Esl 1069 - the Real Education

Yuxiao Miao

10/29/2017

First draft analysis of argument essay

ESL 1069

The real education

        “Confusing harder with better” appeared in Education Week which is a newspaper published by Editorial Projects in Education Inc. Alfie Kohn is the author of this article and he criticized the defects in American education. Students in American are experiencing the hard time of studying and most of  the knowledge is not useful. Alfie Kohn thinks that the knowledge and test in school are extremely hard to students and students could lost their confidence and interest to study. I totally agree with Alfie Kohn. I believe we need to improve the way to study, not just increasing the degree of difficulty.

        Alfie Kohn presents that school gives students more and harder exams to “raise the standard”. I agree with him. In the article, Alfie Kohn indicates that schools transformed to be a big test center and many  students - as well as some of our finest educators - are being forced out. Which means those tests are making people numb and less interested. “These days almost anything can be done to students and schools, no matter how ill-considered, as long as it is done in the name of raising standard.” It explain that those test which add to the students are only to raise standard but the standard does not develop at all. The only “benefit” for school and students is to produce more stress. For my own opinion, I agree with Alfie Kohn. The quantity and difficulty all need to be appropriate. Too difficult question in test could destroy students’ confidence easily.

        The another question that author mentioned in the article is teachers are only follow the worksheets to teach. In the article Alfie Kohn wrote about the complaints from parents. Their children could easily finish the work on the worksheets without sweating. In the following paragraph, Alfie Kohn also indicated that the approach of learning is pretty important. For example teacher gives a list of words to students and it will be an exhausting memory to remember all the words. We can change it to different way like to learn scientific concepts  by devising students’ own experiments. It could be much more easier. As a college student. I think the right way to learn and be taught are really important to education.  In the class I prefer teachers share their own viewpoints, not just the stuff on the worksheets. If teachers only teach us from the worksheets, we can learn without teacher.  So teacher should not only follow the worksheets but also share the knowledge from their experience.

        Alfie Kohn also believe that the knowledge we have learned in class is useless in the future and people’s capability can not be judged by the grade in the school. In the article. Alfie Kohn questions that do these facts and skills we learned in school reflect what we honor, what matters to us about schooling and human life? That is truth, because many friends of mine have other special skill but not required in the school, so I believe people can’t judge others only depends on the grades in the school. Sometime, grades from school are usually part of basic requirement to everywhere on the world. Even in the company which is nothing to do with the school knowledge. I believe these facts and skills which we learned in the class does not reflect what we capable to do. In the opposite way, I believe we could do much better on work compare with the grade we got in school if we truly love that work.