There are a lot of people who judge the public school system. There are a lot of people who think that school quashes creativity and lowers people's confidence. There are a lot of people who say that school turns everyone into little robots, products of "the system." I have never experienced this. Not in high school, anyway, and not in elementary school, either. Maybe in middle school. But not much. And sure, I may be biased. I had a teacher once tell me that this whole system is a game, and I have it figured out. I'm a fantastic test-taker, and always have been. For me, standardized tests are a breeze. I know that I’m intelligent, I know that high school was easier for me than it is for most people. I finished fifth in my class with almost no effort. I recognize that this is not the case for everyone, and I recognize that maybe I just hit the lottery with my AP classes and various other teachers. And maybe a lot of it has to do with my parents, too, who taught me and encouraged me to use critical thinking in everything. I am a creative thinker, and it is creative thinkers who most strongly oppose the current system. And so you should recognize that me supporting it so strongly must mean something. The problem does not lie in the system. The problem lies in the people surrounding it: the people who become teachers because they like kids and it would be a easy college program, not because they actually have the chops. The people who cut education funding to fuel other pursuits. The people who get lazy and instead of teaching or developing programs that teach make lesson plans that get to the point quickly and move on, because that’s just easier. If we truly want to "fix" the system, then we need to improve the education of our future teachers. We need to make sure that we only hire teachers who actually care, teachers who actually teach and who treat their students as people. These people are not the school system. There are amazing, amazing teachers out there who have impacted my life and the way I think for the better, forever. They don’t get paid enough not because of the school system, but because of the disregard people have for the school system: they don’t think it’s important because in some way it has “failed” and thus they give it less money. This is counterintuitive. In our world, if you want to succeed, you need the funds. And these funds don’t come out of thin air; they must be given by the state government. I also think it’s important to standardize learning across a country. I think that it’s ridiculous if I have been taught all the states and some kid in South Carolina has only heard of the ones he’s visited. It’s problematic if I get to college knowing how to write a pretty solid five paragraph essay and the kid sitting next to me can barely write one paragraph. Things like the principles of grammar, basic arithmetic, and a foundation on the way their government works are things that EVERYONE should know, and I think it’s better if we keep those things taught in a similar grade. If someone was to do a nationwide study on average mathematic ability in fourth graders, a major source of error would be introduced if fourth graders in Oregon know long division but in New Mexico students aren’t taught that until sixth grade. The same is true even amongst different areas of a single state. Of course, there are flaws in Common Core — it was made by people, and we already know that people are imperfect and lazy. But that principle, that main idea of the program — to make sure everyone has the same baseline across the country — is so important. I may have parents who can teach me about molecular structure in fourth grade, or give me impromptu geometry lessons in sixth grade, but not everyone does. Not everyone is as lucky as I am to have well-educated and knowledgeable parents. It is key to equality in our country that everyone has the chance to learn the same things. And while non-traditional schooling may be vastly preferred for some certain types of people, that doesn’t mean that the public school system is a terrible machine. It just means it needs a little help sometimes. We have to give the good people some credit.
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I'm Audrey, a college student and existential rambler.
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February 2021
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