The American Education System has been around since the early 1820’s and has continued to operate in a very similar manner ever since. Children, in America, attend school from morning to mid-afternoon or early evening, five days a week, one-hundred and eighty- plus days a year. They do so from the time that they are five years old until they are eighteen years old and many even start out in pre-school or a head start program at younger ages (Caulfield 2).
They are, taught how to and then expected to sit still in their assigned seats, stay in nice, straight, quiet lines in the hallways. Then their brains are being filled with the content being taught and then are expected to regurgitate it back in the form of a test or assignment for eight-plus hours a day, but why? (Strauss 2). The educational structure that is currently in place was originally designed back during the Industrial Revolution because it allowed the adults to work while their children were off getting the education that most of them had never been privileged to.(Rose 2) It was a system that worked at the time, but that was over seventy years ago. …show more content…
(Fry 3) Why are we still using the same system after all these years? We question our schools, teachers, standards, work ethic and we blame technology, the generational changes, and even ourselves, but could it be that our system is failing because our structure is not a solid as it once was? If a house’s foundation is crumbling, you do not keep remodeling the house in hopes that the structure itself will be repaired, you tear the whole thing down and start over, which is exactly what needs to be done with the American Education System. This would be an extremely long and difficult process and it would affect a lot of different aspects of our everyday lives but without major changes and sacrifices, our system is going to continue to fail. Children were not meant to be locked in a box for eight or more hours a day and be controlled from every angle; they are not prisoners, but that is how they are treated. They are told what to do and how to do it, where to be at what time, when they can and cannot use the restroom, when they can eat, and let us not forget about their thirty minutes of yard time, I mean recess. Many other countries have their students go to school the same number of days and have very similar instructional times to those of the students in the United States and yet the American Education System is ranked amongst the lowest in the world, so what are we doing wrong? (Light 2) While it is true, that the instructional times are very similar, the actual time that students spend at school are not. Many countries break in the midafternoon and allow their students to spend a few hours at home with their families. This gives the students a break from their school work and the adults a break from their jobs or house work. Perhaps, if the American society would allow these changes to occur, then we too could be ranked amongst the best. In order for that to happen, America would be risking some capital and it certainly would slow down the manufacturing and selling of a number of goods, but in
They are, taught how to and then expected to sit still in their assigned seats, stay in nice, straight, quiet lines in the hallways. Then their brains are being filled with the content being taught and then are expected to regurgitate it back in the form of a test or assignment for eight-plus hours a day, but why? (Strauss 2). The educational structure that is currently in place was originally designed back during the Industrial Revolution because it allowed the adults to work while their children were off getting the education that most of them had never been privileged to.(Rose 2) It was a system that worked at the time, but that was over seventy years ago. …show more content…
(Fry 3) Why are we still using the same system after all these years? We question our schools, teachers, standards, work ethic and we blame technology, the generational changes, and even ourselves, but could it be that our system is failing because our structure is not a solid as it once was? If a house’s foundation is crumbling, you do not keep remodeling the house in hopes that the structure itself will be repaired, you tear the whole thing down and start over, which is exactly what needs to be done with the American Education System. This would be an extremely long and difficult process and it would affect a lot of different aspects of our everyday lives but without major changes and sacrifices, our system is going to continue to fail. Children were not meant to be locked in a box for eight or more hours a day and be controlled from every angle; they are not prisoners, but that is how they are treated. They are told what to do and how to do it, where to be at what time, when they can and cannot use the restroom, when they can eat, and let us not forget about their thirty minutes of yard time, I mean recess. Many other countries have their students go to school the same number of days and have very similar instructional times to those of the students in the United States and yet the American Education System is ranked amongst the lowest in the world, so what are we doing wrong? (Light 2) While it is true, that the instructional times are very similar, the actual time that students spend at school are not. Many countries break in the midafternoon and allow their students to spend a few hours at home with their families. This gives the students a break from their school work and the adults a break from their jobs or house work. Perhaps, if the American society would allow these changes to occur, then we too could be ranked amongst the best. In order for that to happen, America would be risking some capital and it certainly would slow down the manufacturing and selling of a number of goods, but in