TWIOT: Why Education Sucks Nowadays

Classroom = wasteland anymore
Photo credit: IFC.com

Oh shit, another post tinged with politics. RUN FOR THE HILLS!

The popular meme among older people is "Back in my day, _______ was way better than it is now!" This can apply to a myriad of things - sports, music, even pro wrestling. Sometimes, it's just a clash between generations, what each age finds cool or entertaining. One area where I feel the old folks would be completely correct in, no subjectivity involved, is in education. Even as soon as 10 years ago, the school systems were better than they are now. The biggest reason for that is the paradigm shift between the old school of thought (pun not intended) and the new way of thinking regarding standardized testing.

Right now, the funding a school district gets is intrinsically tied to performance on standardized tests. Because of that fact, schools now teach to the tests more intensely than ever before. It's not like these kinds of tests are new. Yes, I had to take them in my days in high school and grade school. However, they weren't the focus of the curriculum. I learned proper spelling, grammar, creative writing and how to think critically in my English classes. I learned that there was more to my country than just my area and more to my world than just the United States. I learned how to socialize during recess and gym class, and if it weren't for gym class instilling some kind of need to be active, my starting weight at Weight Watchers might have been 436 lbs. instead of 336 lbs. I was able to get an understanding of the meanings of many words in the English language by studying Latin and German, two languages that are similar and have provided many different words to English over the centuries.

All of those things are becoming lost arts. Gym classes, as well as other "non-essential" programs like art and music, are being scaled back if not eliminated completely because of lack of funding. Instead of asking "why" in English or history classes, or writing about things, kids are being pummeled with memorization of definitions, events without context, formulas without any reason why they should be learning them. Everything is memorization. Children are being conditioned into being turned into robots or computers rather than living beings who can think or take a side on an issue.

Meanwhile, our culture is being decimated. Celebrities spring up no longer because they can play an instrument or act, but because they're rich or make sex tapes. If children don't have music classes to let them learn how to play or theater classes where they can socialize with other children and learn how to put on performances, how is this trend going to reverse itself? Children find it harder to shove time into their schedules to want to do these activities outside of school because there's so much pressure to study and do well on the standardized tests. Obesity is an epidemic, but because activity isn't being encouraged at school, kids aren't conditioned to want to release stress by playing games outside with their friends. Instead, they turn to their sheltered rooms to play video games, substituting real interaction with people with an unrealistic substitute, where anonymous interactions often lead to flame-fests and people developing anti-social attitudes. Because children's imaginations aren't being nurtured, we keep getting Hollywood executives who don't have imagination enough to want to greenlight anything that isn't a remake, a sequel, a prequel or a reboot. And because kids aren't having their critical thinking honed, nourished and developed, we get a select few spineless automotons in politics spouting "facts" whether they're true or not to a populace that by and large doesn't have the capacity to think whether what they're being fed is correct or not, or to figure out why people have those opinions, or why the opinions they have are valid or not.

Education is more about just memorizing facts, or at least it should be. Kids need to learn how to be social, how to interact, how to think, how to deal with life experiences, how to live. A lot of that needs to come from the parents, yes, and I have to say, with the rash of people having babies that really shouldn't be having babies, there are more shitty parents than ever out there. However, the schools and the state are doing nobody any favors by teaching to tests that won't be relevant past the moment they're finished being taken.

There needs to be a bipartisan effort to reform education. We need to bring thinking, socializing, activity and interaction back into the classroom. We need to instill in our children that memorizing facts is okay, but that it's useless without knowing the context behind them or at least being able to figure out context or argue a side for each fact that is presented. Furthermore, social studies curricula need to be diversified so that kids can learn more than just historical facts. Geography needs to be emphasized, as well as civics, home economics (because the key to healthy eating means knowing how to cook using things other than the microwave), mechanics and debate. Math courses need to be diversified as well. Let's face it, not everyone is going to want or need to learn advanced geometry, trigonometry, calculus or physics. Subjects like economics, statistics and other branch-off maths should be taught at lower levels. There's no reason why students shouldn't begin to learn about economics at as low levels as middle school. Things like student government, art classes, theater groups and musical education shouldn't be truncated or eliminated but promoted. Gym class should be mandatory and focus on things like nutrition, sex education and disease awareness as well as competing in sport and exercise.

Education needs to be reformed at all sub-collegiate levels. The bane of the standardized test is one that has harmed the school system more than any of the ills bandied about by people on both sides of the aisle combined. Get rid of them completely, or at the very least, lessen their impact on the curriculum, and the schools will at least be on the right path to recovery.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!