I’ve only been teaching for three years but during that time I’ve had more people ask me, “what is wrong with our education system?”. I read this article on MSNBC this morning and it got me all worked up. The challenges we face as a country and as parents fall simply into three categories, money, time and motivation.
What Is Important?
I find it ironic that for as much complaining as we do as parents how few of us are willing to shut up and make our kids do the work. Most students enter college ill-prepared for the rigors of true academic study. They lack discipline, and basic time management skills. Many (not all) come to school expecting the information to be spoon-fed or at the minimum easily spelled out for them in a way that requires the least amount of work from them. Now, I recognize that they are teenagers and that part of GOING to college is learning these skills but too many come without the slightest idea of how to do this. When I hear complaints like “but research takes soooo long to do” I want to run screaming from my classroom.
When you talk with High School teachers you hear that parents complain when too much homework is given because it conflicts with work or social/athletic activities. Public school teachers are under pressure by parents to decrease work load and to not make the classes so difficult as to discourage students. As parents we need to ask ourselves “what is important?” Parents should be demanding more challenging work for their children and allowing them to fail. YES, I SAID FAIL. Why? Because it is only in failing that most of these students will learn what it truly takes to succeed. We cannot hold their hand and baby them along and hope that they figure it out — they won’t, and by the time they do it will be too late.
Money, Money, Money
I work at a community college so most of my students can barely afford college to begin with. However this is the most frustrating part of my job. Good students, excellent students are forced to drop out of school every semester because they can’t afford to go. Our financial aid system makes absolutely no sense. A student’s aid elgibility is based solely on their parents income, regardless if that parent is helping to pay for their education. EVERY semester I have MANY students who are denied aid because their parents make a combined income of $85,000 a year but perhaps they are one of three siblings. This means ALL of that 85K has to go to continue to support the other two siblings at home. This may seem like a large income, but trust me this isn’t even near enough money to support a family of five with one person being in college.
This puts these students in a no-win situation. They aren’t elgible for aid which means they need to take a job. They take a job (many full-time). If they are lucky enough to have won a scholarship (which usually only pays for part of their education) they also must go to school full-time in order to qualify. This results in an 18 or 19 yr old young adult trying to juggle a full-time school load with a full-time work load with none of the time management skills of an adult. The result is that many good students are forced to quit school.
College-Bound
Not every student is ready for college at 18 years of age, or is destined to be a college graduate. Our public school system is designed for only one purpose — send kids to college. This is a problem because not everybody should be or wants to be in college. College is a CHOICE. Every semester I see kids come into my classroom because they don’t know where else to go. They don’t want to be in school but what else are they supposed to do? Nobody has given them any other options. Some of them are not mature enough to start school and others are just not interested. Starting college is like joining a gym. There is really only a small percentage that will continue to go to the gym and get their bodies in shape. The rest will go to the gym for about a month and then never go again, but will continue to pay the membership fees. This semester alone I will be failing close to 12 students because after three weeks of school they stopped coming but never dropped the class. It is idealistic to think that every student leaving high school is destined for college. If we can accept that as a society/culture then we should start allowing our public school system to focus on providing options. Let’s stop creating a college-prep system and start focusing on educating our children so they can succeed at whatever it is they strive for.
I recognize that this is only MY opinion formed from MY experiences and if I worked in a different state with different students I might see different problems. However, I think that these issues are felt in a lot of places and one of the easy things for us to fix is the aid system. If nothing else, I wish our government would reexamine our college aid system and update it. Thank you for letting me rant this morning. I promise to have more fun things to talk about tomorrow.
I also think that they have taken the fun out of education. They focus so much on stupid standardized tests that don’t accurately measure anything. It’s really frustrating.
I think it is even worse. Schools due to parental pressure no longer provide a competitive environment but are forced to cover a multitude of politically correct topics while ignoring the fundamentals. Then college seems to be sort of an advanced tradeschool where the students are learning obsolete skills. Gone is the idea of a liberal arts education that teaches critical thinking and how to learn. Certainly science and technical knowledge is important but most of that has a shelf life of less than 5 years. You are correct most students are unprepared and haven’t a clue about how learn anything. A few failures in high school would do wonders for college bound kids.
thank you for your opinion. as a teacher, your “one” opinion carries more weight than a lot of others that are out there. You make a great point that not every student is ready for college at 18, if at all. Our mentality about it in this country seems to parallel the home mortgage industry… it is everyone’s “right” to own their otwn home and to a bachelor’s degree. It’s also so frustrating to me with my children how their is this sense I have from the schools that “maximizing potential” is only interpreted in one way… ie – getting as many students as possible into college. You don’t win, just because you “go into college”. The whole thing really dilutes the process from around the 3rd grade on, for the students who have the greatest potential. The same goes for the teachers having to teach to so many different levels and issues in one packed to the limit classroom Being taught to think and be responsible for your own life isn’t found anywhere. Micromanaging parents cause as much trouble as anybody.(AS you say, I’m just another “one” opinion… I’m not even a teacher!) thanks for a provocative post.
Margo, you are very right. The US has one of the highest college enrollment rates in the world, but it also has one of the highest drop-out rates. I think our education system has always been fixated on a one-size-fits all approach and frankly, it just doesn’t work.