It’s safe to say that school is a vital part of society. Education is instrumental in uplifting the next generation to be the best they can be through the development of their passions and interests as well as their thinking skills. It’s safe to assume that being in a place with this purpose in mind would be an exciting and uplifting experience, especially for its students.
But how many can honestly say that they enjoy school?
It’s easy for parents and teachers to shrug their shoulders and think it’s just how kids are, and it’s easy for students to eventually accept the everyday monotony and move on with their lives. But this is a much more glaring issue than many people realize.
How is school such a slog if it intends to enrich and empower its students? Does it even do so in the first place?
What is school doing wrong?
These are questions that I hope to answer in this article and, in doing so, highlight our school system’s faults for the betterment of students everywhere.
Firstly, School values facts over learning. This may sound like a strange phrase, but it begins to make sense once you look a little deeper into exactly how students are taught. It is common for students to sit at a desk, taking notes about a lecture from the teacher and stuffing as much information into their brains as possible. This takes away importance from the learning itself. Students aren’t learning because they are interested in the topic, to apply anything they know in their lives, or even for the sake of learning in and of itself. They learn because they need to increase their grades. After all, they were told to.
Because they have to. And in doing so, they devalue the pursuit of knowledge more and more.
Secondly, School stifles creativity. Perhaps an even bolder claim, but one that can be statistically proven. In 1968, a man named George Land was commissioned by NASA to study the nature of creativity. To this end, 1,600 children aged 3-5 took part in a creativity test initially created for NASA recruits. A whopping 98% of these children scored at the creative genius level. They were officially as creative as NASA scientists! However, a follow-up survey 5 years later highlighted a disturbing trend: only 30% out these same children scored at the created genius level. And yet another 5 years later, only 12% scored that high.
Why would this be linked to school? If we think back to the points presented earlier, the average classroom environment usually does not give much room or reward for outside-the-box thinking. What gets good grades is not creativity but productivity. Creativity is stimulated and developed by thinking about multiple possibilities, but on tests and assignments, there is usually only one correct answer. You don’t get good grades for trying things on your own but for doing the things you are told to do on time.
A third problem with school is one I have alluded to many times, and the one that is likely the most concerning: the way it fosters and enforces obedience. This is not a recent development; in fact, it goes back literal centuries. A study done by the American Political Science Review has found historical patterns from as far back as 1828 from multiple countries of education reforms, including mandatory primary education in times of mass crises and dissent. These reforms were designed mainly to suppress said dissent. On this topic, San Diego assistant professor Augusta S. Paglayan states, “After several violent uprisings in the late 18th century, such as Shays’ rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion, politicians became increasingly interested in education. Soon after Shays’ Rebellion, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison relaying that it should be taught in schools that violence is an illegitimate way for citizens to express discontent and that it should be drilled into them to express it by voting.”
This was likely done with benevolent intentions, but even today, the repercussions of this focus on obedience are unnerving. Students have no real reason for doing anything in school other than the fact that they have to, and this approach has had devastating consequences throughout history. Racism, Fascist governments, and other destructive philosophies grow in power because people give in and obey them.
This is not what should be ingrained into students. They should not be woken up at 7:00 am or earlier just to spend more than half of their day sitting at a desk listening to someone else speak. They should not have their creativity stifled, and they definitely should not be trained for obedience. It is becoming clearer that change is necessary for our school system. Students, as well as society as a whole, deserve better.