Essay 1.

Education Is Not Black and White

Throughout my twelve years of public education I really never came to realize what the system was, how it worked, what I was learning, why I was learning what. This ignorance stayed put up until I got to college, and really until I began English 101. I had always been aware that education had funneled students into this “perfect person” but I suppose I never really put it together. The thought was always in my mind and it really makes me question everything about public education. Why do they teach what they teach to students in public school systems? When did it become apparent to school systems that the arts weren’t as important as social sciences or mathematics? I took a college course Music class my senior year of high school that really described how, throughout the ages, music played an important role for the development of children. When did that change?

***The TED talk is something that really stood out to me the most in this course and it really brings me to this train of thought I have about education and the arts. What happened that turned such a sour note towards music, dance, drama? I’m really trying to figure out why we don’t have these programs more in our school and this talk really introduces more questions than answers for me about this subject. I’m curious as to why we haven’t been able to add a balance of these subjects since all of them have proved their importance in the health and development of children? In the TED talk he describes how children are born with different talents, skills, ways of learning and with this system of education, students are left out. In this public school system children who aren’t able to “play” the part of a good student are set up for failure. Freire said it himself describing how students were like receptacles and the best students were the ones who could take up the most information. Is this fair? In a system where “no child left behind” is such an important factor, why are we leaving children behind based on how well they do at a certain area? Why aren’t we focusing on the areas that support and help healthy brain and body development?

***In Gatto’s research paper he describes how schooling is really just making kids manageable and to some extent it’s true. (Not that it’s a bad thing to be taught how to be managed; we can’t all be in charge.) But we should be able to all have the ability to go above and beyond that. Is this system of education holding us back from our full potential? By not introducing the arts more into our school system our we hindering the future generations we need to rely on? I’m really questioning our school system too, because it is something we really should be constantly questioning. We can’t stay under one belief of school system never changing or questioning anything while the rest of the world goes and changes drastically on us. We all need change and it is bound to happen and it usually doesn’t ever mean something bad. What if we changed our school systems to support those born dancers or violinists? Would we be able to have a better more well rounded world?

People throughout history have questioned the system whether it was a system of government or in this case, our education system. We should always question to promote change and that’s exactly what Gatto, Freire and Sir Ken Robinson are doing here. Why not question? Education isn’t an issue that’s black and white. There are gray areas. There are those students who aren’t meant to be good at mathematics (myself included), but excel when it comes to the arts. Why should we measure intelligence by mandatory exams that are all the same? It bothers me that in order to get into a prestigious school you have to take a timed test that really is focusing on one side of the brain (not that I’m supporting the idea of having dancing required as part of the ACT). Why can we talk about racism and focus on equality when we’re incapable of being equal in the public school systems? Our futures shouldn’t depend on the way that we learn. It’s unfortunate and unfair to a minority group that is being overlooked. We talk about this country being based on equal rights yet we are so far from achieving equality. This not only comes with public education but race too. Both of these issues aren’t black and white. We’ve come a long way with education and what we teach and the technology we have to help teach the curriculum but we can’t stay focused on that because we’ve gotten “far enough”. There is so much farther that we can go in education and like Sir Ken Robinson talks about the arts is a critical part of school that we are leaving out.

***One of the things that really popped out to me was what Freire was talking about with critical thinking. In one of my other classes, Education and Equity, we talk about how key critical thinking is and how we really should focus on bringing up really conscious thinkers in our school systems. This is yet another one aspect of public education that puzzles me, why not teach this too? We have so much potential when we put a bunch of students in a school. They are open to new ideas and ready to work through problems all the way setting themselves up for success in the future. Why aren’t we helping them achieve this? Why are we holding out on teaching some of the most important subjects? Shouldn’t it be our responsibility to help these students achieve their potential? Why is it that we hold them back and if they don’t “fit” the systems ideal student, we set them up for failure? With these kids and their parents they really expect the most from this education system, why is it we aren’t focusing time and energy on creating a public school system that is capable of handling everyone’s needs? Why are we leaving children behind with no children left behind? Its important for us to look at the surrounding facts on public education, we see the evidence that Gatto gives us about people throughout history. People who haven’t gone to school or have taken different paths of achieving knowledge and succeeded in becoming some of the greatest leaders and inventors our time has had. Why don’t we look at this evidence as proof that our education system is clearly faulty? Could we be filtering out these future geniuses due to the fact they don’t fit the criteria of what a perfect, ideal student should be? This reminds me of how when I was in high school, my math teacher always went through the chapters extremely fast paced and it became a stress to me because I wasn’t learning as quickly as she was teaching, and yet when I talked to her she made it seem like it was my problem for not being quick enough. Is that what we should be teaching our students? I don’t think it’s just me personally because I know that everyone has his or her own pace of learning. There shouldn’t be a time limit on how we measure intelligence. The standardized testing that we force upon students is yet another stresses that forces student’s who once again aren’t fitting the “ideal student” profile. We are put into a room, timed, and then forced to show our intelligence through a bubble sheet of answers with subjects ranging with math, science, English and reading. Not that these subjects aren’t key, but it seems to me we’re missing something. And we’re missing some of the most important subjects that should be up there with math, science, English and reading. We need to look at our public school system and see the imperfections before and we should take it upon ourselves to change it, it’s our responsibility to make it the best it can be. Only then should we be able to really measure intelligence and knowledge.