I remember in Elementary school, we wrote an essay about whether or not school is important. Of course like every other student I decided to say yes, but now at this age I have come to a better understanding of how I feel about the prompt. Honestly from the way I see it, I'm biased about the whole thing.
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Think about it, a lot of things have changed right? Especially over time. For example telephones have changed from a block that needed a poll to a small flat smart phone. Transportation has changed, tele-communication has changed, technology itself has changed, building structures and home features has changed, even our currency has changed. If all of these things can change then how come they can't change school?
Over time I believe the same things have been taught over and over again with minor information given. There's a whole world we live in that we can learn from, but I feel that new information is not added to education. How come everyone is taught the same thing the same way, with the same teaching styles and techniques? If everyone isn't born together, doesn't think the same and can't think on the same level, then why should so many struggle trying to learn from a way that is more difficult for them?
Now I don't think this is right and I'm pretty sure most people can see this, especially students. See the thing is there are pretty much a lot of flaws about a school's education system, but honestly in my opinion you don't need to have a building and label it school just to learn stuff in. You just need to be motivated to learn. You can learn a lot of stuff that you know a school can't teach you just from the internet. By the way this looks, it seems to me that most people really don't care about education. Refusing to add new information to education that can actually change your life can lead people to not really care and ignore it.
Or so they tell us.
If you dare criticise it, you are bound to hear this.
“Not MY school. It’s different!”, “It’s not all bad”, “It’s not how it used to be”, “You obviously don’t know what school is like these days”.
I dearly wish that were true.
But it’s not. Or at least your version of acceptable change is different to mine.
Do the children choose what they want to learn now?
Are they not required to be there for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, whether they want to or not?
Do the children have bodily autonomy?
Are they still separated into groups based on age?
Do they get to spend as much time outside as they like?
Are they able to engage in unstructured, free, risky play?
Can they dress how they like? Have their hair how they like?
Can they learn about their interests? Follow their passions?
Have they got rid of testing? Standardization?
Have they stopped using coercive methods to make them learn?
Have they ditched punishment and rewards in favour of respect?
Are the kids still isolated from real life?
Are they still encroaching on family time with homework?
Have we given up the crazy idea of a one size fits all curriculum?
Didn’t think so.
- Sara @ HAPPINESS IS HERE BLOG
