When I was growing up, many schools were being built. These were small but well staffed and supplied.
There were four classes per grade and thirty children in each class.
In those days, testing was like a virus; it ran through the school and all sorts of I.Q, tests were given almost every year.
Streaming was a hallmark; and class trips were mandatory.
The purpose was to turn out brilliant people. Kids failed and were left back. Some were sent to ‘special schools’ for the extra stupid. Some to schools for the super bright.
Each child was unique, and teachers were forced to be everything from guidance counsellors to psychologists to disciplinarians.
In those days, if your parents were summoned to school, you were going to get a good beating when they came home. For in those days, manual discipline was standard.
This was a public school. It was free, paid for by tax dollars. There were no fees, and one received their texts which they used and returned.
Education was important.
Today, public schools are circuses, where the teacher is more interested in getting in and out safely than imparting information.
There is no streaming. A kid with a 90 I.Q. will sit next to one who has 155, and because no child can be left behind, the bright child is often drugged to keep him or her in stupor.
Autistic kids sit in classrooms and are passed from grade to grade because no one is going to bother, unless there are kickbacks to be made from referrals.
Parents send their children to expensive private schools to protect them, leaving those at Public Schools to flounder.
No one cares.
No one steps in and decides to build more schools, make classes smaller, test the child before entry to insure s/he is in a proper grade and proper class.
The idea is to get as many crammed into the classroom as possible, push them up the ladder and out and get more, and if the kid can’t read at the age of twelve, well, it’s someone else’s problem.
Education, to work, must be tailored for each child. Those who can go far are inspired. Those who can not are given basic skills.
Children should have their aptitudes carefully monitored so that the ones who would do better in one discipline or one profession are streamed.
There should be enough interesting moments to keep a child wanting to come back.
This would only happen if today, as it was my day, education is considered important.
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I was thinking that this disease if in India only till I read your post. It is really a sorry state of Affairs.
You are having almost all the bad elements that we are having in India. The following may kindly be added additionally to your education system;
1. Taking funds from the Government in the name toilet constructions,
2. Drawing funds for the development of sports activities
3. Teachers involving in local politics and supporting actively supporting a local M.L.A and not attending school for his job;
4. Whenever a teacher is transferred he comes with a recommendation letter of the local M.L.A who brings pressure on the Government for excluding his name from the list;
5. Teachers making good money in taking up money rotation schemes in their place of work as well as outside;
6. Frequently approaching the Government for some favor or the other along with their Union Leaders;
7. Introduction of Best Teacher Awards: meant for those who can properly feed the political party in power;
8. Poor Transportation facilities frequently leading to accidents and even death of children;
So we are quite developed. Kindly add to the education system existing in your country for further development. This is what we mean by Development. Still, there are many which do not find place to mention.
The issue I see is that schools are 'factories' where the child is like a product on a conveyor belt. A very bad state of affairs.
There has to be a different approach to education these days. While basic knowledge can be mass produced as you have put it, due to knowledge being available through other media what one learns in schools is just so that children get exposed to intermingling till they reach an age to branch out to what their apptitude suggests.
Exactly, and with the 'Net we can tailor to each child.
It's my senior year in high school and I can confidently say that the current education system is not meant for me. Our society has become so used to celebrating mediocrity that it actually harms growth by creating a dangerous sense of complacency.
I happen to have a deep love for mathematics, but I am drowning in five other classes that I care very little about. My math class is extremely rigorous with almost every second being used for something important to my learning; this constant efficient usage of time makes me happy to learn, whereas we make pointless posters and video projects in my other classes. All the other classes I am taking are so lax and inefficient likely because they have to cater to the majority, who are high school students who care little about learning, and more about passing. I realize that I probably sound like an elitist, but I feel as though I have a very valid opinion, because I have spent a huge portion of my life stuck in the classrooms I cannot stand.
As for the mass production of education, our watered down education is a direct result of trying to make it so widely available while sacrificing the quality of the mass produced education. I really do believe that everyone should have the opportunity to have an education, but it really sucks when the education you are given is a huge waste of time.
It really is frustrating to feel like I'm wasting away my days stuck in classrooms that hardly benefit me. I am super glad to be attending college next fall where I can hopefully learn to my hearts content.
Yes, the schools are not producing good students but parrot who cram text stuffs and appear in the exam when such students go in the field they become unsuccessful due to no true knowledge. While on the other hand there is not good atmosphere in the schools for the students in which the students could enhance their inborn talents for the coming generation.
The teachers are not experts in the school those who do not even ABC of English become teacher and lawyers in all countries of the world. I have sen in all countries our education system could produce any Shakespeare, Milton, GB Shah, Wordsworth....what the school teachers are doing and what the government is doing.
Privates school are being opened and their fees are more high than the government schools that is the poor students go to government schools and they become all dull while more intelligent students get admission in private schools where teachers are more qualified than the teachers of the government schools.
I am also a professor of English in my country the school conditions are very bad no teacher come, no student comes, no arrangements of any thing furniture broken, staff rough and dull, waste time in tits bits and gossip in the class. No teaching but tuition and just tuition just to earn money in spite of this the students fail all classes.
Very wretched condition of school all over the world no creation but cramming and just cramming, no learning but earning.