Dear Bored of Education,
…so are we.
The average person spends about 17 years of their life behind a desk in our much beloved education system. If you take out the months of summer vacation, that leaves about 153 months; that can also be broken down even further to about 4,654 days…and don’t even get me started on grad school. My point? That’s a long time…but you probably didn’t click on this article to learn that you have been in school for a long time. If you are anything like me, you probably only clicked on this because you slightly chuckled at the tongue-in-cheek nature of the title. Now that I’ve captured your attention, keep reading.
We young adults have grown up through this academic adventure, if you will. We began in kindergarten (some preschool) and have been climbing up the proverbial steps of academia to reach where we are now: an institution of higher learning. We are all sensitized to this system we’ve been a part of for years because our parents said it was good for us. We discovered that the key to knowing that we’ve done well or have made it is by seeing the first letter of the alphabet embroidered on our papers in big, red ink; reciting what our teachers and professors have told us like some old-fashioned game of Memory.
Dear Bored of Education,
…so are we.
Now this soliloquy isn’t being recited to poke fun and complain that our education system is broken. “Flawed” and “broken” are two different things. I will say, however, it is not a “one-size-fits-all” system; it does not work for everyone. According to the U.S. Department of Education in 2008, almost 45 percent of students who start college end up not finishing. Now, why is that? There could be any number of reasons, all of which as likely as the next. One novel idea that could be related is stress; more so the stress of making the grades that society has become convinced is the ultimate goal of success. We live in a day and age where the only letter in the alphabet that actually matters is the A; anything less and we cast it aside searching and training for that A.
Propaganda, the Christian rap artist/poet who was actually the inspiration for this article, taught in high school for six years before he became a full time touring artist. He advocates a more hands-on tactic to learning as opposed to the more theoretical approach. Propaganda explains this with an example of a mother teaching her child how to wash dishes, citing how she sits the child on a stool and gives him the opportunity to learn firsthand through actual experience. Propaganda refers to that stool as a “magical ladder into an alternate universe” where children were exposed to “information only those with driver’s licenses and facial hair had.”
What is ineffective about the education system is that it puts so much value on passing exams and writing award-winning essays and not enough on experience in its own right. It’s perfectly fine to strive to do well and do the best you can in school; just do not overexert yourself for A’s and A’s only. In the real world, it’s all about experience. Guess what, y’all? Failing is part of the experience you will need to do well in life. Life is all about failure and rising up like a phoenix from the ashes of your defeat.
Dear Bored of Education,
…so are we.
Another study in 2009 by Purdue University took ten classes of eighth grade students and taught them about human impacts on water and its quality. Half of the classes learned through the traditional textbook and lecture method whilst the other half through engineering design modules. Both classes were tested before and after the lessons to measure understanding growth. The students who went through the engineering design modules were measured to have a “deeper understanding” on the concepts involved than the lecture-taught students. More tactile forms of learning seem to engage students more, and it makes sense. Personally speaking, I remember learning a lot of my grade-school science knowledge from those classic Magic School Bus computer games. It was able to create a learning experience that exceeded anything I had ever experienced within the walls of standard education.
Again, my point is not for all of you to re-evaluate your lives and suddenly discover that you should quit college. I just believe there is a method of examining the skills we will need to have in the outside world without the use of the standard test/essay format. While I am probably coming off a wee bit hypocritical as I mention this next bit, I do not believe college is for everyone. There are other viable options in today’s day and age. There is also room for change in the education system, but how remains to be the million dollar question. Learning by doing, as Propaganda put it, is “such a crazy concept, it just might work.”
