Conforming Structure Of Public Education

Various philosophies play a role in the education system today. A combination of many philosophies has helped to strengthen educational practices. Society, teachers, students, and families all play an important part in the overall academic growth and social achievements. Schools have a responsibility for educating and preparing students for their future. The success of schools affects society by either producing productive citizens for the community or by contributing to social problems by students not reaching full potential. I believe that the role that schools play in society makes a lasting impression on both the current state of education along with future success in the community. It is also apparent that society can affect schools by imposing beliefs or values. It is in the best interest of both the school and society if they can work as one to build a strong community for learners to grow, develop, and achieve success. The amount of future success in a society is often determined by educational opportunities and achievements. If as a society, education is highly regarded, then it will be a strong motivating factor for achievement and will affect the community as a whole in the end.

I agree with the point that was made in the video about conformity that occur in the American education system. Conformity is a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group. However, conformity is not just acting as other people act, it is also being affected by how they act. it is acting or thinking differently from the way you would act and think if you were alone (pg 188). Nowadays people are choosing not to study they just want to be on the internet and be playing video games because they are conforming to the society new ways of not wanting to study or even finish school. Meanwhile, the best things is to be focus in school so you can have a good career. According, to the video, divergent

The new regulations seem to be highly demanding, but Judy Steiner is a strong proponent for standardization. In her article “Implications of a standards-based curriculum for the teaching-learning-assessment process,” she discusses the importance of national standards and the advantages of setting standards. According to Steiner, “The setting of national standards allows for equal pupil opportunity. First, all pupils are judged by the same standards...Second, national standards clarify what pupils should know at different levels of their education” (9). She also notes that when individual teachers or schools set their own standards, there is a lack of consistency. Standards and assessment provide a way for measuring progress and can also influence early intervention if students are having problems. The purpose of the standards is to set higher expectations for both students and teachers. “Standards in and of themselves are meaningless,” Steiner says. “What is important are the steps that educators and others take to help pupils read them” (12). Standards can only work if schools and teachers find a good way to implement them, using appropriate materials and activities. Though teachers are told what to teach, it is still up to them to choose how to teach it. They are given a roadmap, but they still have a big role in developing curriculum material (Steiner 10). In this type of curriculum, assessment is viewed as a final product and a continual process to exemplify where

Education can be defined by how we as humans learn to interact with one another as well as obtaining the skills and perspectives needed to reach our full potential later in life. While education may seem straight forward, there are many ideas as to how it should be successfully presented. The authors, Pratt, Rodriguez, and Freire, all share my belief that educational freedom is vital to a positive classroom experience. Throughout this essay, I will be using their ideas to support why the system of education requires radical reformation.

Our individualism is spearheaded by our new bravery and willingness to be different. Years ago much of the emphasis was placed on fitting in the social structure comfortably and being similar to your peers. In our time it isn’t looked down on to be different and in many ways it is almost encouraged. It is now thought that you don’t want to be the same as the people around you in all ways and this rational has helped to create more independent young people.

Education is one of, if not the most vital part of life. However, as David Kearns, the CEO for Xerox once said “Our large schools are organized like a factory of the late 19th century: top down, command control management, a system designed to stifle creativity and independent judgment.” This quote helps to highlight the many flaws in modern education, which include seeking to hinder the development of deep thoughts and character. The system of education present in modern day America was established with an industrial mindset of each student serving the same purpose in society, and fails to accommodate the changing times, in which people have differing views, likes, and dislikes. School’s structure teaches students to learn and act in a

Teachers are an absolute necessity in today’s education system. For approximately fifteen years, children are under the heavy influence of their teachers. The example set by those in authority will have an impact on students regardless of what they may claim. While many Christian children are blessed with the opportunity to attend a Christian school, the public school system is full of hopeless, unloved, and unsaved children waiting to hear the truth. Christians have an obligation to reach out to these children and help them see the love of Christ. However, Christian teachers are not permitted to boldly proclaim the gospel to their students. They must employ more discreet methods to show students God’s love. Yet, some do not feel that Christians have any place in the public school system. Some would be surprised that a Church Music major would have a place or even be qualified to teach in a public school. With my major being Church Music, I am qualified and have a unique opportunity to minster to students musically in the public schools. Music opens up a door that other teachers may not ever have. I believe that Christian teachers can demonstrate Christ’s love to public school students effectively through musical education.

