School & Schooling
May 17, 2011 by mschor
Every year for eighteen years, beginning when you’re about five or six years old, children go to school eight hours a day, five days a week. Throughout fourteen of those years, while you’re going through grade school, you are learning some variation of something that was previously taught and learned; it’s just a little more complex than before and will continue to be with every year we age. With that being said, I ask “what’s the point?” With this structure being the foundation of our education system, it’s really no wonder as to why children stereotypically do not enjoy school. To children school is monotonous and bland. To expect a child to sit in a classroom for 33% of a day, 71% of the week, is daunting. It’s a lot of information for a youth’s developing mind to fully grasp.
Besides the amount of time spent in schools and schooling, and poor time-management being shortcomings in our education system, the manner in which we approach teaching our youth is another. The sequence of initiation-reply between the teacher and their students widens the schism formed between the strict order of our education system now and a more hands-on, interactive approach. And maybe a more interactive approach is what is needed for our youth and their shorter attention spans due to their inquisitive nature.
With a more direct, hands-on approach, the issue of overcrowded classrooms would also need to be addressed. The more kids crammed into one classroom with only one teacher means less individual attention a student can have that they might need. With smaller class sizes and a interactive approach to learning, the student is no longer a hand in a wave hands, but an individual that is free to inquire about the lesson without competing with 30 other students.
It has never been a case of whether a child wants to learn or doesn’t want to learn. Children are inquisitive by nature, and therefore strive to learn, and can get more out of an interactive approach due to the fact that their cognitive processes are not up to par with that of an adult. With this simple, minute change in the way we approach education for our youth, we could possibly see an increase in attendance, motivation, grades, and graduation percentages enabling both a solution for education now and in the future.
