Education

In Blum’s book she tells us about students loving school but hating learning. Students don’t learn in a classroom because of the standards teachers hold them to. Students are only trying to meet the expectations of the teacher to get good grades. They aren’t actually focused on learning the material in front of them. Teachers and students both only care about the test scores. Blum later tells us how learning in school could be changed based off what the students need. She says students don’t need to learn based off of the teachers curriculum but should learn based off of their needs. All students come from different backgrounds and different home lives so their needs in school and for learning are different. Students should learn actual life lessons and not whatever the teacher says is important. Teachers and students should be focused on the students and their learning needs. If students were truly learning what they wanted to learn and what they thought was helpful students wouldn’t be cheating in classes and just “going through the motions” to get the work done. I can personally attest to going through the motions and only learning what was going to be on the test. My high school only cared about how many advanced placement classes we could take and how many of the test we could pass to make the school itself look better. They didn’t actually care about what we learned as long as we looked good on paper. I think Blum really helps the readers understand what students go through to get an education but it turns out they aren’t really learning.