An Editorial About Education From The Inside Looking Out

It is testing season here in the Commonwealth so I am reminded daily of how, in my opinion, we are failing our kids by using a system that utilizes standardized tests.

While I have a lot of faith in the generation I am teaching (or is it better put testing), I do worry about their perception of education.  So many of our kids are driven away from education, away from the idea of learning, or ever pursuing further education because we as teachers are forced to teach to standards comprised by people who have little real understanding of education or teaching.  We do not need to look anywhere else than to working class to see this in play.  Education had long been a way for people to rise above their current station in life, yet today those that would benefit the most from school are being turned off to it.  Most of my students who could really benefit from a broad based, classical education (in the model of Jefferson, Franklin or even Steven Jobs) are the very students who are flunking out because they are being forced to learn in a way that is not conducive to them. In turn we are turning off students in droves. 

This does not even take into consideration the intellectual welfare of the working class. Americans in the working to lower classes, I would lay money, compare little to those of the same status in Europe or Asia. Even the most basic information seems to be lost on those who leave school or do not pursue advanced degree. Ignorance (not stupidity..ignorance..there's a difference) abounds in the working poor of America, and it is not limited to the working poor, but the working middle as well. In his writings, Thomas Jefferson opined that education is a necessary component to the survival of the American Democracy. The educated body politic is needed to elect the very best, understand the laws passed, and stand up if incorrectly treated. This is not happening in America and the standardization and routtenization of the American education is to blame.

In addition to the turning off of students in the classroom by hamstrung teachers we are doing serious damage to the physical  nature of these students.  Not only are physical education requirements being depleted, but we are pumping our students full of medicines in order to keep them in their seats long enough to dump into their minds the information that is going to be on the test. Who really knows the long term effect medicines to "cure" ADD, AD/HD will have on the generations to come. Le us just conclude that I am thankful for having never been placed on them as a student, and I would venture to say that my un-born children do as well.

In closing, testing, in my mind, shines a very bright spotlight on a gross double standard in America today.  We have initiatives trotted out almost daily to induce creativity and encouraging students to "think out side the box" yet we are forced daily to test them on a prescribed set of knowledge in the same way we have always done it. Which focus are we to follow? I would love to be able to teach my subject how I see fit, I chafe under the fact that I am forced to teach the same way all of the other teachers of my subject do across the Commonwealth. Yes there is room to expand some here and there, but little.

We need to think outside the box, we need to be able to run our students wild with enthusiasm about the American government. Are we afraid of that? What would be wrong with anger being replaced with optimism and willingness? Our problems do not lie in the American political system, but in the public perception. Where does the incorrect public perception come from? The lack of proper education about the American political system.