Failure Factories
Kyle Butz
Undergraduate/Undeclared
Back in the third issue of the FlipSide, Zeke Witter addressed a distressing reality—“College Kids are Stupid.” His claim must hold some weight considering that less than forty percent of graduating college students can successfully compare the viewpoints of two newspaper editorials. He suggests college students hate learning. Undergrads are primarily motivated by promotion and flee upwards through the university, learning the bare minimum to advance onto the next grade and out of school. Mr. Witter points to case examples such as “bros” and “keggers” as forms of escapist lifestyles for proof. He even questions whether he came to the right university or if he will eventually find his niche at a grad school. I am writing to expand on Mr. Witter’s unfortunate circumstances. This is a national failure seen with most undergrads at any university. Indeed, the institution of public education has failed.
The institution of education is one of the earliest determinants of a nation’s literacy, crime rate, innovation, and productivity, which all create the country’s standard of living. On the micro level, one could look at the economic, social, and political advantages a person gains from a solid, well-rounded education: a beneficial factor in any individual’s life—not just scholars and academics. With this in mind, a nation boasting the most diverse and prestigious selection of universities in the world should not ignore the fact that America is falling far behind the rest of the world in high school.
The Program for International Student Assessment distributed a test to fifteen year olds that measured math and science literacy among thirty developed nations. The United States placed 17th in science and 24th in mathematics. A Gallop Poll this year showed that 76 percent of parents are satisfied with their child’s education, which has held relatively constant in the past ten years. This complacency has serious consequences for our nation’s social, economic, and political well being. Only 53 percent of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun; 59 percent know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time, and 47 percent can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water. Indeed, the institution of education has been failing for some time now.
Our society uses standardized tests to evaluate the economic utility of the future labor force. Has there been any thought to the effectiveness of such a unilateral measure of intelligence? Our high schools emphasize abstract problem solving and verbal linguistics. What other approaches could be used to tap an individual’s creativity and talents? Our teachers are teaching to the test and our students are grade-orientated learners. Is this healthy for a quality educational experience? How do teacher unions, principals, and the tenure system factor into a student’s ability to learn? If the United States wants to dominate another century, it will need to radically rethink some of its educational policies.
What are the practices in place? Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis claim that the internal organization of schools corresponds with the internal organization of the workforce. The teacher is the manager stigmatizing mistakes and failure, which discourages creativity. Teachers and managers are only given the answer they want to hear. Discipline is promoted by modeling the school day after the work day: attendance, dress codes, lunch breaks, and seven hour length. Students concentrate on following arbitrary rules and formats instead of critically thinking about a problem, idea, or the substance of their own writing. It is a system of indoctrination of facts, places, names, and dates that are mindlessly memorized until regurgitated on the exam—then forgotten. The American College Test and Scholastic Aptitude Test is the pinnacle of factual recall for our test preparation schools.
Teaching to the test is fine as long as the students channel their energy towards figuring out how to get an “A” without having to do any of the real course work; however, if America does not want a moderately-educated and docile work force incapable of critically thinking, our teachers are going to have to begin creatively engaging students in learning. To do this, the teachers will need more autonomy and control over the learning environment. If a student is not contributing or is disruptive to the learning process, the teacher needs to be able to have the authority to oust that student; this does not occur now simply because public schools receive funding according to the number of students they attract and not the quality of the education.
The cost of education is not the problem but could stand budget cuts starting with principals and superintendents, which only serve to apply constraints on a teacher’s sovereignty to teach. Teachers are fully capable of democratically firing and hiring each other. As for teacher pay, income should be relatively proportional to the job and determined by a committee made up of the citizens in the respective district. Late penalties, poor attendance, wrong format—teachers are not babysitters. Leave the rules and discipline to the parents. Grades merely exist to prove to the parent that the pupil is learning. Education should not be regarded as a right, but a privilege. Students have to demonstrate to the teacher that they have the will to learn. The teacher should not be subject to the parent’s approval. If the parent wanted to become a teacher, he or she should have made that decision before their current career choice.
As with so many institutional overhauls, there needs to be a shift in values. America must cast off its religious grip on science and let it flourish in its classrooms. Teachers are charged with convincing students that their subject is fun, relevant, and meaningful through knowledge application and experiential learning. Providing authentic research opportunities or reading outside of the textbook would allow students to write to the teacher and gain feedback on that student’s developing critical thinking skills. Hopefully a new America will emerge that values creativity, innovation, and critical thinking instead of celebrities and money.
Sources:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/ideas-collleges
http://nces.ed.gov/PUBSEARCH/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008016
http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/soced.pdf
http://www.calacademy.org/newsroom/releases/2009/scientific_literacy.php
http://hubpages.com/hub/What-is-Wrong-with-American-Schools-and-How-We-Can-Fix-Them