Opinion: Our Education System Is Flawed
Mr. Engstrom teaching his LEAD students. The students are encouraged in there learning. Mr. Engstrom is a standards based grading teacher, and uses a lot of hands on tactics.
March 17, 2022
A lot has changed since the outbreak of COVID-19; one of them being that students have a changed attitude when it comes to their learning. This can be boiled down to our archaic education system and the “easier way” of teaching many of our teachers have adopted.
The educational system that we all know and many despise is a system that conditions our youth to become factory workers. This is an extremely outdated way to prepare students for the “real world” in an era where higher education is available more than ever. This system that has been in place for a century, creates apathy among our students.
Apathy is the lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern. This kind of thinking is plaguing our school, but it’s not the fault of the student in most cases. The overflow of work sent their way during the pandemic has caused a “learning overdose.” They have felt like they have been fed enough homework for a lifetime, leaving them in a state of Apathy. The only way for teachers to counteract this is to have a more creative outlook on teaching students that have been traumatized by Zoom. Mr. Grebel, a teacher that works outside the box, states,” The kid doesn’t get the purpose of the school, the control of the factory, or the mask.” With the current system in place, students tend to care less about their overplayed letters sent to us on a page every six weeks. This is a huge issue in the world because of how we tend to favor those who have gone through higher education for work. We put educated adults on a pedestal. With my generation not wanting to go in that direction, what does that say about society?
I come with the perspective that we don’t come here to learn math, we come to learn about you. — Mr. Grebel
Education with the existence of apathy creates an imbalance of attention and overall learning. Why are we using a system that has existed since the 1940s? It’s not about thinking that our teachers are bad, it’s about conformity when it comes to a system that is so outdated the students are being held back. We don’t inspire creative thinking, we don’t let students think outside the box, and we are not preparing students for the “real world”. We are creating factory workers when factories are not the main source of employment anymore. This system was meant to create a “working ant” mentality, why should we be excited about learning when we are being pushed by an **almost 100-year-old agenda with little to no evidence on current society.**
Teachers are reporting a great amount of apathy in their classrooms, and to be honest most teachers don’t employ “interesting” learning tactics. I’ve found that in classes that employ more hands-on teaching, or use standard-based grading, their students seem to be “learning happier”. “Standards-based grading is about learning content it shouldn’t matter if they learn the topic in 1 week or 8, their grade is based on whether they grasp the topic”, said Mr. Engstrom, a teacher which uses those methods to engage students.
I would like to stress once more that if we don’t fix “our system” for education we are going to kill the minds of our students before they even begin to get into the most important parts of their education.
