The Importance Of Education In Education

Many students of color often fall victim to learning in under budgeted schools, or when they do seek to receive a great education, they are put in places where they feel like they do not belong. In the TED talk titled “How students of color confront imposter syndrome,” speaker Dena Simmons presents the issue of the “price” that many students pay for learning while not white. Simmons successfully presents her argument by using powerful, emotionally-engaging personal stories, adding subtle statistics to back up her claims, and brings it home by showcasing how her experiences lead to a career in teaching, which aids in establishes her credentials.

I entered education with the intent to use my life to make a difference for my city, state and country. I was flagged early in my elementary education as student that was struggling academically. My parents were fortunate enough to be financially able to send me to a specialist working in a private school. I spent much of my time from grade three to eight in a special education setting where I made great strides academically. Upon entering high school I returned to a public high school, tested out of my IEP and entered the advanced track.

While anyone in education could tell you the easiest way to measure student outcomes are through standardized exams, and maybe that is why we have fallen prey to its allure; accountability tests are the least effective measurement for any student population. “...School systems focus on rote memorization and measurable, predictable results” (Struss, 2006). Education is the preparation of young citizens for a world that has not been created, thus there needs to be flexibility in the designed measures. If that is true for our students, then it must be also true for our teachers. The future of teacher development is slowly becoming based a standardized testing system that is completely irrelevant to our student populations and rarely take into account the real world. In order for teachers to shift their developmental thinking about students, administrators and supervisors needs to shift their perspectives on teacher evaluations and continuous growth that takes into account creativity, curiosity, collaborative behaviors and immeasurable results.

Letter 8, question 2: Why should an educator know the concrete world where their students live? Why does Freire use the expressive term “concrete” when describing the environment where students live?

Our education system is preparing our youth, as well as it has prepared our past selves to the oncoming future, and the society that awaits us, including what will happen and preparing ourselves. That we often numbing our youth, including our education systems by depriving or lacking the creative motive to push ourselves further than we can imagine, and using up the full potential of our inner humane selves. Through this system we are currently establishing in our society, and our education systems we aren’t improving the creativity aspect, or pushing for a more open system rather we are expecting and preparing our youth for a future we aren’t familiar with and removing that creative potential that may exist. During the ‘Ted Talk’ video, the host tells the audience that “we aren’t born into creativity, more that we should grow out of it”, rather that we shouldn’t be held or confined to some ideal or structure of “creativity”. We hold the capacity to dream, come up with ideas and pursue those goals and continue to flourish through them. Our society rather than creating these fundamental pillars that we continue to cycle through and use, we need to be able to continue our creativity not as a society but as individuals, using our full potential to improve and create a more open and less demonetized way of life. Through this we can better relate to ourselves and not feel punished as we may feel in real life, whether it be in business or and so forth.

Think of how you would like schools to be organized and determine your top three priorities regarding the subject. Determine the support needed to establish these three priorities

Teachers analogous to every other human desire for integration, collaboration and kinship, yet, encounter confinement and segregation. Ingersoll stated in 2012, “although elementary and secondary teaching involves intensive interaction with youngsters, the work of teachers is done largely in isolation from colleagues. This isolation can be especially difficult for newcomers, who, upon accepting a position in a school, are frequently left to succeed or fail on their own within the confines of their classrooms—often likened to a “lost at sea” or “sink or swim” experience”.(http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/16/kappan_ingersoll.h31.html). Veteran teachers consistently promulgated to me early in my career that I needed to earn my stripes to acquire credibility in the education profession. Morosely, those words pushed me towards isolation rather than collaboration. Wong states, “ New teachers want more than a job. They want to experience success. They want to contribute to a group. They want to make a difference. The best induction programs provide connection because they are structured within learning communities where new and veteran teachers interact and treat each other with respect and are valued for their respective contributions”. (p. 47) Similar to students, teachers need their administration to provide a working environment that includes structure, safety, compassion and trust from the onset.