We, human beings, tend to assist to different levels of school, this with the reason of being educate and to learn all new kind of things. We assume that graduating from a high level of school, we are going to be more educated, but schools teach us only a small percent of what we really need to learn in life. Schools are responsible to teach students the basic skills to live in this world. The way education works has change in the last centuries, with the past of the time this changes has being affecting education at the point in which is now. Schooling has caused students and teachers to feel boredom during class, since all teachers are required to follow the programs that the district stablished, they can’t be able to though new things that contradicts the school board. Another problem schooling has showed in the last decades is the way schools though their students, by giving preferences to some students; this can be solved by being more equal with all students and eliminating the different types of social classes. These problems are affecting our education society because it’s teaching our future generations to be conformist people, to follow the rules and to never ask for more than what they need.

The Japanese educational system should change its unspoken policy of conformity. Since it is common that Japanese people do not say what they think directly, students somehow know that they should act together as a group in school. One of the reasons they do so is that behaviors of teachers toward students make them realize that the teachers prefer students to be uniform. For example, in elementary school, “the system tries to focus on the children and teaching them to be together, and the aim is to like learning and to form connection with each other and act as a group rather than focus on an individual” (Gunnarsdóttir 20). Teachers start to treat students as a group in school to teach them grouping when

Each new school year, an individual may face new challenges on their educational track. The child may be at a new school, they may have a new teacher, they may have new classmates, and they may have had something impact them over the summer that will be reflected in the classroom behaviors. Although there are factors that could influence a child’s education track, an important factor is the type of educational tradition the student receives. The three major types of educational traditions are conservative, progressive and critical. Between the three traditions of education there is overlap in some aspects of education, while there are stark contrasts in other aspects.

Private schools differ from public schools for many different reasons. The major difference is that the government, unlike private schools that are privately funded, funds public schools. Another difference would be that the private schools have more flexibility on what they can teach because the government does not fund them. One other difference that is very prevalent is the social goals of schooling. This topic is a very important issue that many parents struggle with when trying to figure out which school is best for their children, and to the teachers who are trying to decide which school to apply to. Because it is affecting the parents and the teachers, this influences everyone as a whole. Many of the differences between the school systems are religion, sex education courses, nutrition, pay rates, and crime within a school system. These are a few of the topics that will be discussed throughout this paper.

Over the course of my life, I have experienced a wide variety of schooling: I was homeschooled until the end of seventh grade, virtual-schooled through eighth and ninth grade, private schooled tenth grade, and finally public schooled at Ronald Reagan High School for the remaining two years. It was during these last two years that I was most conscious of my schooling and was able to observe imposed standards better than the other institutions I had attended. There I spent the critical years of my life, between childhood and adulthood, and was exposed to distinct organizational criteria. Although state funded, the school was also a member of the International Baccalaureate (IB), which meant it had outside forces imposing objectives on the

In our early stages of group discussions, it became apparent that the group was leaning towards the idea that authentic learning allows students to reach their potential in a range of environments. Our group started a discussion about whether traditional types of schooling can restrict education. Each student can be said to have different strengths in learning and by having each student participate in the same learning experiences as everyone else there is a possibility that students may not have their different strengths acknowledged. One question that was raised was ‘What is traditional schooling?’ Reflecting back on our own schooling experiences, we all attended a variety of schools but with similar outcomes in learning. Such experiences were teacher centred and rote learning, which we considered to be traditional schooling. It was from this that our group formed the idea that traditional schooling is not suited to every student’s individual needs and abilities but they are more suited to an authentic style of learning. Rousseau supports our ideas in saying that ‘Education in traditional schools ignored the child’s inherent unspoiled primitive natural instincts (Gutek, 2011).’ Theorists such as Locke and Neill add to this as they both support the idea of the natural environment having a positive effect on shaping a child’s education. Through our discussions we arrived at the philosophical question ‘Is education restricted to traditional types of schooling?’

The standard way of thinking about education is to believe that it empowers students, however some argue that it actually limits a student’s individuality. In his essay “Against School”, John Gatto demonstrates how the public educational system places limitations on its students. Gatto is an award-winning educator and has taught in public schools for almost twenty years. According to Gatto, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness…. simply by being more flexible about time, text, and tests….and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that.” (Gatto p. 115). In other words, public education has the ability to empower students, but because of the strict structure, focus on testing, and lack of autonomy, it is more restricting than empowering.

We tend to forget that whatever tools students need are not necessarily the ones that we received. For if we were trained for yesterday, students, on the other hand, will live and work twenty and thirty years from now, in a world whose contours we can hardly fathom. Schooling is trapped in the instruction mode, or in other words, indoctrination, far from the aspired horizon of education, as a communal, complex and liberating phenomenon. Reform movements cannot redeem the school from its shortcomings: they are merely more of the same, albeit in a different form; some sort of patchwork jobs.