Education, Education, and more Education

As my educational classes continue thoughts of future education keep swirling around in my head. Today there was a guest speaker to my class to talk about contemporary education and what is happening now based off of Horace Mann's original common school idea. The most shocking thing I learned today was that there are schools who have students who are kicked out of public schools, and told that they can not be in a public school whatsoever. I had absolutely no idea this happened, nor can I imagine teaching in a school with six kids who have security guards and one teacher there to explain the subjects to them with limited supplies based on what is allowed to be in their vacinity. On top of this realization is the fact that schools are so unequal with each other AND that government tries to change things in education so much that even the people don't always know about it. The speaker gave us an example of this because she has moved around and taught in several different states and it has cost her thousands of dollars to get certified each time because of the local standards, yet there are federal standards as well..

For a future educator this is kind of scary, if I decide to move what are the laws that are going to be on the books about what can and can't happen in public schools and on top of that I only really have experience of being in private school for the majority of my education. So I feel more comfortable in private school environments because that is where I was taught. I also think it is absurd that there are so many different standards depending on what state you live in. I thought that the point of public schools is as a standardization of education in order to make sure that students are taught what they need in order to succeed. However, there are those schools that you here about that are at a lower level even as graduates, how are they going to succeed in life.

Another question posed to us by the speaker was what do you do with those students who don't succeed in public schools, what happens to them? I think this is an extremely important question, there are all of these laws about No child left behind yet you still have THOUSANDS of students who don't succeed in public schools and their alternative is almost a waste of time until they are old enough to say that they can graduate. A personal story I have heard of this is from my cousin. She was put in classes that the school called Special Ed. and what did those teachers(if you can call them that) do? They gave them the test, told them where the answers were, and then let them watch movies the rest of the time. WHAT KIND OF EDUCATION IS THAT?! If these people are already falling behind and you water down or make something that easy you are just continuing their decent. That isn't helping them and what message does that send to someone like my cousin? That you don't have the same abilities to learn as someone else so we aren't even going to teach you anything and waste our time. The fact that THIS kind of education still exists in our country is ridiculous and is appalling. My cousin is perfectly capable of learning the same things as anyone else just differently. But what those teachers did was stunt the knowledge that could of been learned in the appropriate time frame so that my cousin is now behind at a later age because no one even tried.

I know my blog has become somewhat of an education piece lately but since it is my major and there is an election it keeps popping up everywhere I go. I would love to hear other people's opinions on education matters. So please comment cause I would love other perspectives on these issues.

Education

I don’t think that someone could of convinced me that after being in school for thirteen years of my life that I would come to college and decide that education is one of the hardest things to define and that the way education is headed is a nightmare and almost makes me scared.

 

To preface everyone on why I am making this statement, let me first begin that I am in the midst of taking philosophy in education and an education class where you go into the field for three hours at a public elementary school. Another fun fact you should know to understand my dilemma is the fact that I went to a private school for K-12. So I am not sure if the tests that I took, or the lack thereof, are due to my county or due to the fact that I went to a private school for elementary school.

Part of the main components to my education class that has a field component is to interview teachers, art instructors, principals, anyone really to observe as much as I possibly can about the school system from a perspective other than a student. I have to say that I am APPALLED by the fact that we put so much emphasis on all of these tests. 

I know that I don’t really use cursive anymore unless I am trying to be fancy, but what do you mean you don’t teach cursive anymore!?! At least I am capable of doing it if I have to, like how are you going to sign your name?? I also completely understand why half of the people in college don’t know how to write essays (something that I had drilled into me before I even entered high school). There are so many things that are being cut out of a school day because it doesn’t benefit the students in order to take tests, well that is all fine and dandy until they get to the part of schooling, particularly college, and you aren’t taught the same way anymore, you have to think for yourself, be creative and above all write ESSAYS!  

I may be in the minority or the majority when I say these things I am not really sure, but I can say with 100% confidence that I wouldn’t be the same student if I hadn’t been to private school for all those years. I feel that I am better-rounded and can think for myself better than some of my peers who only know how to regurgitate information. It saddens me that this country, one that prides itself on freedom and “Democracy” has such a poor educational system. Did you know that we are being outperformed by a ridiculous number of countries that I think is 44. 44 countries are BETTER than the United States, and how is the US deciding to fix this? Give more tests and make teacher salaries based off of these tests, one teacher I talked to said that Maryland is even trying to make a teacher only be guaranteed half of their salary, that’s right HALF of their salary until the results on the tests come in and then depending on performance may or may not get the rest of their salary. I am sorry but what kind of incentive are you giving teachers to TEACH your children, your pride and joy the FUTURE of this country. You want all of your children to grow up and be successful yet you don’t provide teachers the opportunity to do so, and whose fault is that if little Sally can’t do something or little Sally is doing badly? The teachers. The fact that majority of the public would say it is the TEACHERS fault just irritates me. Yes I know there are those teachers who don’t help the stereotype but it isn’t an “easy job” to do. Shoot I feel like if all of those people who say teachers are the problem had to teach for a year and saw what it takes and what goes into it to actually perform and have some kind of positive result they would be whistling a different tune. But in fact the people who decide what should happen to education are those who are ignorant to what it really needs, and these are the people that we put in charge to make decisions…