K-12. Teachers are trusted with the future of our nation. Whether graduating from public school, private school, or GED, it's a huge accomplishment. An exciting moment.
Shouldn't that be enough to get a job or mentorship in the real world?
Schools have evacuated campuses and pushed millions of students online. K-12 is now adapting to Zoom sessions. Teachers are losing student interaction. Our teachers have trouble reaching kids with limited access. Other parents are watching their kids adjust to this new virtual system. This pandemic has emphasized the flaws in our curriculum.
It's not just higher education; it starts even earlier. The singular track we send our children on has no flexibility. For the children that are falling below "standards"? Parents get them tutors, and doctors too quick to prescribe ADHD medications.
But isn't it the teacher’s job to focus on the kids that need extra lifting up?
Maybe our approach has been wrong.
We spend more money per capita than any other country on education. Yet our public schools are still not adequate that we would send our kids.
K-12 : "Insidious take over by schools of children's lives."
America's principles on education was built-in the industrial age. They haven't changed in hundreds of years. Initially, schools were used to train the young with the skills to work in factories for mass production and mass control.
They follow instructions for 8 hours a day. Listening to lectures, with strict structure with rules to tell them what to do. Stars to show that they are behaving correctly. This creates the perfect worker.
But those are not the skills that we need in the modern world.
Now to succeed, you want individuals who are resourceful, creative, communicate effectively.
We don’t teach our young adults to be independent in the classroom. We teach them how to please.
Kids are no longer responsible for their schedules and how they use their time. The singular track we send our children on has no flexibility. And the outcome after college is grim.
In this podcast episode, we compare and contrast different education systems. From here in the USA, to the best in the world Finland, and a unique private school called the Woodberry school.
These schools ask children to follow their natural curiosity. Teachers are resources for them to think deeper on topics that they choose.
Do we need higher education to function in society?
The education system and what we want from our future kids are not aligned.
We all went through it, and now we hear how our children are bored. We stripped the joy out of learning by creating standards, lecturing, forcing plug, and chug thinking.
Children don't feel in control of their learning. They learn the same thing at the same time as everyone else. If they don't, children start to think that getting something wrong or being behind is a bad thing.
Arbitrary standards do not acknowledge the differences in how we learn. These monotone classes don't acknowledge unique interests.
We no longer ask them to think about what they are good at, what skills do they have, what they are passionate about?