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Tag Archives: World History

Education, Is the system broken?

Bill Know Nothing O Reilly

I had a Substitute teacher for about six weeks my seventh grade year named Mr. Whale. He had no degree, no real training, but hey it was South Carolina, and it was only history right? After all, in the bible belt education comes from a 3,000 year old book that never once has been questioned throughout all of history despite the clear chronological and just plain logical inconsistencies, but that is another discussion for another time. Now I likely learned more from this “uneducated” substitute in six weeks than i have in the rest of my educational career. I remember his lessons would always start with a really ridiculous question, it most of the time did not even pertain to World History, things like “If there were no phones what would happen?” or “If all of the sudden Horses stood up and talked, what would they have to say?”. I loved these questions because they always seemed so funny, but now i realize just how provocative they really were. They instilled a new theoretical reality in which the possibilities were endless! And at the end of the lesson we would return to the question, and every time we would all share our ideas to form one huge scenario. The process truly forced us to think out side of the box, and the lesson that I carried with me for the rest of my life was this: There is no success without failure. Success in itself would not mean a thing if we had not at some point felt the sting of failure, for we would have nothing with which to compare it to. Unlike the current Educational system that penalizes every single mistake a student makes, the lessons of Mr. Whale taught me that in order to truly be original,  and have a valid idea is to not be afraid to fail. The current system conditions young minds to be terrified of Failure. Sir Ken Robinson ofhttp://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zCdxFRFmXpQC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Kinetic+hands+on+learning+in+the+class+room+&ots=g9xshApdB3&sig=eB2qxDxLptg3-A-1ah1TiqnbKjw#v=onepage&q=Kinetic%20hands%20on%20learning%20in%20the%20class%20room&f=false

Not only are the systems designed to weed out those that think outside of the box, but to absolutely and brutally decimate a student’s will to make that leap outside of the box by labeling any attempt that either falls short of or into different parameters than those that are the standard “curriculum”. Yea that is a great image right? I cringe at the thought of a National Standard of Learning. You have got to be kidding me. Is it just me, or is it ridiculous that a system meant to grow the intellect of someone is set up so that only one type of “growing” is allowed? More over students are left feeling as though they were ancient Romans, regurgitating knowledge obtained by rigorous, and lets be totally honest here, down right retarded method of memorization. How many High School Graduates can honestly write a sentence with perfect grammar? Now lets take that a step further and say a paragraph? Yea, ya here that? That would be the sound of Failure on the Educational System’s part. Short Term memorization is useless. It is a stupid practice that, in its very observation and use would be considered literally insane (Repeating an exercise over and over in the same manner and expecting a different result).

Memorization is not application. I can sit here and recite all of the States in the United States of America, in the classic attempt of memorization, but if I was to need to, oh I don’t know, pin point one on the map, having memorized the names isn’t going to help me any more than if I was to continuously bang my head into a wall and hope to drive the information into my head, and yet this is exactly the method used by educational systems of the world. That my friends is the very definition of Insane.

So how can we change it? That is the question.

Some Suggestions:

  1.  The Organization of the class systems needs to be changed, the lengths as well as general curriculum over haul to incorporate new learning strategies. This will also require a reform of Education Policy with governments like the US in terms of funding and things like responsibility both physically and fiscally would need to be worked out
  2. Classes need to be designed so that more than 90% of the time a student is in a class room they are being actively engaged in the lesson and making new connections, forming new neural pathways and ultimately developing a “burn the box” strategy of thinking. More focus needs to be put on preserving the wonderful gift of a child’s imagination. The ability to have foresight and to create a situation at random and discern an outcome beyond the obvious is what got humans out of trees and into homes. The Human brain is designed to be our best and most versatile weapon with which to wage the extra-genetic informational war, yet we designed a system to destroy any will to use it.
  3. We need a structure of education that relies on the use of cognitive and analytic thinking and manipulation of our environment. Humans evolved to be where we are today because we had these abilities, and now we are shamelessly and blatantly squandering them.

 

Needless to say all this is just words, but words have power. They can move ideas from being stagnant and dead, to as alive as a fire. There is no reason that can be used to justify stagnation, especially not a historical one, for stagnation leads to, as seen in history, a 600 year period of pure rot and putrefaction of the mind and with it our sense of selves. So let this be a call to arms, for we need to solve this problem , if we don’t we as a race will be doomed to a meager and unenlightened existence filled with misery and toil. I am not willing to be a part of that, and neither  should you. We can change the system, we just have to make enough noise. By that I am in no way suggesting we bark like a small rat-dog, but that we make our position clear, as well as our resolve to change. You want suggestions? Start with your local Schools. Speak with the Administrators. Be civil people, but if change will not come willingly, then we will have to drag it kicking and screaming. Its about time we stop letting politicians who don’t really give a damn about the people decide for the people. That is a major conflict of interest, one that cannot be left to fester any longer.

I started this blog to share and converse with people, not to stand on a soap box. I want whoever you are who is reading this to truly think about the issue and to share with me what you think, so there’s a poll down below! feel free to comment!!

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