This video was made as a part of the WeCollaborateEdu: Back to School Edition collaboration, with
some other educational channels, whose videos you should watch after this one.
Lots of people have complained about school systems, especially here in the US, especially
those who have been through the system, but what exactly is going on that makes school
such an unenjoyable experience?
School being bad and/or boring is, of course, more than a minor issue, because schools are
where we teach our kids vital, important life skills to carry on our legacies, and further
the development of human civilization into the future, so it’s really important we
get this right, so what are some of the problems in the school system?
Some of the main problems can be boiled down to outdated practices, too much work and stress,
and overgeneralization, like being grouped by age, not ability, and everyone being taught
in the same subjects the same amount.
The latter is especially harmful, Prince Ea points out how, if a doctor gave the same
prescription to everyone, the results would be tragic, and yet, this is how we treat our
students, whose minds aren’t any more similar than their bodies and immune systems.
Every student is unique, like judging a fish and a monkey on their ability to climb trees
and swim, neither of them will succeed in both, but each has their own strength, which
is probably the worst thing we miss in students, one student will excel in history and work
for the Smithsonian, and another in math to work for NASA, yet we still force both of
them to learn the same amount of both.
It seems that a student’s life also has to revolve around school work and homework,
given how much of both is given, which can dig into time that could be spent in a different,
dare I say, better place.
Sure, homework can help retain information by helping practice, however, students (and
teachers, for that matter) have lives to live outside of academics, but when students have
to complete stacks of work they can’t possibly finish without sacrificing social life, that
can tear apart another thing school should be meant to help, like essential life and
social skills (the latter can’t form through homework).
Unlike when the Battle of Hastings took place, why leaves are green, or how to solve this
problem, everyone will be paying taxes, living somewhere, preparing food for themselves,
and other life tasks most public schools don’t necessarily teach you how to do properly.
Schools systems here also haven’t really been updated in the past 150 years or so (physics
aren’t mandated to cover discoveries made after 1865 [Einstein was born in 1879]), even
though society is completely different today from just 20 years ago, so if schools do prepare
you properly for life, it’s likely more for the industrial age.
Some could say the real key to life is functional autonomy— the ability to survive and thrive
on one’s own— which is hard to learn or practice in the tightly controlled environment
of the school system.
With all these complaints about too hard, yet inadequate work, that fails to teach essential
life skills some parents can’t actually provide, there has to be another way.
So, how are things done in Finland?
Finland’s education system is widely hailed as the best in the world, like, actually at
#1, while we can barely even locate Finland (it’s here, by the way), Finland excels
as if answering most of the concerns I pointed out in this video.
First, collaboration (like what this video is), Americans students and school districts
compete with each-other needlessly, while Finnish students are encouraged to collaborate
and build on each-other’s ideas, like is required in the years beyond the 1860s.
Finnish students also have more free-time, way less homework, and don’t take standardized
tests.
Okay, maybe you’re not convinced, maybe you’re still convinced that more is more,
after all, it doesn’t really make sense at first to give less work and expect more
of a yield, but unfortunately, all the peer pressure of having too much homework to turn
in, and facts to try to memorize and spit out the next day kind of makes all the late-night
studying many participate in worthless.
It’s not that the Finnish system gives too little work and study, it’s that the American
system gives too much.
You’ve probably been there, awake past 3 am, studying for a crucial test in a class
on a subject too poorly explained for all the facts to be properly retained for… tests,
and you come to barely remember the information, and if you fail the test, you’re essentially
treated like a failure, and may hear excuses like, “He stayed up too late”, “she
went to bed too early”, “he procrastinated on his homework, and had to do it in one night,
and now he slept through the class”!
The worst part is that students rarely maintain the facts they may learn, and think of school
as the place you go to waste your time while your soul slowly drips out of your ear, which
is, at the bottom line, HORRIBLE!
School is meant to prepare students for the outside world, yet another complaint about
the school system is that…
it doesn’t.
It’s worse than forcing calculus into uninterested students who also can’t retain information
about mathematics, but are much better in sciences and social studies (I’ve kind of
describing myself here), but what about all those aforementioned life skills?
Cooking?
Taxes?
Starting your own business?
Renting?
Sex-Ed (*cough* Mississippi)?
Saving a mannequin’s life?
Hygiene (why not)?
Another thing that should be done is adjusting the lesson format.
Even if we keep with our current lecture format, we can still make it so that the lessons are
slower and more tuned to what the students actually need, which isn’t the raw information,
but the knowledge connecting the information.
Put it this way, which is a better way to teach history?
The usual way, proposed of memorizing random dates and facts, or lining them up into meaningful
patterns, and showing how the construction of the Great Wall of China indirectly led
to the Protestant Reformation?
Those seems like random examples, but there is a direct, logical correlation between the
two (the connection is the plague).
I’ll let you decide, but that sounds like a great video for next week!
Collaboration is very important, which is why this video is part of WeCollaborateEdu:
Back to School Edition, to which, I’ve linked the playlist with a whole bunch of other back-to-school-related
videos from other educational channels here.
Be sure to rate and tell me what you thought about this video, and subscribe to learn more
every Sunday.