Why Do Parents Believe That The School System Works
Written by Craig Rogers, Posted on , in Section Teens & Tweens
Over the last few years, a number of parents have begun to question whether the traditional approach to schooling is the best answer. The truth is, that most of us have always assumed that we arrived at the current popular/public education system that we're at thanks to some empirical, historical and academic data. Sadly, that assumption is almost totally unfounded.
Compulsory education in a setting much like the traditional schools of today has been going on on American soil since before the Constitution was ratified. Though the reasons that school is the way it is are somewhat unclear. They are mostly cultural and customary, not based on any science of learning or heuristics.
So why then has no one come along and fixed it? Is it because we lucked upon a perfect system? Far from it. In fact, as many parents know, the school system is a tangled mess of bureacracies big and small, of monied interests and lobbyists and teachers with tenure and schools that can't measure up, with students who are verging on illiteracy and a plague of distractions that is threatening to derail the whole enterprise.
The truth is no one has come along and fixed it because nobody with the power to do so has ever had the right idea.
Why is it that a school system that seems to bore both the students and the teachers has been allowed to stay in place? Why is it that a school system that is not driving American success stories that will last us well into the future has been allowed to go on working day in and day out?
It's Absurd To Believe That There's a One-Size-Fits-All Education Solution
There are so many different types of students, in so many situations, that to presume that a cookie cutter approach to education is the best possible solution is verging on irresponsibility.
Educational theorists from Maria Montessori to Jean Piaget to Johann Heinrich Pestazzoli have devised considerable alternatives that never seem to be discussed. This is because any attempt to steer the conversation about education is hijacked by political interests that want to see the status quo maintained.
We should all be curious about what changes might benefit the way our kids learn. If we're not, whose interests are we serving?
A lot of recent evidence suggests that curiosity, the very same trait lacking in so many when it comes to considering the future of education, may in fact be the key to success in learning. It turns out that when children are allowed to learn in an open, exploratory manner, investigating their curiosity and turning learning time into play time, they can absorb critical, complex information much more efficiently.
