Challenging the Modern Education System
i
have been to nine schools nine
it’s a big number for someone who hasn’t
even finished high school yet
most would assume it was because my
family moved around a lot
but that’s not the case i have lived in
three different states
but other than that i haven’t really
moved anywhere else
until this year when i decided to attend
boarding school
so why did i change so many schools
the short answer is because so many
schools have their ups and downs
and finding the right fit for a kid is
really hard
it is because of this i have gotten to
experience so many different teaching
styles
and find what works best for me
i would like to start by telling a
little story from a school i attended
back in fifth grade when i lived in ohio
i was a shy kid which most people cannot
tell nowadays
because i’m rather outgoing but when i
was younger
i struggled to make friends and
preferred to spend most of my time by
myself
this all changed when i switched to a
school called shilling
it was an unusual school with an even
more unusual method of teaching
they required all students to take an
entrance exam
before attending and had a very
customizable
schedule to optimize learning shilling
offered
no sports no foreign languages or even
art classes for its course schedule
instead you as a student would take math
science
english and history on mondays
wednesdays and fridays
these classes were quite long and would
usually last up to two
hours which yes as a fifth grader was
tough
but most of the classes were hands-on
and rather than being sedentary
on tuesdays and thursdays though every
student got to customize their schedule
with a large variety of shorter classes
if you were someone extremely passionate
about art you could fill your schedule
with different visual arts and pottery
classes
i was interested in sports music and
language
so i took an aikido class which is a
japanese martial art
as well as fencing guitar and two
language classes
the best part was that your classes on
tuesdays and thursdays consisted of
anyone at the school who was interested
in the class
i remember that in guitar specifically i
was the youngest person in the class
and that everyone else was in high
school this kind of learning is highly
unusual
and the only other time i’ve seen a
learning model that allows customized
schedules
and at the same time the intermixing of
grades was at one
school a few years ago when i moved to
new york
i understand the system isn’t for
everyone and we were fortunate as
shilling to be small enough
to be able to implement this alternative
method of teaching
with the amount of confidence and joy i
was able to learn to gain from this
was exponential i had friends as a fifth
grader who were seniors
i was the only girl in my aikido class
which
might be intimidating to some yet to
this day is probably my favorite class
i’ve ever taken
the thrill someone feels of tackling
someone twice your size
is indescribable and can only be
expressed through a giant
grin that was visible on my face every
day after that class
i was never forced to take any classes
outside of my core classes
so if i wasn’t good at art or sports i
never had to take them
this allowed me to figure out what i was
interested in
i never woke up and didn’t want to go to
school because every day was a new
adventure
and i was supported by a community that
not only consisted of my grade
but the grades above and below me flash
forward two years later
when i moved back to the east coast and
began my education
at the school previous to the one i am
at now it was an
all-girls school which i’m not saying is
a bad thing at all
but it was a big change for me as
someone who was so used to being at
co-ed schools
the people at the school were also very
different they were competitive
because the mindset was that you had to
be the best
you had to score number one on the next
exam because if you didn’t
you’d lose your chance for a spot in a
good university
a lot of the schools in the us rely on a
class ranking system
in which universities ask schools for
their top students
and based on that list decide whether
students are welcome at the university
or not it was toxic to say the least and
many friendships seem
forced because you became friends with
the people who were around your rank
and the worst part was that this mindset
began in middle school
this was so different from shilling
where none of this toxic mindset existed
where the mindset was we helped each
other as a group to perform better
because what’s the point of dragging
another student down for the sake of
your own victory
education is not a battlefield it’s a
vital part of
life so why do we fight so hard against
each other just to be
quote unquote better than our peers
there was another big change waiting for
me at this
new east coast school a change to
something that seems very normal for
most schools
it was that the school had a strict
schedule that allowed for no
freedom of choice of classes other than
choosing a foreign language class to
take
which the options consisted of spanish
mandarin and french
we didn’t even get to pick a sport until
7th grade
the one thing we got to choose was being
a part of a school club
that was the one escape i had there i
spent most of my time
building stuff in the engineering lab
whenever i could but
because of the rigid schedule i didn’t
have much free time
at all as i got into the school year at
this new school
i could feel my attitude changing about
the way i viewed education
like the other students i no longer had
a sparkle in my eye
when i went to school many of the other
students seemed as though they woke up
in the morning
went to school did homework and then
went to bed
just to repeat this daily until they
graduated
and i noticed this in middle school
these weren’t college kids who were done
with constantly learning
but kids who had just started their
educational career a few years ago
it was devastating i spent five years
there
and was able to build some of my closest
friendships with some of the girls there
but i can speak for everyone at that
