When is the last time you left your house without your cellphone? I bet you can’t even remember. We use or phone for so many things in our lives as GPS, to communicate with others, to entertain us when we are bored, etc. We have become a society that is highly dependent on the use technology to survive. The impact of technology has been a really popular topic for discussion recently. Everywhere we turned we are surrounded by it. Smartphones, Tv’s, Computers, are all part of our daily lives. Things have changed so much throughout the years. Everything is online, I cant remember the last time I saw an actual dictionary. With all these advancements in technology it has forced society to learn to adapt to it. The world is revolving and constantly changing, so why is the education system remaining stagnant? Schools are still being taught like they were hundreds of years ago. Many students are expected to sit in a class and get lectured for an hour. I am sorry but how is that learning?
Students aren’t robots they shouldn’t be expected to just sit, and listen to someone rant for hour. This isn’t engaging the students at all, no wonder so many people have a hard time saying awake in class. The whole theory of regurgitating information as the most common method of learning is terrible. What is that really teaching us to be as active members of society? We are practically being taught that in order succeed in school you must be good at listening, memorizing, and repeating the given information back. We are basically preparing children to be virtually copies of each other. We are taking away creativity, and everything that makes a person unique. This system of learning isn’t showing academic growth, an individuals capabilities, or anything other than a students memorizing and test taking abilities.
Not every kid was designed to learn black and white. So we shouldn’t be teaching kids in one style. People learn things in many different ways, and our the educational system should be more tailored to that. Some kids are horrible test takers, but once they have the ability to work on things hands on, or in a group they excel. I think our educational system needs to make a lot of changes to catch up to the current times. I think it would be more beneficial to have more of a interactive approach. Technology would be so helpful if we used it in the right ways. If teachers would create interactive activities for students to complete I think students would be a lot more engaged. Personally in classes when a teacher lectures if she supplements those lectures with videos, and diagrams I found myself retaining a lot more of the information. Many children love playing video games. Why is that? In a video game, the game designers introdcue elements that capture different emotions of players. I remember in one of my english classes in high school my teacher was talking about conformity. I had no idea what conformity meant, and kept zoning out till we started doing this assignment. He asked us to write our names on a piece of paper. Everyone wrote there names on the left corner one under another. My teacher never said where to write our names, but we were all so use to doing it like that. From that day on I have never forgot that assignment or the concept of conformity. What I loved about this assignment was it was engaging, and I am able to recall the information I had learned to this day.
Learning is a lot easier when students can connect it to something they know. If a student is struggling and doing poorly in a class they are more likely to give up, because they feel as if there is no point in trying. Why do you play sports? They’re hard for sure yeah, but the feeling of being good at something or winning is what gets you to keep trying. This feeling is often noted as ‘flow’ by psychologists. Flow is a physiological state that a person enters when their skill level evenly matches, the challenge. You see this a lot of times in games. In the game Tic Tac Toe for a player of my age the skill level is way surpassed the challenge so after a few rounds the player becomes uninterested. On the other hand a person who tries to snowboard down a the summit for the first time, will probably find it too difficult and give up. This is the issue with school. We are not engaging students properly. When a child finds school to easy they don’t try and get bored. When a student struggles they get frustrated, and stop putting effort in. If our schools could create a system of flow where students skill level is evenly matched to their level of course work I think many more students would succeed.
One thing the education system is doing well is the art, and music classes. I think classes that help students express their creativity is very beneficial to their quality of learning. Art and music classes also help students take a break in between some of their more difficult classes. Another positive benefit of the education system is the options of trade schools. In high school I took an L.N.A program which was one of the most benefical things I did. I learned so much valuable skills that have helped me prepare for my future career as a nurse. Trade schools are good for many kids because they teach a varsity of skills culinary, automotive, cosmetology, and many others. I strongly believe that our school system should be teaching kids especially high schoolers life skills such as how to write a check, or other skills that are necessary to be an adult. If we could use technology to our advantage we could improve the education system drastically.
marissaallyson 