The education system in America is a topic that I have put much thought into. I have several friends who aspire to be teachers, and occasionally I hear about the flaws in the teaching system similar to the issues Henslin explained. I come from an uppermiddle class town with an award winning public education system, and many of my classmates moved from neighboring towns so that they could be a part of our school system. Reading this chapter made me reflect on the education I was given, and it was interesting to see the flaws in my critically acclaimed town.
I believe that the American education system needs changes, and I agree with the author in his statement that it is unlikely the system gets fixed due to the complexity of such a problem. In my opinion, a proper education system is one that teaches children the essentials and the truth, as well as providing an opportunity for students pursue a passion if they have one. I believe the system has been designed in a way tosses aside passions outside of the norm, labeling them as a pipe dream.
For example, a younger cousin of mine came home from school upset recently, because when he told his teacher his dream of being a Nascar driver, he was told it was very unlikely he would become one. Some friends of mine were told by our high school principle that music should be considered a hobby, not a career path. Both these anecdotes show examples of education professionals telling young, aspiring kids that they should not work towards achieving their goals. I understand that both of these occupations are difficult to succeed in, but the “American Dream” is that if you work hard enough, you will succeed.
Without passion and critical thinking, kids are just being taught to read and memorize information and then throw it back up when the test comes. This does not match the ideology that made this country great. Teachers assign work that will get their kids better test grades, thus reflecting better on them and the school they work for. This is shown in figure 13. 4 in the textbook; verbal scores on SAT testing are down, and many believe it is due to dummied down textbooks and in-class teachings that are catered to helping kids learn the tested math information.
I believe that if our education system began to allow kids to spend more time critical thinking and pursuing a passion, then they would do more meaningful work and go on to be more passionate in the career of their choice. My highschool had a form of gatekeeping in their courses, which I did not realize until reading this chapter. Students would be placed by their teachers in either “College Prep”, “Honors”, or “Advanced Placement” sections of Math, English, and Social Science classes. There was little room to debate with teachers if you did not like the placement you were in.
They claimed a “formula” and a success rate that allowed this tracking system to go by without many major complaints. I hadn’t realized until this reading the text that these tracks give kids more privilege than others. An “A” in a College Prep class is weighted differently into a student’s GPA than an “A” in an Advanced class. In other words, a student that excels in a College Prep level course would end up with a lower weighted GPA than a student struggling in the higher level course. This goes on to affect what colleges the students apply to, and ultimately gives kids the mindset that they are born into a class that they can not exceed.
In order to have a just system, there would have to be major changes in how schools are funded. My school was equipped with multiple computer labs, a library, a music and arts program, and even a bank inside the school that employed seniors interested in finance. There was plenty of opportunity to succeed. This opportunity is not shown in other towns that do not have as high of a property tax as my town has. I often see my roommate struggle with tasks on his computer, and for a while I didn’t understand why he couldn’t grasp some easy concepts.
After talking to him about it I learned that his very small highschool was made up of 600 kids, and there was no com mputer lab or courses on computers available. This makes something as small as surfing the web or creating an excel document more difficult for him, as he was never given the opportunity to learn this in his formative years. I’m sure the discrepancy of opportunity is even more apparent if we looked at an inner-city school in Brooklyn. I do not know if there is any easy way to fix the opportunity gap in education, as the current structure allows schools to get different levels of funding.
In conclusion, I definitely agree with Henslin’s statement on page 418. The education system in America is one that is flawed, but deeply engrained into our culture. Due to this, it would be extremely difficult to fix the inequality in funding in schools across the country, as well as designing a curriculum that prepares kids for real life instead of an incoming test. The education system in America is a topic that I have put much thought into. I have several friends who aspire to be teachers, and occasionally I hear about the flaws in the teaching system similar to the issues Henslin explained.
I come from an uppermiddle class town with an award winning public education system, and many of my classmates moved from neighboring towns so that they could be a part of our school system. Reading this chapter made me reflect on the education I was given, and it was interesting to see the flaws in my critically acclaimed town. I believe that the American education system needs changes, and I agree with the author in his statement that it is unlikely the system gets fixed due to the complexity of such a problem.
In my opinion, a proper education system is one that teaches children the essentials and the truth, as well as providing an opportunity for students pursue a passion if they have one. I believe the system has been designed in a way tosses aside passions outside of the norm, labeling them as a pipe dream. For example, a younger cousin of mine came home from school upset recently, because when he told his teacher his dream of being a Nascar driver, he was told it was very unlikely he would become one. Some friends of mine were told by our high school principle that music should be considered a hobby, not a career path.
Both these anecdotes show examples of education professionals telling young, aspiring kids that they should not work towards achieving their goals. I understand that both of these occupations are difficult to succeed in, but the “American Dream” is that if you work hard enough, you will succeed. Without passion and critical thinking, kids are just being taught to read and memorize information and then throw it back up when the test comes. This does not match the ideology that made this country great. Teachers assign work that will get their kids better test grades, thus reflecting better on them and the school they work for.
This is shown in figure 13. 4 in the textbook; verbal scores on SAT testing are down, and many believe it is due to dummied down textbooks and in-class teachings that are catered to helping kids learn the tested math information. I believe that if our education system began to allow kids to spend more time critical thinking and pursuing a passion, then they would do more meaningful work and go on to be more passionate in the career of their choice. My highschool had a form of gatekeeping in their courses, which I did not realize until reading this chapter.
Students would be placed by their teachers in either “College Prep”, “Honors”, or “Advanced Placement” sections of Math, English, and Social Science classes. There was little room to debate with teachers if you did not like the placement you were in. They claimed a “formula” and a success rate that allowed this tracking system to go by without many major complaints. I hadn’t realized until this reading the text that these tracks give kids more privilege than others. An “A” in a College Prep class is weighted differently into a student’s GPA than an “A” in an Advanced class.
In other words, a student that excels in a College Prep level course would end up with a lower weighted GPA than a student struggling in the higher level course. This goes on to affect what colleges the students apply to, and ultimately gives kids the mindset that they are born into a class that they can not exceed. In order to have a just system, there would have to be major changes in how schools are funded. My school was equipped with multiple computer labs, a library, a music and arts program, and even a bank inside the school that employed seniors interested in finance. There was plenty of opportunity to succeed.
This opportunity is not shown in other towns that do not have as high of a property tax as my town has. I often see my roommate struggle with tasks on his computer, and for a while I didn’t understand why he couldn’t grasp some easy concepts. After talking to him about it I learned that his very small highschool was made up of 600 kids, and there was no computer lab or courses on computers available. This makes something as small as surfing the web or creating an excel document more difficult for him, as he was never given the opportunity to learn this in his formative years.
I’m sure the discrepancy of opportunity is even more apparent if we looked at an inner-city school in Brooklyn. I do not know if there is any easy way to fix the opportunity gap in education, as the current structure allows schools to get different levels of funding. In conclusion, I definitely agree with Henslin’s statement on page 418. The education system in America is one that is flawed, but deeply engrained into our culture. Due to this, it would be extremely difficult to fix the inequality in funding in schools across the country, as well as designing a curriculum that prepares kids for real life instead of an incoming test.