Professor Parsons Opinion On Teachers In High Schools

Some people might like education, others might dread it and really don’t see a reason to continue learning about it. Today, for teachers and professors it’s easy to them to tell how the education they teach is effective for an individual student. As we know, education is being taught at school, home, and a little of both. For America today, most children attend preschool, kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school, and college. Depending on the pupil's career choice, it can take up to 20 or more years completing their schooling system, Usually, during the middle and or high school years in America, professors teach you valid things pupils will be using in life.

Looking at the actual amount of conformity present in schools, as opposed to the ideal amount, it seems that schools have moved past a healthy level to a point where students don’t often have to genuinely think for themselves. On a basic level, students don’t have to plan or use their judgment to ensure that they arrive to class on time. They become dependent on bells to tell them when they need to be in class and when they are late (Source B). On a more complex level, students rarely have to use their problem solving skills to come to their own conclusions. Learning in the classroom is typically centered around the memorization of facts and methods as opposed to critical thinking. Students are requested to learn the details and regurgitate them on test day, despite the fact that very little of it will be remembered later on. On the rare occasions when students are confronted by a critical thinking question, they often struggle as they have little practice in this area. If schools were to put more emphasis on individuality, where students could think freely and responsibly and contribute their own ideas, students would better themselves and society

From my school experience I have seen many teachers who seem indifferent about their teaching. Most of them just teach you what you need to pass a test, and never talk about it again, even if you do not fully understand it and did bad on the test. This experience is only from twelve years of schooling, starting in preschool and now to my senior year. This makes John Taylor Gatto’s claim that much more interesting and believable, considering he was a teacher in some of the best and worst schools of New York City for almost thirty years. He claims that the American school system as it is structured now, it is not beneficial to either the teachers or the students. The teachers are bored and unmotivated to teach, which leads to the kids being

The Essentials of a Good Life by Diane Ravitch was an essay that really got me rethinking what we call the school system today. It felt extremely relatable since I have spent over 13 years in school and I recognize almost all the points she made about the problems with school today. Many of her main points have to do with how schools are too focused on standardized testing and how they don’t teach creativity in school. This is a big problem in today’s society because school seems to be doing a lot less of what it was first meant to do which is prepare their students for the future. After reading her essay I believe we shouldn’t be focused on standardized testing and we should be spending more time teaching students how to be leaders, independent, and creative because these are qualities that promote success in today’s society.

Many high schools are spent huge amount of time and resources to prepare high school students to test or even being responsible citizen. Diane Ravitch in her essay “The essentials of a good education” tells about it, “More time was allotted to take practice tests in mathematics and reading. Because there are only so many hours in a day, there was less time for subject that were not tested” (page 106). She believes that if student spent whole day to prepare to test and get “A”, such school is a not really good school, even if gets high scores and the state awards it an “A”. Also many educated parent are would not tolerate a school that cut back or eliminate the arts to spent more time preparing for state test. If student will study well on each subject, for example good enough on math, writing and reading so he/she will not need extra class to prepare for test and spent his/he time and money. So Diane Ravitch believes that, our education system is in wrong way because they spent much time to preparing test. On the other hand, John Taylor Gatto in his essay “Against school” represent that, the problem of US education is not to give a knowledge, but conversely to make good citizens or workforce. He tells in his essay that US education system become like Prussian system, “Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern. One of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens - all in order to render the populace "manageable."(117). In his opinion the education system problem was that they make people become predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor

Instead of coming together to create a truly democratic society that supports the whole we are caught up in serving first our own interests followed by the interests of the system that has allowed us to succeed. How is it possible that the people making the decisions can look at the state of our education system and blame the teachers for failing when they are also the ones providing the strict standards that serve to perpetuate the current hegemonic society we live in? I do think that there are good parts of having certain standards for education – all students should know how to read and write, everyone should have a basic understanding of mathematical concepts and history – but I think by micromanaging classrooms across the country, teachers are prevented from doing their job of teaching students and instead being tasked with “filling up the knowledge bank” with information deemed important by individuals and groups who have little to no connection to actual classrooms. The main point of this chapter was to shine a light on the negatives of the traditional education system and explain the educational philosophy aimed at combating the perpetuation of such

The purpose of education has shifted from learning & gaining knowledge to see how well students can show patience, obedience, and willingness to work, so that colleges can pick out people that are going to work hard (Brabeck).We memorize, study for the test and forget it and repeat the cycle all over again. That’s why when young children ask adults or parents for help with their homework, they struggle to help because they can’t remember it. Also if the purpose of school was to learn, than why do they make us do standardized testing ? Standardized testing is not used in any way to see how much we’ve learned, but rather how much we can memorize/remember. Which is creating a conformity within our learning, and destroying creativity (Brabeck).

