This article merely reflects my personal opinion on the North American school system. You are entitled to your own so feel free to comment below. Please be respectable of others when commenting, no vulgar, offensive, rude languages allowed. Thank you.
The most valuable commodity
The North American school system is the backbone of our great nation. Able to manufacture talents at a pace unforeseen before in the history of man. After all, it the equation was quite simple: Educated people have more potential to advance the country's interests thus giving the empire a “leg-up” against its enemies. In short, the citizens were the ultimate commodity. So how does a nation speed up this process?
There was a time when education was less accessible and only the noble or wealthy can obtain it. To meet the growing demands during the industrial revolution, education had to become more affordable, accessible but above all else, it had to be brutally efficient. The quality of education didn’t matter as much as the quantity. The primary goal was to achieve a critical mass so everyone can learn the basics and function normally in an urbanized new reality. Progress was all that mattered and we mistakenly associated results with progress.
Thus, in an attempt to make education more accessible, affordable and efficient, we’ve adopted a “one size fits all” mantra. Fast forward to the 21st century, many of our schools are still reminiscence of archaic methods and values from the 19th century. A secondary school's reputation is based solely the number of graduates they can successfully get into an ivy league post-secondary. While the ivy league school's reputation is based on their increasingly expensive tuition and how many applicants they reject per year to give an illusion of prestige. If this all seems like a cooperate game to you, you're not wrong.
As the quality of our education increased, so has tuition fees. In an attempt to put a price tag on education, the school board has created an ecosystem that constantly drives up the barrier to entry. School tuition has been increasing at a rate of 197% vs. the 1.37% inflation per year. I accept the fact that schools are businesses and teachers need jobs. However, it's a matter of ethics when it comes to how much is acceptable because the current model is not.
The Concequences
Intentional or not, our school system is responsible for breeding laziness and mediocrity. Don’t believe me? Modern education puts more emphasis on the end result (grades) rather than progress itself. Schools encouraging memorization of facts rather than encouraging critical thinking. The result is a system that can be cheated. Any students who are moderately smart will eventually figure out how to cheat the system by doing the bare minimum to pass. Many had gone through school and retained only a fraction of the facts they’ve learned because it’s simply not applicable to our everyday lives.
The grades system is created for colleges and universities so they may efficiently sort through mountains of applications effectively. We, as a society have allowed the school system to influence our values because without going through a reputable institution, you can forget about having a good career. As the society becomes increasingly more fast-paced and competitive, we became guilty of dumbing down quality to just two variables: Money and grades. Simply because the alternative much too complex and expensive to consider; having to customize assessment of each individual based on their unique merits. However, this doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. For starters, I believe it’s about time we changed the education system to reflect our current values as a society of the 21st century. We are due for a change.
Possible* future of education
Below are areas of our education system I believe we can improve upon today:
1.) Core life skills important for success should be taught in school: self-discipline, etiquette, cooking, finance management, real estate etc.
1.) Education should be less about mass duplication, but more about nurturing individuals. Students should be free to pick and choose their subjects after grade 8 with the exception of core life skills.
3.)Students who are struggling should receive the most attention and not the other way around. A possible solution could be separate classes for students who are getting Cs and Bs.
4.) Education should be fun and engaging. It should be a requirement for a teacher to be passionate about their jobs or they aren't doing it right.
Feel free to comment below if you wish to add to the list.