Words: 977
In this present age, all around the world, the illusion that a student is “smart” by the information he remembers from the teachers or from books he reads has been employed by our educational system which leaves the mere skillful person in a lower class in the society. Students are now compared to other students by standardized test which rate your knowledge on what you remember and not what you know or can do. This educational system is not good enough for everyone to benefit in the society.
The main aim or goal of educational institutions should be to developing kills by which to use to make information and not Just to memories the data others have made. The modern world calls for a new kind of education in which the focus is deep understanding, creativity, and information management skills and not remembering things in order to pass tests and get higher scores than other students. Most students are even forced to divert from the path that interest them to another that their parents or guardians has destined for them.
Children who want to be artist are being forced into a medical field in which they might end up failing because of the current educational system. Judy Collins, an American singer, said in one of her songs “Do what you love, and you will find the way to get it out to the world”. If one has no interest in what he does then he ends up being depressed for most of his days. Kids should be given the option, whether or not to go into a certain field, parents have no right whatsoever to drive a student towards an occupation they desire for them for their own personal reasons.
This could to lead to sadness, insanity or even depression which, in most cases, leads to drugs abuse or alcoholism. Interest has to be the origin of whatever one does. School works good for most kids, but not all. Kids who hate school so much that it causes them to lash out constantly or to become so weakly introverted that they are constantly attacked shouldn’t be there. In the Adolescent Stress, Depression and Suicide: Minnesota study, Walker.
J writes “in a more informal survey of 60 young people , the primary sources of tension and trouble for teens and their friends were: relationships with friends and family; the pressure of expectations from self and others; pressure at school from teachers, coaches, grades and homework … ” (Walker, 1986). And if human beings are forced o be there, at a very minimum complete psychological comfort should be afforded. Some people will say, ‘well that’s not possible’. I say if it’s not possible then compulsory schooling needs to be reconsidered, at all age levels.
Cramming and memorizing has become the main way of succeeding in the present educational system. The main reason is right even before high-school teachers feel the need to compare students using test on data given, so, basically, the one who crams the most or remembers what he crams passes his test more than the rest and is tagged “the smartest”. They want to be able to give grades and decide which students are smart ND which are not. They function as a sorting mechanism for society. From the earliest grades, students are put on tracks that will decide their futures.
In Grades Do More Harm Than Good, an article written by Chris Crouch, an educator, he writes “By focusing and stressing grades as parents and teachers, we force our children to believe that the destination is more important than the Journey” (Crouch, 2013). When the goal of education is the grade at the end of an assignment, a specific period of time, or course, the intrinsic motivation to excel in other realms of life that may not have extrinsic rewards is much more difficult. Schools also like to impart knowledge because in this way, although students can have different individual skills, they can all have the same knowledge.
But knowledge is limited. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination encircles the world” (Needle, 2007) said Einstein. There is no such thing as knowledge in this world unless you are able to use information in different and creative ways. Knowledge is what other people have created. Understanding is all about what you think about something. Everybody sees, hears, feels, and thinks differently. There’s no two people in the world that have the name understanding of the same thing. It is impossible to give tests on a point of view. Because of this, tests are illogical. The label of “smart” or “stupid. Is the only reason test exist. There are many kinds of intelligence, however. A famous researcher in the field of intelligence, Gardner, found about seven different kinds of intelligence (Gardner, 1999). Intelligence and understanding are related. Contradictory to the emphasis placed on test, it only measures one kind of intelligence. In the modern world skills are more important than knowledge. “It is not in skill, but in the knowledge which can be communicated from one to another, that the civilized man shows his superiority to the savage, (George, 1898)” (36) wrote Henry George in The Science of Political Economy.
Knowledge is mostly used and effectively used as a student. Outside that, it is Just a plus to whatever you could do. If a person knows many facts, it is impressive, but not very useful. It is of much greater importance to be able to find information quickly, organize that information, analyze and understand the main ideas, put different pieces of information together (synthesize), and create new information. Together these skills make what we call information management and innovation, the skills which are most desired in the business world.