Editor’s Commentary:
As a counter-balance to the article we published earlier
today (Too
Cool for School), we coincidentally received the article below a few hours
later. It offers a different take on the education of children that keeps them
within the established system, but with a big shift in emphasis and process.
-prh, Editor
Axis of Logic
"It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be
entirely uneducated."
- Alec Bourne
Educational systems that stress standardized test scores
over independent reasoning have skewed education's lofty purpose. What Horace
Mann once claimed was the bastion of democracy is now an investment in a
socially ingrained view of "success." The pendulum of pedagogy is no
longer swinging but falling into the insular cave from Plato's Allegory; the
result is a deceived Generation Y who is taught that the futile information that
fills its hippocampus constitutes knowledge. Declining educational standards
have therefore rendered a global population of underachieving automatons who
are content to forego the pursuit of knowledge in search of yet another rung on
the socioeconomic hierarchy. Such a social
dilemma necessitates federal reform and civic awareness.
To counter memorization-based pedagogy and expose students
to self-driven education, governments should mandate Montessori schools that
adhere to John Dewey's principle of progressive education. Implementing charter
secondary schools that offer both a general syllabus and specialized
curriculums for interested students advances the Montessori ideal of individual
initiative by enhancing academic passions. This fosters higher educational
standards through an emphasis on the learning process, stifling the motive to
cheat that caused 125 Harvard students to transgress their university's motto
of Veritas. Urging institutions of
higher learning to decrease admissions weighting of college entry exams to 15%
will relieve the need for South Korean students to illegally attend
"cram" schools after 10:00 p.m. in order to pass the College
Scholastic Ability Test. This reduced emphasis on admission statistics
revitalizes knowledge from a means of socioeconomic "success" to one
of self-discovery. For children who
struggle with Montessori-based learning, vocational schools will foster skill
training and accreditation for careers ranging from carpentry to electrical
maintenance. There, students can hone talents and attain contentment,
fulfilling education's true function as a promoter of individual creativity.
Just as Paine's Common
Sense incited colonial opposition to King George III, so too will the
capitalization of social media and newspapers encourage education reform. Appointing
Montessori spokespersons and mimicking the appeals to ethos used by Du Bois during
the Civil Rights Movement ensures populous exposure to the benefits of
self-motivated education. Both teacher and student dissent through appeals to
boards of education further encourages the local transition to charter schools,
necessitating a government mandate to guarantee all students receive equal
access to self-driven academia.
Generation Y need not remain a bystander in the insular
cave. With government aid in establishing a Montessori-based curriculum and
with civic awareness, the intellectually lost Generation can emerge as an
active participant in the transfer of knowledge. This revolution against the
assembly-line like method of producing perfunctory students will breed an
evolution that lays the responsibility of raising academic standards on the
public.
Aisha Bhoori is an overworked student who has had pieces published in The Copperfield Review, Three Line Poetry, Azizah, and SuhaibWebb.com.
© Copyright 2013 by AxisofLogic.com
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