The Ways of Dealing with a Broken School System

Richard Williams said school can be defined as “Six Cruel Hours Of Our Lives.” School is a place to gain knowledge, not to get A’s. Parents send their children to school to prepare for their unknown future. However, while the world keeps changing and improving, the school system has not changed much for hundreds of years. And yet in today’s classroom, the most common questions that the students ask their teacher are “will this be on the test?” and “when will this due”? Schools are just for those people who can “score” higher. Schools are just like a factory in nowadays that the students are being required to follow instructions like “open your book and turn to page 40” and “start reading or solving problems.” Moreover, there are differences between who is smart and who can score better. To innovate the school system, schools should allow students to find their own passion and get rid of the grading system; most importantly, find out how students learn and provide them the classes that can truly assist them to gain knowledge.

The first way to innovate the school system is to allow students to find their passion instead of giving them tests or exams. In today’s world, most companies value people who can be creative and who can collaborate with others well. Yet, schools want students to learn the same thing at the same time and in the same way as everyone else. Each individual is unique and special, everyone has different passions or interests. However, the schools seem to forget the most important questions in a child’s life, “What am I good at?” or “What do I want to do”? Schools should allow students to learn whatever they are interested in or whatever they want to try when they go to school. For example, schools should let a student who likes drawing to attend an art class, not a science class. Everyone should still at least learn the “basics” of reading, writing, and arithmetic. School should be an environment to discover new knowledge and to develop new skills, not a place that “produce” students. Schools should let the student know why and how the things work, not just lecture them and give them homework, quizzes, and exams to frustrated students so they can get an A’s or B’s for their classes. If students find school is interesting, they will find happiness; which will also have more motivation to go to school. To allow students to find their own passion might also contribute the percentage of people who wanted to pursue higher education since they might think school is enjoyable and they can learn the things they wanted to know.

Another way that can innovate the school system is to get rid of the grading system. To be honest, the grading system is the worst thing in school system. Why do people have to be graded for their knowledge? Is getting all A’s that important for getting a higher education? How about those who did not score a good grade? Do people who get F’s mean he or she is done with school? The grading system is based on labeling people by what they have done. Schools teaches students to be fair, not to label people; but on the other hand, the school system itself is discriminates. Those who memorize more and follow the rules get an A, and those who do not score well or do not follow the rules get an F. Moreover, schools should also reduce the tests and exams for students so they can be less stressed. There are people like Steven Spielberg, he failed when he was in 6th grade; and so did Albert Einstein, he was expelled from school for his rebelliousness. There are more talented people who had failed in the traditional school system. They were able to overcome these failures, but not everyone can overcome the failures. Learning can be much more than memorization and retention, but test scores are the only things that schools and parents value the most. Schools should have regularly psychological tests on the personality to find out what students are interested in instead of giving them midterms. To draw away the grading system, students will be more independent, and teachers would be able to learn how to effectively assess academic performance. Many colleges and universities might even change how they admit incoming freshmen. Education is to give the knowledge of the world to people and changes it into something better, for it should not just be based on grades to determine a student's knowledge.

The other way to innovate the school system will be to find out how each student learned. Like I said before, everyone is unique and special, everyone has a different way to process the information that they have been given. However, the schools have no room for such differences for every student. In every classroom, students also have a different level of understanding. Some might be boring because they are ahead, some might be confused because they cannot catch up. Therefore, if a student is a bit slower in learning something, he or she will be considered as an F; which I believe the letter F does not stand for “Failure,” it stands for “Find another answer.” What the student really need is just a bit more time to catch up with other. Learning style is so important for everyone, for some might be a visual learner, some might be an auditory learner, and some might be a kinesthetic learner. Each learning style has different methods and ways to learn the information. Sal Khan from Khan Academy (a non-profit educational website) called lecturing a “fundamentally dehumanizing experience, a bunch of -30 kids with their fingers on their lips not allowed to interact with each other.” When the schools provide each learning style to fit into the classes. Students will learn better and will also bring joy to learning or education. From my experience, going to school is hard and tough. Waking up in the morning, getting dressed, and going to a place that I do not even want to go make me feel terrible and stressed. I believe many students are on the same page with me. Furthermore, technology has made it possible for everyone to learn anything; but due to the fear of losing control, the system is not allowed to leverage these incredible rescores with schools. Schools are afraid that students will not pay enough attentions or find answer from internet instead of thinking by themselves. If the school is a place for the student to gain knowledge, why does not the school provide an environment for the student to be willing to “learn”?

Dealing with the school system requires a big change that needs to allow students to find their own passions and interests, get rid of the grading system so students no longer need to worry about their grade and just “learn,” and find out how they learn or process the information that been given. Richard Williams said, “Schools teaches you to memorize dots, but true education teaches you how to connect the dots.” Many things have changed from about 350 years ago: technology, environment, community, society, but not the school system. The word “education” comes from the Latin root “Educe,” meaning to draw forth or to bring out; education means to bring out individual interest or gifts. Changing an almost 400-years-old system sounds arduous, but it just depends on whether the society is willing to accept it or not. The world keeps moving, technology keeps refining, communities are getting more united, why cannot the school system get elevate and stop staying in the same old way?