I ran into an interesting article about how U.S. education vs. other nations is not an indicator of student success with life. I found some of the teacher's observations different from all the negative implications present by such articles:
I think educators really ignore this aspect of U.S. Americans. Resourcefulness can take any mediocre person and make a success out of them. All one needs to do is look at the likes of the computer revolution. Some of the people who brought microchips to the home, including Bill Gates, had little formal education. What they did have was a love of something that became almost an obsession. In fact, with all the talk of acedemic acheivement it is to be remembered that uber-intelligent Einstein didn't start out a very good student.
The potential of the next generation is a mixed bag. Information and technology have advanced to a degree that a student can know things adults had no concept of 30 years ago. The problem is that the strengths of the information age are also the weaknesses. There is no taming of the information and not all is of the same worth. Much of it is perhaps even lies, misinformation, and subjective thoughts presented as facts. What teachers might need to do is teach how to corral the information to a manageable level. Not an easy task.
Perhaps most importantly it would be best to find out what does interest students and use that as a focal point. Again, not an easy task in a one-fits-all teaching society. There are some great successes as pointed out by the From the Trenches blog. However, there are spectacular failures that are not entirely the fault of bad education. And all of this ties into ideas of education that will have to be fleshed out in later articles. The point is that education is more than theory and graded papers. It is often life experiences that a classroom can't provide the way it is currently set up.
Every year, I see former mediocre students who have become much more successful than I ever thought possible. For some reason, their not having wowed me with their performance in American History when I had them as tenth-graders didn't hold them back very much. Amazing! At some point, they realized what they wanted to do, and once they did, they went after it and achieved it. I don't know if it's something having to do with American practicality, but that seems to happen a lot.
I think educators really ignore this aspect of U.S. Americans. Resourcefulness can take any mediocre person and make a success out of them. All one needs to do is look at the likes of the computer revolution. Some of the people who brought microchips to the home, including Bill Gates, had little formal education. What they did have was a love of something that became almost an obsession. In fact, with all the talk of acedemic acheivement it is to be remembered that uber-intelligent Einstein didn't start out a very good student.
The potential of the next generation is a mixed bag. Information and technology have advanced to a degree that a student can know things adults had no concept of 30 years ago. The problem is that the strengths of the information age are also the weaknesses. There is no taming of the information and not all is of the same worth. Much of it is perhaps even lies, misinformation, and subjective thoughts presented as facts. What teachers might need to do is teach how to corral the information to a manageable level. Not an easy task.
Perhaps most importantly it would be best to find out what does interest students and use that as a focal point. Again, not an easy task in a one-fits-all teaching society. There are some great successes as pointed out by the From the Trenches blog. However, there are spectacular failures that are not entirely the fault of bad education. And all of this ties into ideas of education that will have to be fleshed out in later articles. The point is that education is more than theory and graded papers. It is often life experiences that a classroom can't provide the way it is currently set up.
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