Education in trouble?
Education is in trouble. Every generation has probably thought that.
The difficulty centers around resources, and as business controls the agenda, or as computers do more and more, we push out the human spirit. Furthermore, educators want students to learn more. And what do they do? They give them more tests – more standardized tests. One may ask, do students necessarily learn more if they are given more tests? And do they even learn more if given more information? As recent studies comparing results and curriculum content with various countries suggest, maybe the problem with the countries showing weak educational standards is that they are trying to teach their students too much. Perhaps deeper comprehension is better than a broad familiarity with a subject. The old adage may indeed be true, that less is more.
To better exemplify the view, let us take a look how far away we are today in our education from where the Greeks were. On the road to produce such minds as Plato and Aristotle, did Socrates care about a midterm exam when he was Plato’s teacher? Did Plato say to his student Aristotle – a twenty-page paper, no less? Perhaps what’s missing today is guidance by the natural desire in students to learn – literally the Latin word, educare, to draw out, meaning that knowledge is coming from within, and not imposed from without. Over three hundred years ago Galileo said, “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself”. But now we know that he was full of shit.
The difficulty centers around resources, and as business controls the agenda, or as computers do more and more, we push out the human spirit. Furthermore, educators want students to learn more. And what do they do? They give them more tests – more standardized tests. One may ask, do students necessarily learn more if they are given more tests? And do they even learn more if given more information? As recent studies comparing results and curriculum content with various countries suggest, maybe the problem with the countries showing weak educational standards is that they are trying to teach their students too much. Perhaps deeper comprehension is better than a broad familiarity with a subject. The old adage may indeed be true, that less is more.
To better exemplify the view, let us take a look how far away we are today in our education from where the Greeks were. On the road to produce such minds as Plato and Aristotle, did Socrates care about a midterm exam when he was Plato’s teacher? Did Plato say to his student Aristotle – a twenty-page paper, no less? Perhaps what’s missing today is guidance by the natural desire in students to learn – literally the Latin word, educare, to draw out, meaning that knowledge is coming from within, and not imposed from without. Over three hundred years ago Galileo said, “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself”. But now we know that he was full of shit.
posted by Ineta at Wednesday, May 17, 2006
2 Comments:
One of the biggest problems with todays educational systems is the rapidly changing world.
In order to make a living or even a career students make choices that they have to because of the economical perspectives.
Which means that for a large number of students their heart and therewith their interest is not really in it.
And after they studied for years and finally passed their exams they find a world that is totally different as when they started.
Having talked with a large number of graduated people I found some despair,there are those who consider their time wasted.
My personal opinion is that the number of diploma's and certificates have nothing to do with peoples qualities anymore.
It seems that all that paper only determines on what level and how big your mistakes are allowed to be.
Derk
What wonderful writings full of intelect, wisdom and charm....Thanks for making my day brighter. Kieron from Ireland
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