school that is nearly impossible to love
school and learning at that institution
after that constant miserable experience
i am fortunate though to have extremely
supportive parents
that have allowed me to follow my
passions and make a lot of my own
decisions and they have also taught me
to be independent
so when i decided i could no longer
handle the stresses of my school
because of the amount of mental health
issues it was causing me
they allowed me to apply to solemn and
have since then encouraged me to perform
to the best of my abilities
as much as i would love to praise my
current school as the perfect place that
helped me escape
the stresses of my past school that
would be a lie
i’ve experienced the good and bad sides
of education
but education is subjective finding the
right school is different for every
student
we all learn differently but most major
systems don’t realize or take this into
account
the education system around the world
that governs our lives as people
are not exactly suited to foster
creativity and learning
a small but dramatic example of the
backwards nature of learning nowadays
is as simple as sitting in rows henry
ford
one of the principal architects of the
assembly line process of
mass production proposed to have
children sit in rows in order to prepare
them for factory work
yet to this day where we as humanity
boasts that the industrial revolution is
over in most countries
we still impose this rigid seating
arrangement that limits the interactions
of children
and defeats the purpose of learning
erasing any chance for open discussion
just because of the strict nature of the
seating arrangement
some schools have started to break from
this tradition
offering round tables now to create a
more open environment
meant to offer group rather than just
individual learning
back during the time of the philosophers
in ancient greece
education was all about group learning
and was done
in a public open environment simply
because the idea was
two minds are better than one yet we
have revoked
this way of learning and succumbed to
the robotic classroom nature that leads
to boredom
and lack of interest education for the
most part has become a business
profiting on the success of children if
you think about it
the reason everyone here pays so much
money to go to the school
is just to simply go and study at
another school
creating a long and tiring cycle of more
than
16 years in some cases of sitting in a
classroom for
hours listening to teachers who aren’t
always concerned about the kids they’re
in charge of teaching
this mentality of forced systematic
learning has been causing the decline in
mental health
around student among students around the
world
we as a society are forcing children
most under the age of 18
to supposedly determine their future
through grades
and the expectations of them getting
into a good university
there’s no longer this idea of learning
for the sake of interest
and fun but now it’s all for the sake of
a good mark
on your next exam an interesting
anecdote is that in tok the other day
mr parker my teacher asked us to
individually take a short quiz about
happiness
it was scored 1 to 6 with a 4 foreign up
being considered that
you as a person were happy most would
like to assume that a majority of the
students in the class scored at least a
four
but the reality was that most got a two
to a three
the sad reality of this experiment is
that many of my peers including myself
don’t feel as though every day is filled
with sunshine and rainbows
when monday hits we are forced to wake
up at 7 00 am
for the next six days and trudge along
to classes
some of which we don’t like trying to
grasp the complex information
all for the sake of some exam we take in
a year that determines
what colleges we can go to the
assumption
is that success in life comes from a
good education
in which someone is assumed to have
completed 12 years of primary and
secondary school
but also have attended university and
graduated with at least
a bachelor’s degree i can vouch for many
of the students here
when i say that the stress of university
is astronomical
when that threonine exam comes back for
some it feels like the end
of the world getting into a prestigious
university
for many isn’t a want but rather
something pushed on them that’s a stigma
from the students around
or from their parents it is assumed that
you will go to a socially
good declared university such as
america’s ivy leagues
oxbridge in the uk or even eth in
switzerland
which boast a certain prestige in class
which many aspire to attain
in order to get a good job i have
experienced this mindset
over and over again throughout my
academic journey
the fact that i can only confidently say
that one
school out of nine truly fostered my
interest
in learning is extremely disappointing
and more than a little concerning
we as a society need to understand that
everyone
learns differently so by imposing very
rigid forms of teaching
we are only catering our education
towards a certain group of people
there are schools like shilling around
the world that allow for alternative way
of teaching
but they are rare and often not
considered as good as the
standard school we as a community need
to offer
more options for students especially
those who don’t necessarily learn best
in a classroom setting
because education is so vital and
everyone should have the opportunity to
learn to the best of their abilities
we also need to be more supportive so
that students who are struggling have
opportunities to recuperate and regroup
every day shouldn’t feel like a cycle
every day should be
filled with an interest in love for
learning but we don’t offer that to
students
and overall give very little support
school is stressful and i don’t think
anyone will argue with that
so when a school offers a counselor or a
mental health bit to
help students deal with the stresses we
have to face either because of workload
or socially
it allows students to somewhat balance
the struggles they face
because of the rigid education system
they are thrown into
at a very young age already thank you