Week 7

In this week’s reading, “I Love Learning, I Hate School” by Susan Blum I found myself agreeing with everything Blum had to say. One specific quote on page 15 states, “I saw that the way school is set up does not match the usual ways people learn. Our schooling takes people away from the flow of life, forcing them to please teachers, emphasizing cognitive and individual mastery of isolated pieces of knowledge or procedure, making every bit a morsel stuffed away for later. High-achieving students regard their primary goal as “getting good grades.” Their meaningful pursuits largely occur outside classes. This is not effective. It has ill effects. It is wasteful on every level.”

I believe that the way many school systems are set up does not allow the students to fully enjoy learning by subjecting them to doing things a very specific way and anything else being wrong. Everyone learns in different ways and I don’t think that schools prioritize individualizing methods of teaching enough for their students to help them learn and achieve their goals. Another thing that I disagree with is the high standards that are made for students. I have always been an A or B type of student, but will admit it can get very stressful. It is difficult to enjoy a class while having to worry so much about how to achieve high standards. I think it is ok to have high standards but the problem is not having the right methods to achieve them by placing so much pressure on students and not letting them enjoy the learning.