Educational institutions are designed to ready the next generation for careers and the workforce, but how to accomplish this may be very tricky in light of the fact that the jobs of the future don’t exist yet. The known however, is what employers are looking for now and what they feel is needed in the future. According to Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards, “The skills needed to succeed in today’s world and the future are curiosity, creativity, taking initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking and empathy. These skills, interestingly, are the skills specific to human beings that machines and robots cannot do” (Rainie). The work world is changing at an ever-increasing pace and society and future workers need to keep up. The educational system however is stagnant with few real innovations or shifts within the past one hundred and fifty years. Individual assessments, isolated curriculum and mundane facts will not produce the creative, collaborative workforce needed for the future. The current system is designed to create a large number of obedient factory type workers with a small number of special and specifically educated elite at the top to control them. With a shift to technology and globalization, the stagnation within education leaves a dearth of workers for the jobs of the future. Educational systems are producing workers for yesterday, not the present or the future. In order to create students ready of the demands of the 21st century, educational

In the classroom, teachers lack the training to effectively teach a foster child. To be able to promote educational stability for the child, it is paramount that the teacher is in communication with the foster parents. In an article by National Center Brief, the authors list the appropriate responsibilities of a teacher when caring for a foster child (7,8). The list includes having monthly meetings with the child’s foster parents, caseworkers, and principal to catch each other up on how the child is doing and how they can better plan the child’s educational future. One of the ways teachers can better aid children in the foster care system is by looking at their educational assessment prior to being in foster care.

Education is essential to help kids develop the skills necessary to prepare them for the modern world. Furthermore, education endows kids with the ability to be independent, creative, and innovative learners, which can help encourage kids to take on greater tasks. However, most schools lack the support for greater student success because they have outdated textbooks, bad school facilities, and no student autonomy. Therefore, holding back students from realizing their full potential and rendering them vulnerable to challenges. In order for students to become greater critical thinkers the federal government must reform the educational system and increase school funds so that schools can replace older textbooks with new ones, improve educational facilities, and permit greater student autonomy

The American system of high school has prevailed for years despite being an ailment in contemporary society. Society is not perfect and will never be, nonetheless, future generations can be prepared to face it and change it through education. However, there are two main flaws of the classic American high school system that obstruct the proper development of students: it doesn’t adequately prepare them for their futures and there is an unhealthy relationship between sports and academics.

If education had more money they could make their community a better place by allowing updates to be made when necessary. Education is in need of money due to the lack of funds they receive from the state. If tax money went to education this problem would solved. More money would increase teachers pay, pay for textbooks, supplies and food. Education is important to everyone around the world. Without an education, children would not have a knowledge unless learned at home. Education needs more funds to be able to afford the supplies needed for each and every school year.

“Give me a minute,” that is all it takes to save a person’s life. Annually, stress kills approximately 110 million people, which is equivalent to seven deaths every two seconds. In a manner of seconds we could save plentiful lives. Compare to other countries, the United States stand in the medium to high range of stress and only stands 20th place out of 35 industrialized countries for education. Countries like Finland, Japan, and South Korea stand in the top rank of the world for their education and still continue to improve exponentially, while the United States isn’t trying as hard enough. The reasons behind it is the tremendous amount of homework, the pressure of standardized testing and the requirements they have abide to. This undesirable education system hinders the students with stress and affects their test score, which causes the United States to be in 20th place. The students desire for an education that will benefit them and changing in criteria such as limited standardized testing, lessen the tremendous amount of homework and changing the schedule.

The wise man once stated, “Teaching for nearly 40 years has allowed me to see how much our world has changed.” I had no idea how how far our world has come in just 40 years, until I asked my teacher, Mr. Gibson. Since 1978, Mr. Gibson has taught high school math. He attended college at Bemidji State University, receiving his four-year degree and eventually earned his masters. He is a very intelligent man, to say the least. Mr. Gibson explained how change has occurred in the school, how academics have been reshaped by technology, and how life in general has been revamped.

Thank you for responding to my email. I appreciate your candid advice and will do all I can to follow same.