Examining Advantages and Disadvantages of Education
Education has been a big part of society more than ever. Citizens should receive the education that they need but society expects everyone to have different types of education and a good career. Supposedly the more education a person has the more successful they will be, but not in all cases that have happened. Before and to this day people don't need diplomas or degrees to become successful. To discuss advantages and disadvantages of education, in this essay, I'm going to talk about the purpose, preparation, and why the education system is failing including standardized education.
Throughout the centuries there have been different interpretations of the purpose of education. In the 21st century, the purpose of an education is the chance to learn, better oneself, and gain creative thinking skills and strengthen your mind so that you can easily learn. Education reassures us that we are all “created equal” and the path to achievement is through hard work and individual effort. Education gives the ability to believe in yourself and the knowledge to feel accepted. Parents are the first educators to develop the self-esteem of their children. They teach their kids how to read, count, write, letting them know they are smart, and that they can be anything. Teachers are the second educators, in elementary schools students have one teacher. They are just beginning to teach the students the basics in every subject getting them prepared for the next grade level. When they go to middle school, they start having different teachers for different subjects. The teachers start giving them more information about their subjects, getting their students ready for high school. The difference between middle school and high school is that in high school there is more important. Colleges start looking at your grades from 9th-12th grade. Things get more serious in order for you to graduate and move on to the “real” stuff. Determining what direction you want to go and what kind of education you'll need for your job that you'll be working until you retire or want to change majors. So, overall the purpose of education is about learning, bettering yourself, and gaining knowledge.
Public education does not effectively prepare students for their role as citizens. Citizens are given the basic skills which know how to read and knowing how numbers are used, but that isn’t enough to prepare them for citizenship. Citizenship education is a broad curriculum. If it's taught well and developed local needs, its skills and meaning will enhance democratic social life for everyone. People around the world have an understanding of what it's like to be a citizen knowing better the rights and responsibilities that we have. “ Essentials of a good education, ” by Diane Ravitch, argues: “Choosing our leaders and serving on juries. One determines the fate of our nation and others determines the fate of other humans”. Students of all ages need a compelling experience that engages them in their respective learning communities. Many ways that can be done to improve the way school prepare students are: teachers can spend less time lecturing in class because when students are getting lectured for the entire period. Classes shouldn’t be longer than an hour. Students will start getting bored, daydreaming, doing homework for another class, being on their phones, and sometimes even start catching attitudes if you tell them something about them not paying attention to your lecture. “Against School, ” by John Taylor Gatto, argues: “ Boredom is the common condition of school teachers and anyone who has spent time in a teachers lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there”.
Teachers can have a good amount of time tutoring students that don't quite understand what is going on or how to do a specific thing. Teachers should let students retake tests. If test scores determine where students are at with their learning ability it will never be a healthy learning community. Not everyone is in the same learning level as others. Some students are visual, verbal, and auditory learners. Students sometimes need more examples on how to do things and letting students retake tests would be an opportunity for them, also for the school districts because it will improve the testing scores for the district and for the students it will improve their learning ability. The importance of standardized education is that it compares the student's achievements in school. The federal wants to know well the students are doing but they only care about two subjects which are math and reading. They find out the data of each school by having the school do standardized testing to know which school is better. Ravitch argues that “Because federal policies only value test scores.
Today, almost every state has received federal funding to create a data “warehouse, ” where information about all students and teachers will be scored for future retrieval”. Teachers make the decisions for all their teaching years what they do in the classroom has an impact on the student's performance. If the standardized testing scores don't come out as high or average the teachers are the ones that will be held accountable. There really isn’t any advantages in standard testing. The disadvantages of a disservice to society of a public education that stifles individuality and personal growth are pretty much the standard testing it limits the students creatively and social interactions. It manipulates how the students learn, the information that is given to them is memorized and not retained. It does promote individual learning, talents, nor liberal education such as arts, sports history, language, etc. Standardized tests that are required and schools are often graded based on students' performance.
The American education system is failing because parents aren't involved enough with their children's education. Some parents didn't get a good education, so they don't know how to help their children. Some higher and middle class can also relate to lower class students. Student's will go to a private school doesn’t mean that some of their parents have a high school diploma or degree. There are many ways to be successful than to just going to school. Higher and middle class have an advantage than a lower class student because they are most likely to just pay for tutoring classes than a student from the lower class. Overcrowded classrooms are making it harder for teachers to teach, students to learn, and to receive one on one assistance. Technology puts some students at a disadvantage, not everyone has access. If there are going to be schools who are going to be using technology they should be able to provide some sort of device to the students who can’t afford. Technology also makes it easy for some students to cheat and has come across for students to not be able to learn the way they should be learning. They tend to just look up the answer instead of taking the time to understand. The disadvantages in having homogenized citizens are that the amount of property tax an area generates, the wealthier the area is. The property taxes for the citizens are also higher which means the more the taxes are the more fundings the school district will get. Students learn more than other students because their schools have better facilities than other schools. Only the rich can afford to have a better education because the school is well funded, but because the rich affording the better education they tend to be given better opportunities than other classes who have to settle for a lower-class school where the education they will receive is an average education. The advantages in creating homogenized citizens are that everyone will be treated equally. The higher class and middle class will be on the same level as the lower class. There wouldn’t be any more labels. Every person will have the same education and will be given the same opportunities.
In conclusion, the purpose of an education is to learn, better oneself, and gain creativethinking skills and strengthen your mind so that you can easily learn. Education gives the ability to believe in yourself and the knowledge to feel accepted. Public education does not effectively prepare students for their role as citizens. Teachers have a big impact on a student’s education, both are responsible for helping the student achieve their academics. Citizens are given the basic skills, which are knowing how to read and math skills in which you are taught when you are little. We need reading and math because it will teach us to think critically to solve problems we may have throughout our lives, but that isn’t enough to prepare them for citizenship. Citizens need to be given equal opportunities to learn and study because it's guaranteed that they will be giving an opportunity to be able to join a school if you're undocumented. How the country was formed it counts on the standard of education. The country must do what they can to improve it which is to provide its citizens a suitable and proper learning.