Yet even with these realizations that delve into the deeper meaning of education, modern education is still calling for simple measurable outcomes and continues to be geared towards specific employment ideas. This model of education is blatantly inadequate though. Many students today will end up holding jobs not yet invented in fields not yet discovered, so the teaching of answers to today’s questions is utterly useless. Albert Einstein once said, “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” and this statement reigns true throughout time. To continue academic success, the education system needs to impart a mastery of one’s own mind that allows students to not only answer current questions but also to pose questions that will shape the future world.

“During formal education, the child learns that life is for testing.” Baker 225. Given that it is said is sad enough, I find this statement to be true. For this reason, the education system has not prepared their students for college and life skills. Thus, in my experience as a student, the schools have not prepared me, because of the simple fact my level of understanding basic college freshman information is not at my level of comprehension. In any case, the education system needs to focus on the students understanding information and

THE WORLD HAS PROGRESSED! We need people in this world who think creativly, inovatively, independently and criticaly with the ablitlty to connect to one another. Every scientist will tell you that no two brains are the same. So why should they trick students and make them feel like a fish and tell it to climb a tree. It’s just like if a doctor proscribed the exact same medicine to everyone the results would end up being tragic all of his patients would get sick. Yet when it comes to school that is exactly what happens its educational malpractice. Its where one teacher stands infront of about 20 kids and every kid has different strengths, different weaknesses, different dreams, and different gifts. Yet they teach the same thing to every kid. THATS HORRIFIC! It’s a shame to teaches have the most important jobs on the plannet yet their underpaid. No wonder so many students are short changed. Honestly a teacher should be paid as much as a doctor because a doctor can do heart sugery and that doctor can save the life of a kid, but a teacher can reach into that kids heart and truly allow that kid to truly live to that kids fullest potential. Teachers

This semester was very informative as far better understanding some important and major events that took place in the United States in regards to education. One of the subjects that really got me thinking was when we talked about how privatization is taking over democratic public education. I truly bothers me to think that we are starting to go into path where all that is valued is scores/standardized test results. I truly believe we teach to help children to help them not only learn basic skills but also to give them opportunities to be curious and want to explore different topics in different content areas. This also is essential to help them better understand what they want for their future as far as possible career. But when the focus are test

As time goes on, new strategies and techniques are developed in the classroom to help the education process. However, these new ways of learning are not always effective. In order for a student to be successful, they need to be challenged, asked questions that require them to think, rather than fill in an answer on a scantron. They also need to be taught responsibility and how to manage their time that will be essential for them to become a successful adult. Are current schools providing the essentials of a good education? Most would think that schooling would be a place to challenge students, and make them become critical thinkers. It should make them ask why, instead of just doing what they are told. This enables the chance for students to develop their own learning techniques that they will use in the future as they grow older. The attention on such a topic is on the rise as schools make an effort to better their learning environments. In Diane Ravitch’s, “The Essentials of A Good Education,” she uses reasoning and facts to prove her claim that today’s schools need to increase educational productivity and the preparation for everyday adulthood.

“Teachers teaching to the test” has become an ongoing issue among grade schools around the world. Teachers are changing the curriculum to revolve around standardized testing hoping to ensure good grades on this test. They are obsessed with doing this in order to gain a good reputation for the school and are throwing curriculum out the window. Requiring students to take these mandated tests to evaluate how much knowledge they gain throughout the year is not necessarily accurate. But limiting the students’ absorption of knowledge to strictly the test is not teaching students to think critically. Almost everyone who disagrees with mandated

Teaching is an art that cannot be mastered; no perfect method exists and often the lines between teacher and student blur. Being a teacher requires balancing the two, keeping in mind the duties of a teacher as well as your own shortcomings. “Good teaching is forever pursuing better teaching; it is always dynamic and in motion, always growing, learning, developing, searching for a better way (Ayers 160).” Tests have always been a quality assessment of learning and ability, but they don’t accurately evaluate every aspect of an individual’s competence. Memorization and regurgitation of information remain valuable life skills, but cannot be the sole source of an individual’s abilities in a particular area. Teaching is a mean to bring out the potential from within youth and prepare them to be adults in the outside world. In the United States, we teachers ready students to live in a democratic country and not fear for their freedoms. Testing can track progress, however, promise cannot be determined by a few sheets of paper with a grade written at the top.

Professors are researching how adding these skills to high schoolers education will benefit them later in life. Dr. Corrigan, Dr. Alessandro and Dr. Rutgers are not only concerned that schools are focusing more on preparing students for standardized tests, but it’s also causing them to feel uninspired to stay. Standardized tests can only measure your academic achievement, not who you are as a person. More than a quarter of U.S. students on average are choosing to dropout out of school. Not only this, but teachers have also reported that students have started to develop behavior problems because they dislike the curriculum choices. Teachers have also started leaving their jobs because they feel