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Re: The promise of college for our generation
I would like to make the following observation to try to explain why what I observered earlier is happening. I would like to see if you guys agree.
#1 A student cannot be told to have a successful education, it MUST come from within that student's mind.
Ultimately everyone is in charge of their own life, and yet, through out a child's education, he or she is told what to learn, when to learn, where to learn, how to learn, and why. As soon as they enter high school, they are immediately faced with a 4 year plan of courses they have to take if they want to graduate high school and continue in a higher education institution. Along the way they have to do well in standardized testing, get good grades, as well as take AP classes and do as much out-of-school activities as possible if they were to have a chace at some of the more competitive schools.
I do not deny that there are necessary things in school that you must learn in order to be a successful human being. But by the time students are ready for colleges, they have been drilled by their education so long that that method of learning is the only one they know. I am, of course, making generalization here. There are many students who are able to decide for themselves what to learn, when to learn, where to learn, how to learn, and why. But, I do not see that anywhere near the emphasis of our education system. Students weren't told to think about why they should learn as much as the what, where, how, and when, and I believe that's a major problem.
Why you learning, to me, should be just as important a pirority any other things they teach in school.
#2 Students are different and each require different pace and different method when they are learning.
There should be no doubt about this. Some students are ready for college before they graduate high school. Some aren't ready even after they are already done with it. It is aparently to me that not every one is suitable for the whole elementary-middle-high school then a degree in a 4 year college path. It is aparent to me that some maybe more successful in a technical school or a job training school, while other will be great to move onto a master degree or a PhD. It is aparently to me that some need time to figure out what they want to do with their lives and some need more opportunity to see what paths they can take, while others do know their path since they were 12.
If it is aparent to me, why is it not aparently to the rest of the world? Why is the education system in general seems to only work for one particular kind of student and that kind of student only?
Well, I do know why. It's because it is expensive. Too expensive to have a small class room with teachers paying more attentions to individual students, it is too expensive to have a flexible system for many types of students, and it is too expensive to be doing all these things to inspire a child's mind and show him or her the huge world out there. It is also too expensive when school has to do a job that the parents, the government, the culture, and the world should've been doing in the first place. School cannot afford to do everything necessary to prepare a student for lives as an adult, yet the general idea is that that's what their job is.
#3 There are just too much to learn.
As soon as a student starts school, he or she must hit the ground running and try to keep up with the pace. In high school, you have to learn English, math, science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology), history, US government, foreign language, the arts, economics, physical education, and many more.
There are lots of important things to learn there, and one must be exposed to as many kind of classes as possible in order to gain a boarder prespective to the world out there. Only, that's not exactly what happened. Because there are so many things to learn, you must keep your head down and get ready for cramming and testing as soon as you start. There are so many information that you must hurry to start studying for everything before you have a chance to take a breath and look at what you are learning and why. There are too many to learn that there's no boarder prespective of all of these classes anymore.
Of course, it only gets worse at a college. Ever seen the amounts of degrees you can get at a pretty decent 4 years college? Arts and humanities, social science, and science and engineering. Each brach ready to grant you 1 of 100 degree if you know exactly what you want. Of course, within each degree there are emphasis, different ways you can approach the degree.
All these are very important. But what about the world outside? What about the fact that you can't learn everything and that there is no text book or standardized testing or answers in the back of the book when you go out? What about there is no right answers in many things in this world?
There are way too much to learn, and that's not including the fact that there is no set curriculum, no test, no book, no grades good enough to make you successful beyond those things.
That's the end game for education, isn't it? What happens after school when you are out there in the world picking up the burden the previous generation left behind for you? The goal is to have students ready to face the world and lead our society into the future after their education, isn't it?
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Hardware Test Engineer supporting RE<C, Google.
1999-2001: Team 192 Gunn Robotics Team
2001-2002: Team 100, 192, 258, 419
2002-2004: Western Region Robotics Forum, Score Keeper @ Sac, Az, SVR, SC, CE, IRI, CalGames
2003-2004, 2006-2007: California Robot Games Manager
2008: MC in training @ Sac, CalGames
2009: Master of Ceremony @ Sac, CalGames
2010: GA in training @ SVR, Sac.
2010-2011: Mechanical Mentor, Team 115 MVRT
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