact with every single child. Most children don’t ask for help unless someone comes and helps them.  Better tutor programs should be implemented for students to have access to because I don’t recall there was any place to go besides my teacher when I needed help a topic. Also children should be assessed in a way the shows what they excel and fail at so that the teacher has an idea where the student need more help in, and provide excess pressure for them succeed.