Education in America
by Sean on Feb.20, 2008, under USA
I fear for the future of our nation. Our current belief system involves giving up on a child’s education before they are born! In my experience in the last two months, most of our children are very smart but when their teachers hold no expectations for them, they do not try as hard and thus do not succeed or just get by. We are also at a critical period in our history in that there are less and less young people interested in becoming teachers because they are not respected, not paid well, and generally deal with a lot of garbage, and it’s just not worth it.
After researching the education systems of other countries, I’ve decided that we need to adopt Japan’s model. After World War II, Japan was stripped of its army and told that it will not be allowed to have a standing army. Because of this, they have no military budget or weapons or wars. As a result, they are able to spend all that money on more important things. BINGO! You Got it. They spend all that money on education! Their children are among the brightest in the world and it shows! Despite the fact that High School is not compulsory in Japan, more than 90% of students opt to continue on.
Through research, they realized their students were overstressed, so they instituted an hour-long elective class in the middle of the day. Classes they can choose from are music, art, and physical education among others. They even pay their teachers more than we do. The average teacher in Japan starts out at the equivalent of $45,515 USD, while the American counterpart starts out around $35,000 USD.
All I’m saying is that we need to overhaul our education system from the bottom-up, not the top-down. Change the way the teacher teaches (remove standardized tests in primary schools) and you change how the student learns.
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