So what are we getting out of this blog? This like many other assignments are done by students to get the grade while the concept of the assignment is lost. I truly wonder how many people will read this blog entry or even comment on it. I believe that the lack of passion and understanding of assignments is lost because of two reasons: the way we were brought up and the way the school system is set up.
As children we are brought up to get the best grades as possible and if we do get good grades we will be successful. I, like many others, would get into trouble for bad grades which gave more incentive to make the grades. The flaw that arise from this is teachers, parents, and students do not care about how the grades are made, they care only about the grades. This leads to poor work and a loss of what the true meaning of school is, to learn. This up bring also rewards people who not understand the material the best or who try the hardest, but it rewards those who can regurgitate information on a test one or two times but can quickly forget the information right after the test. Cram studying is a result from this up bringing. Studying for hours the night before a test often leads to good grades on the test but the information does not stay in the brain. The one day studying session stores information in the short term memory area instead of many days of studying which stores information in the long term memory area. Today’s up bringing teaches kids not to learn but to cheat the system.
The way that the school system is set up does not test students grasp of concepts but instead it tests the ability of students to put words on paper. The students often just know what to write in but they do not understand why to write it. This is detrimental to both students and society because students are not learning and our society is losing many capable minds. The ways that the schooling system is set up it breeds cheating. Students realize that all they need to do is put the right answer on the paper, how they get it does not matter to them. Many teachers who have caught students do not follow through with the punishments that are set up by the universities and institutions. Often the teacher will chime, “Keep your eyes on your own papers.” The teacher does not bring them to the honor committee or give them zeros, many teachers just do not care. With a school systems that does not push students to learn concepts, the students will take the easy way out.
Many assignments are done by students not to practice what they learn in class but just to get credit. Some students wait till the last minute and even do some assignments in class before it is collected. I believe that our schooling system needs to change, fewer assignments with more meanings and importance is what our school system needs. So who will read this? Who will comment on it?
I definitely agree that our educational priorities need overhauling.
ReplyDeleteI hope you'll find that your college education is not like this, or certainly not to the degree that school up to this point has been. College is supposed to be about learning new ways to pay attention to and understand the world; hopefully, that's actually true to some extent. I hope you find real-world value in most of your classes.