Educating for a Better Society

Educating for a Better Society

I feel that I take a very existentialist view on education. I think that there are many problems with our current education system and I think that we need that make drastic changes to the system that we currently use. In our current system not only are many students getting the raw deal but also we are not giving them a full education and turning students off from future education. The largest problem is testing. By testing we put a negative spin on the education of a student making them immediately not like it. Also children develop their learning skills at different times and testing causes negative self-image, which makes doing well in school impossible. Let me elaborate, if there are two students and ones brain will develop the skills to spell in 3rd grade and one will develop the skills in 4th grade. Even though both of these students have the same potential to have equal skill to spell in the end the student who does bad at spelling in 3rd grade while seeing the other student testing well assumes they are not a good speller and never tries to do well in 4th grade even though his brain is now developed to understand it. Also there is no reason to keep grades and compare grades between the other students in the school as in class rank. This is where social in equalities spring up. If we want to end social inequalities we need to end the inequality we create in potential. If you do well in testing in school you go to a better school. If you do well in testing there you go to a better job. Is that person better because they test better? Can they retain the information better? A test is also detrimental to the student's future enjoyment of reading. If you ask most high school students what they think of reading they would say they liked it but not for school. You have to think, is it effective teaching if the student does not enjoy the reading? I feel instead teachers should just encourage students to read different things that will help them in the future and different things that will make them positive influences on society. Our schools teach only knowledge and not morality and a responsibility to look out for the society's well being. After the read information on a subject the teacher discusses it with the student and explain anything the student does not understand. They can then employ their teaching abilities to show the student what they need to.