Education Vs Conformity

Looking at the actual amount of conformity present in schools, as opposed to the ideal amount, it seems that schools have moved past a healthy level to a point where students don’t often have to genuinely think for themselves. On a basic level, students don’t have to plan or use their judgment to ensure that they arrive to class on time. They become dependent on bells to tell them when they need to be in class and when they are late (Source B). On a more complex level, students rarely have to use their problem solving skills to come to their own conclusions. Learning in the classroom is typically centered around the memorization of facts and methods as opposed to critical thinking. Students are requested to learn the details and regurgitate them on test day, despite the fact that very little of it will be remembered later on. On the rare occasions when students are confronted by a critical thinking question, they often struggle as they have little practice in this area. If schools were to put more emphasis on individuality, where students could think freely and responsibly and contribute their own ideas, students would better themselves and society

For example, my very intelligent child had been labeled as a “trouble maker” at a young age. He could not sit still in Kindergarten and focus on lessons. He had not yet developed these skills that were expected of him. Children are designed for movement and play. In a formal school setting, these natural impulses are stifled and pushed aside to obtain high test scores. The school system is designed to create a model student conformed to produce model citizens.

Yet even with these realizations that delve into the deeper meaning of education, modern education is still calling for simple measurable outcomes and continues to be geared towards specific employment ideas. This model of education is blatantly inadequate though. Many students today will end up holding jobs not yet invented in fields not yet discovered, so the teaching of answers to today’s questions is utterly useless. Albert Einstein once said, “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” and this statement reigns true throughout time. To continue academic success, the education system needs to impart a mastery of one’s own mind that allows students to not only answer current questions but also to pose questions that will shape the future world.

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 manifest function of schools in our society is to socialize children. School grooms young people for the various roles and positions they will hold later in life by teaching them reading, writing, mathematics and the sciences. The various activities and experiences at school help expose children to values that are important in our society such as capitalism, so-called democracy and environmentalism. The text suggests that one of the latent functions of schools is actually producing “passive, non-problematic conformists who will fit into the existing social order (Gracey, 1991). Schools are able to do this by training children to act in specific ways and expect certain things from the authority figures in their lives.

“See nothing, hear nothing, you may not have any beliefs.” Many people think that conformity is harmful to children and that it makes them less imaginative, but not necessarily. School is an important part of people's lives, but we shouldn’t let them get away with being too lazy. Schools should have a daily bell schedule and kids should attend school every day, but we shouldn’t force kindergarteners to go through standardized testing. Children should conform to the ‘system’ but we shouldn’t stress them out. We shouldn’t make young children stress out about a big test that will change their future forever. We should have some conformity in schools but not to the point where it makes people overly stressed-out and anxious. School shouldn’t be like a prison.

The first time the education of children became serious was in the Age of Enlightenment. During this time, the quality of education was based on the economy, thus it was a primitive basis of education. The current education system still runs on some of these old ideas, but in truth, the validity of these principles has expired (RSA). However, the education system has developed somewhat, and some aspects of the information taught to students have advanced. Nevertheless, it is advancing in the wrong direction. The education students receive prepare them for college; it doesn’t prepare them for any other pathway. “When we went to school, we were kept there with a story which is if you worked hard and did well and got a college degree, you would have a job” (RSA). This is a common

Teachers are of vital importance for molding students into individual beings. They are the ones who are supposed to challenge kids on the significance of self-identity and individuality. According to Gatto, teachers are "bored" and highly un-enthusiastic to teach their young pupils (684). Instead of providing a real education that could touch the hearts of young students to learn and think, teachers have given much disregard for their students' success. Rather, students are given what Gatto describes as "schooling" where teachers train students to become "docile and incomplete citizens"(693). This type of learning leads to

In the United States, many lack the skills necessary for college. Unfortunately, the education system fails to prepare some of its students for work or higher learning. Despite these circumstances, teachers and bureaucrats seek improvements to obtain higher success. In spite of the pressure for success, the current situation is not yielding the desired results. Moreover, in the recent State of the Union Address in early 2014, President Barack Obama stated the need for improved education, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM fields. Yet, what should reformers pursue? Researchers have observed recurring problems to direct the improvement of education. The information presented, particularly over the past

There have been many critics of education. Authors like John Taylor Gatto, John Holt, Marie Battiste, Ivan Illich, and Paulo Freire have outright called for an end to compulsory schooling and have had an impact on many people’s thoughts and feelings about our current education system. Those authors feel that our current system has led to cultural oppression and is not conducive to future citizens to lead good lives but instead makes them sheep-like and thus only easier to control. Other authors and advocates like Ken Robinson call for a complete reform of education that will reflect 21st century values and skills and point out that the way we do school does not lead to the creativity we say we want in our citizens after they graduate high school. These criticisms are uncomfortable for educators to hear because it sounds like devaluing what we work so hard to produce but it’s important, as we move deeper into the 21st century to critically examine what we do in schools if we truly want to serve both individual students and society as a whole.

Everyone knows that education is very important, but not everyone understands why? Education is essential to help kids develop the skills necessary to prepare them for the modern world. Furthermore, education endows kids with the ability to be independent, creative, and innovative learners, which can help encourage kids to take on greater tasks. However, most schools lack the support for greater student success because they have outdated textbooks, bad school facilities, and no student autonomy. Therefore, holding back students from realizing their full potential and rendering them vulnerable to challenges. In order for students to become greater critical thinkers the federal government must reform the educational system and increase school funds so that schools can replace older textbooks with new ones, improve educational facilities, and permit greater student autonomy

adult life. Some people may even say that schools today teach their students to fail in life. Now it takes luck to get into a school that has valuable knowledge to give to their students. Some of the stuff that schools aren’t teaching that are very important are the simple stuff. For example, argumentative writing is a very simple and very important topic, yet some teachers won’t take the time to teach it. If teachers don’t take the time to teach this topic, then the students won’t know how to defend themselves in court. They would be completely unprepared because no one had ever taught them how to win an argument in the first place. Luckily though, there are some teachers who do teach the right stuff that kids need in the future. That still doesn’t change the fact that kids aren’t getting the right education they will need. Kids need to be taught the valuable stuff that they won’t forget and not the stuff that is not needed like dissecting a frog.

Every year it becomes more apparent that students are not being adequately prepared for society. There is an inverse relationship between the importance of education and the way the United States education system works. If high schoolers were thrown into the real world they would unquestionably not be prepared. High school students are learning to prepare for their next geometry test. Students are preparing to get an A on their test, and then most of the time, the information learned is forgotten. Lasting knowledge isn’t created by learning how to get an exceptional grade on a test or filling out worksheets upon worksheets. In the real world, you don’t succeed by getting A’s on tests and completing a packet on a science experiment. It’s immensely more than that, which is not being taught at high schools. Leon Botstein writes an essay proposing that in order to fix the problem of American High schools, that the American High School should be abolished. He states that graduation should come earlier. I support Botstein’s claim that high schools are obsolete and that graduation should come sooner for the reason that, students aren’t given the opportunity to understand what the real world is like behind the walls of a high school.

education. Society has shifted from words of reason and sensibility to an era with an epitome for

We exist in a state where education is a prominent force of succeeding in life. Kids learn the critical and analytical skills for twelve years in school to prepare to graduate high school, and hopes of going on to a two or four college education. Today the American education system is no longer the finest in the world. With declining test scores and poor scholastic accomplishment, individuals have addressed whether our current educational system is working for us? To see how to tackle an issue, we must first understand what we are attempting to fix. Case in point, can a carpenter without any former medical experience repair a puncture lung? Obviously not, he or she must first hold the proper schooling necessary to do such a