Education is without a doubt one of the most important things in our society. The smartest men and women in our world are shaped by their knowledge, and they are products of their educational institutions. There are ways to become successful without education, however, those ways are much more difficult and the path to the top is steeper without a diploma in your hand.
Our society has been molded around degrees. Now there is always a constant demand for citizens and members of the working class with higher levels of education. I believe our country is not reaching its educational potential; we are not maximizing the brilliance of the minds we have here in the U.S. by way we go about teaching and “educating” our youth and our students.
It’s not that was don’t have the intelligence or the smarts to make unbelievable advancements in science and technology, it’s just our systematic approach and the constructs we’ve created around our education is outdated, and has lacked any major progress. Our education system and format was created on what is called a “factory” style of teaching. Long 6-7 hour days, 5 days a week, a considerable amount of work equivalent to “line work” sitting in a desk. Our problem is that we haven’t strayed away from our original school concept. A classroom for the 60’s and 70’s looks nearly identical to a classroom today. Our classroom environments aren’t stimulating enough for today’s students. There are too many lectures and not enough conversations between students and teachers, and that teacher-student dynamic desperately needs to change.
According to edudemic.com, the US ranks at 14th on the global education charts. Countries like Norway, Amsterdam, Belgium, and Sweden have revolutionized the learning world, and rank far ahead of the U.S. in every major schooling category. For example, Norway has three major schooling levels similar to the U.S. They are called Primary School, Lower Secondary, and Upper secondary schooling. These schools have a totally different setup and approach compared to ours. Students and teachers interact more, and work on problem-solving in groups, not isolation. Students are encouraged to work together to reach their goals, not struggle independently.
I am not saying for certain the European education model is better than ours (although the numbers support that claim), all I am saying that maybe our government and our hierarchy needs to take a step back and figure out the best possible method and formula to make school more attractive to our youth.
