I was planning on going to see Waiting for Superman this weekend, but then I got tied up with homework and couldn’t make it. So that was what this blog was originally supposed to be about, but sadly that will have to wait until another day.
Instead I am going to talk about a video I watched on YouTube recently. The video is a recording of an MSNBC report on public schools. The reporter who is doing the corresponding is Cenk Uygur, a Turkish American journalist who grew up in New Jersey and attended college in Pennsylvania and New York. He was bringing to light how, as he put it, “abysmal” our public school system is. Uygur talks about how of all the countries in the world the U.S. ranks second in the amount of money they put toward education and how they still only rank 23rd among test scores of eighth graders. When he started to talk about these numbers I thought back to last class about how Ira said that U.S. public schools teach more than just math and science, they also teach creativity and how that doesn’t show up on those achievement tests. I think allowing kids to discover and develop their creativity is so important and if that means our rating is somewhat lower than so be it. I know our schools could be better, but sacrificing creativity and creating child robots is not the way to do it.
After he talked about the statistics I thought Uygur was going to start going off about all of the changes that need to be made to public schools, but instead he did a little PSA to all of the parents of public school children. He told parents that they need to demand more from their children and expect nothing less of straight A’s and 4.0s. I have many problems with this. First of all Uygur complains about how the public schools are so awful, but he himself went to public school in New Jersey and went on to get multiple advanced degrees and even says in the report that his own public school experience was good. It seems that most people who bash on the public school system had pretty good experiences in school themselves. Secondly he doesn’t propose any real solution to helping make the schools better. Instead he calls for parents to put even more pressure on their already stressed students. As a student myself, I hope that parents don’t see this report and start to demand straight A’s from all of their children. I myself have struggled to make the grade and know how much pressure is attached to that already without parents breathing down your neck. Students have plenty of pressure on them already and don’t need any more. All students have the pressures of growing up and dealing with social stress, but then they also have to combat with the stress of school, doing extracurricular activities, possibly family issues, and now on top of that this reporter is advocating that parents exert even more stress on their children by demanding perfection. I do think in the case of some students that they could do better with some encouragement, but demanding perfection from every student across every level of learning seems too extreme. I would hope that parents would believe in their children and teach them to work hard and do their best, but if their best isn’t always perfect in math or science that it’s okay because there’s more to life than that math test on Friday.
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I agree with several of the points you make in this post. The first is that creativity is not valued or measured on the tests that rank the US among other countries. Sadly, with the increase in standardized testing, I think we are at risk of losing some of the time spent on developing students' creativity, which would have severe consequences. The other point I agree with, is that many people complain about the education system, but few propose any constructive changes. It solves nothing to complain without offering a solution.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post! I know that my parents expected for me to do my best, but they realized that I might not always get the A, but maybe a B. I have always been motivated by my own interests in my learning and that holds true even as a college student. Obviously my parents appreciate seeing a few 4.0's in my transcript, but for me, it is more about what I take away from the class. While I may struggle with an exam or project, if my learning is substantial, then I don't think the grade should matter.
ReplyDeleteIn special education, I think this debate is highly discussed. Should students be failing classes because they can't pass a test due to a reading disability but still understand the content and can apply it? I do not think that is fair in the least, especially when grades in high school mean so much in terms of completion of a grade or college applications. Hopefully people will disregard perfection and rather strive for understanding and interest in school. If our students are more interested in the courses because the grade is no longer the most important thing, perhaps our students would do better across the board.