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I've been teaching for 7 years now. Just in that short amount of time I have seen many problems with the education system. I started teaching in a rural school where we had no set curriculum. It was basically, teach what you want. Then I went to a mid-sized city and taught. That district was so focused on testing, it took the joy out of teaching and learning. Those poor kids were tested almost once a month for the district, state, and country. It was so bad that one fourth grade student wrote on his test, "These are wasting my time. Why can't my teacher use this time to teach me?"
Now, I teach in Chicago. It is such a large district no one knows what is going on really. We have to prep for the tests and that is the main goal. That is how the school gets money and it also decides if the teachers and/or administration keep their job. The problem with that is that the kids are the main factors and it is not guaranteed that the children want to learn.
Standardized testing is one huge problem in dumbing our kids down. We aren't necessarily teaching students to think, but to spit out information and perform a sequence of steps to solve problems. Of course, it doesn't matter because it seems like kids today generally are lazy. They don't want to think. Of course, I teach in a low-income area so that skews my generalization I'm sure. For example, I'm teaching them how to make outlines in Social Studies. They can use those on the tests. However, I don't ask cognitive questions on the test. I ask synthesis and application questions so they have to take the information that they have to draw conclusions. They hate this and claim that we didn't go over it. Also, in math they refuse to show their work and if it's a problem with more than one step, they will only complete the first step and think they are finished. Lazy kids I tell you. I'm not sure if it's TV, video games, or what, but it's frustrating. I'm hoping that after awhile I'll teach them some thinking skills.
Money as mentioned above is also a huge issue. Not only is the art program almost non-existant, but teaching materials are slim. We aren't given money to buy things to do fun, research projects and center activities. Our hands are almost tied. At one school, I was given a ream of paper a month. That was all we were allowed to use. I had 20 kids. The paper didn't go very far. So I couldn't do a lot of practice with the topics. We couldn't do projects because art supplies weren't provided. Teachers don't get paid enough to buy all the materials for the kids.
Another issue with the schools are the students homelife. Parents seem to not put importance on respect and education. This is instilled at a young age. If the child doesn't value education and isn't interested in learning, they aren't going to.
I will say that I believe the student learned more in the rural setting. I was free to develop my own curriculum guided by state standards, develop student-focused units that the kids loved, and I wasn't hounded by administrators to raise the test scores. And you know what, the kids always did well. It's because we had the supplies and support and freedom to teach using our best strategies and make learning fun and interesting.
I could go on and on about possible solutions, but they're fairly radical and would never come to pass. All I can say, is that if you have a kid...teach them at home in conjunction with public schooling. Teachers have a lot on their plate and with increasing class sizes in conjunction with lack of support and supplies...it's a tough job and many kids are getting lost in the cracks.
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