Insufficiencies of the schooling system
April 12, 2011 by Roger Mei
Education is the social process in which adults engage in explicit instruction of the young in order to transmit specialized knowledge and skills of their culture. This is the whole concept behind our education systems where we have one adult (the teacher) giving instructions to children in order to give them the concepts and knowledge that they would need to succeed in our society. The ideas that are fed to them are merely abstract reasoning. These ideas would suffice in ideal situation where proper tools and instruments are available but may not suffice in everyday situations. Consider for example a young child that has mastered the metric system of using grams and kilograms to measure weight. This child would know the relationship between the two measurements but he would not know how heavy such an object actually feels. Another situation might be a child reading about the fundamental techniques to bike riding. He will not be able to master the skill of bike riding until he actually experiences it.
The problem with our education system is that it does not consider the other two methods of learning which are social enhancement, and imitation. One thing that teachers can do is to provide students with physical representations of certain concepts that the students learn. During a math course, the instructor can provide the students with a one kilogram block so that they can physically get a feel of the weight and feel of one kilogram so that is isn’t just merely a mathematical concept.
Another problem is the interaction among the teacher and the students. Traditional classroom formats puts the teacher in front and distant from the class which greatly inhibits the interactions among students. This problem is related to another known as initiation-reply-feedback sequence which is a unique way of interaction that involves answer and feedback. The teacher asks a question which is then followed by a student’s answer then immediately followed by the teacher’s feedback. While this method is efficient, it doesn’t integrate decoding and comprehension because the information given to them are very specific and the answer that the teacher is looking for is also very specific; thus leaving no room for the student formulating his own opinions and thought patterns.
As an alternative to this method, the schools should require instructors to use the method of reciprocal teaching. The teacher and students take turn reading and deciphering texts in this method. This method helps many students that have learned the skill of reading but lacks the skills of proper interpretation. This will give them a chance to practice and make sense of what they read.
