Ideally, Education

Ironically written for a school assignment

To adequately design the ideal education system requires a fundamental goal and purpose. What is the point of school anyways? At its core, it should be to properly prepare children for the future. Schooling should supposedly increase the chances of success in one’s future — but this definition of success is highly subjective in itself. Say you have student A and student B. They both take the IQ test: student A has an IQ of 150, and student B has an IQ of 80. Who do you think will be more likely to succeed in the future? Logically, the student with the higher IQ, right? This is not always the case, however. The IQ test predominantly tests critical thinking skills, mathematical skills, language skills — mostly left brain material. Ten years later, student B is a world renowned artist; an epitome of success. Turns out, student B is exceptional in areas the IQ test does not measure: creative ability, social competence, and emotional capacity. To an extent, the current education system in America was designed after the IQ test, under the same assumption made above. When the hierarchy of subjects in all levels of education were established almost a century ago, they were designed to meet the needs of industrialism where “useful” subjects took priority — maths, sciences, languages. The point is, the system is broken. The original basis of the system is why Picasso once said, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” It needs to be redesigned from the ground up. At its very foundation, there needs an emphasis on active learning and a modified college admissions system.

Paulo Freire profoundly described the current education system as a “banking education”, where information is dumped in students’ brains and regurgitated in an endless cycle. He hits the bullseye with this metaphor; it outlines exactly what learning should not be. In fact, it should not even be classified as learning. Actually learning requires a technique called active learning (as opposed to passive learning) in which students critically study the material, drawing connections and conclusions.

Freire describes this as “an attitude of inward questioning through which increasingly one begins to see the reasons behind the facts”, instead of simply memorizing the fact without further thought. In a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, after Calvin answers a history question regarding the date the pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock, he goes on a short rant on passive learning: “As you can see, I’ve memorized this utterly useless fact long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You’ve taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system”.

It is all too true – in fact, after I finish this assignment (which does require active learning, bravo), I will begin the arduous task of memorizing specifics on how the Europeans discovered the new world. Of course, it is far easier to accomplish this type of learning in some subjects than others. Most English classes already involve a decent amount of active learning, but it is a little more difficult for history classes, and much more difficult in non-humanities subjects. This is all easier said than done, and the Common Core initiative is a step in the right direction. Common Core attempts to test more critical thinking skills than brute memorization, but still has its pitfalls and criticisms. It is inherently difficult to design a one size fits all system that tests more abstract standards — but over time hopefully we will see more and more adaptation to achieve the ideal balance, as Freire puts it, “to create and re-create ideas”.

The college admissions system is broken. In fact, a majority of the reason why the high school education is criticized is because of it. It puts too much emphasis on numbers and the factors that contribute to the calculations of the numbers. The SAT, a test that makes up for a portion of one’s admissions, is flawed even with the recent changes to supposedly address concerns of brute memorization, but for the sake of length, that is a discussion for another time. How can a student be represented by an SAT score which shows a student’s ability to learn passively in biased subject areas? The same applies to GPA. When more than half of the admissions decision relies on these numbers, students are designing their life to make their number and application look the most promising. It is impossible to go to Saratoga High and not be aware of the infamous SAT tutor Jay Koo. He charges $250 for a one and a half hour session — I kid you not.

The SAT test prep market is valued at a whopping one billion dollars, and this should most definitely not be the case. I’m not trying to just blatantly rant on the SAT’s , but the SAT is one of the fundamental reasons why students are afraid to get things wrong. You are penalized for getting a wrong answer. Just think about that for a second. Students are under the impression that getting something wrong is the worst thing to happen, and this is reflected throughout one’s high school career. A reason why pretty much every student has used Sparknotes to answer analytical questions is because he/she is afraid of being wrong in his/her interpretation. Sir Ken Robinson’s infamous TED talk on how schools kill creativity also emphasizes this point — the education system “stigmatizes mistakes”. While a blanket solution to solve this problem is possible, it requires a complete overhaul that is just not realistically feasible. Avoiding failure is already embedded into students. However, colleges and the College Board can easily help fix at least part of this problem by redesigning standardized tests to test different things. Have all students take a test that tests cognitive and academic skills. Use the results of that test to determine where a student stands on a left brain/right brain scale, and then have them take tests on areas that he/she is stronger in. Modifications to the admissions process will significantly benefit how the student learns in the education system today, regardless if its the ideal one or not.

In the end, everything is easier said than done. The goal should be to design an education system where Picasso’s statement does not fully apply anymore.