Education System

Many people criticize the modern American education system. The reality is that no two classrooms are identical, let alone schools within the same district that teach the same grade levels. So how can we truly measure how well the system educates students?

The vast majority of us believe that education is essential to every person’s life. From there, the questions start: 

What does education mean? 

What should a student take away from their experience? 

Is it best to give students a diverse education or to allow them to become educated by the things that interest them? 

What is the end that the education is seeking?

To get to those answers, schools have developed curriculum that they use as the concepts given to teachers who then implement using their own teaching methods combined with methods curated by the school. Therefore, other questions emerge:

Why do our schools use the programs they use? 

What makes a teacher qualified to teach the curriculum of the subject matter to the age level to which they are assigned?

Is every teacher equipped to teach every subject equally?

My biggest problem with the traditional American K-12 system: it doesn’t focus on mastery. Students complete a unit, get graded, then move on. 

What of the students who did not master?

What about students who went into the unit having already mastered the subject matter, or who master it quickly as others struggle?

And, do people succeed in the “real world” because they’ve been exposed to a diverse education without dedication to mastery in any particular subject? 

This does not resemble the real world. Modern marketing (AT&T’s “Just okay isn’t okay” campaign) and comedy (Chris Rock - "Tamborine", there are some jobs that can’t have “bad apples” such as police and airline pilots) make light of the idea that just getting by is not acceptable. Getting Bs in most jobs will get you fired.

To reverse engineer that concept: How many employers are okay with less than 90% accuracy? Is a Starbucks barista allowed to screw up 1 in 10 drinks? Is a McDonald’s cashier allowed to mess up 1 in 10 orders? Is a line cook allowed to undercook 1 in 10 chicken breasts (or fail to heed a customer allergy warning)? And we’re not even talking about medical, transportation, and public safety professionals.

Kids are not little adults. A 10-year-old is not half a 20-year-old, so holding them to that accountability and maturity would be wrong. To the same end, child development holds that different ages have capacity for mastery in some things and not others, so why not focus on those things at those times? No doubt that schools are getting better, but is that trickling down far enough?

Primary schools pass kids to middle school who pass kids to high school who pass them to colleges and universities. Many arrive at their first post-educational jobs in debt. These people were trained in what? To read and write? To solve difficult problems? Or, are they trained to get by while living an active social life (and getting good at binge drinking)? 

The essential question: do they have any applicable experience completing an assignment that would be asked of them by an employer?

Why isn’t an after school job just as important an extra-curricular as playing a sport, an instrument, drama, forensics, debate, and the rest? How is a student to know what to pursue in college if they’ve never seen the world from behind the counter, behind the desk, in the stock room, or behind a broom? Eliminating the choices we know that we don’t want is typically essential when finding the choice that we do want.

Why is there such a gap between workplaces and the education system? Do schools get input on what to teach from the employers who hope to get a trained workforce? 

Students are raised to believe they “can do anything they want” or “anything they put their mind to.” Chris Rock has a take on this angle in a way that resonated with me: while at a student orientation with his daughter, Rock heard the typical, “You can be anything you want to be!” 

Rock’s response? “Why are you lying to these children? . .  . Really? They can be anything they want to be? . . . (Instead) Tell the kids, ‘you can be anything you’re good at - as long as they’re hiring.’ And even then, it helps to know somebody.”

It is not bad to have dreams. Quite the contrary - it is great to have big dreams! Here’s a question: are students taught how to turn dreams into goals? Without goals, big dreams stay dreams.

The reality is that few people end up pursuing their dream. 

Perhaps more importantly, for many people, the dream is not a way to earn a living, but what they want to do with the money they earn. For many, this may be engaging in a hobby that isn’t something they care to pursue professionally, such as playing a sport, arts, attending arts or sports, and travel. How can we train people for that lifestyle - to find an occupation that will fund these adventures?

We end up with people out of high school who aren’t prepared for the workforce because of this mindset. Not everyone wants to climb the corporate ladder nor do they want to work in an environment that requires literary analysis. Others will rarely use basic algebra. Are those things handy in one’s greater life, in general? Certainly. Can those skills be attained while learning the thing that actually interests them? Why not?

Would they rather use their hands? Kitchen, construction, welding, carpentry, masonry, glazing, auto repair, robot repair, machinery repair? 

Operate computers? Keyboarding, Data entry, data analysis, network infrastructure, programming, software engineering? 

Operate machinery? Driving a truck, forklift, or other heavy machinery, manufacturing machinery?

Understand their rights as citizens? 

Do basic algebraic computations?

Work with people?

NOT work with people?

I don’t blame teachers themselves, but I do blame the teaching union system for preserving the status quo so that people don’t lose their jobs.

I don’t blame the education administration, but I do blame the politicians who favor the easiest way to win the next election.

Many of our organizational systems have changed over time, especially those in for-profit environments. Why, then, is it so hard to use child development models to improve the system? Because change is hard. 

Perhaps on another day, I’ll give the same amount of criticism to parents as the reason why kids don’t succeed in school (or just get by,) get addicted to caffeine, junk food, and video games (and drugs); then feel all depressed in their teens and directionless in their twenties. Hint: say no and take it away.

Instead of just griping, here is a system that I thought about:

Home Room teacher: takes attendance, keeps the schedule, teaches executive functioning, groups students into various subjects, makes sure students are hitting goals or getting help in areas of need.

Subject specific teams: teach core skills of reading, writing (broken into handwriting, keyboarding, spelling, and organizing ideas and storytelling;) math, physical science, and social science to small groups of students. (I’m sure reading, math, science, and social science can be broken down further, but I don’t have that one up my sleeve like I did with writing.)

There must be a way to find out which students work better independently with check-ins and which students need a lot of individual help (regardless of level of learner.) Find ways to group those students effectively. Most likely, there are effective ways to group diverse learners for the benefit of the group. Asking peers to teach peers should not be overlooked, as little shows mastery like the ability to teach it, as well as the skills learned by teaching what one has learned.

Make study skills or “learning to learn” a subject. Knowing how to “do school” is the most important thing that students can be taught so that getting taught is easier.

Have extra time every day or week for struggling students or those who want to pursue a subject further that does not interfere with main class time.

Finally, get kids into work environments as soon as possible. From home to workplace, there are things they can do and should learn so they can be better students, better workers, and are more equipped to find what they’re looking for when pursuing a career. Laws getting in the way? Let’s reconsider child labor restrictions in a way that actually benefits children and families.

What am I going to do with my big idea? Probably nothing, as I wouldn't know how to implement an idea like this, but if anyone thinks it’s interesting and thinks of a way to implement it, please steal it or help me make it a reality.