This is an essay I wrote for a class recently, and since it was related to my topic, I'm posting it here! I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Why does U.S. law state that you must attend school until age 16? Is education becoming more and more necessary to thrive in today’s rapidly changing world? Are youth and adolescence truly important times in our lives to develop our own opinions and skills of analysis? Do parents send their kids to school simply out of an obligation to follow the law? Each state has its own regulations on the specifics, and every person their own opinions, yet one general belief remains: education is key. However, the standards we set for our teachers contradict this philosophy. If we truly value education, why do our actions regarding our teachers not reflect that? Many would agree that the U.S. Education system begs reform. The driving question now is: how can we effectively develop the finest American education system? Implementing virtuous education in the American school system is a two-fold procedure. Once we incorporate suitable teachers in our classrooms, our students' performance will improve, which will allow teachers to be worthy of greater respect and higher pay. What defines a suitable teacher? Appropriate training (to earn them acceptable qualifications), equal access to ample resources, usable feedback, and a passion for service in the classroom are all qualities that should be associated with future professionals in this field. A new teacher training program can be modeled after countries with internationally renowned education systems. For example, Singapore, a country with significantly higher math scores than ours, has a government that nominates the top twenty percent of each high school class to be teachers. With this nomination comes a full ride scholarship to education studies. Part of America's problem with teacher qualification is that we lack such high standards. People who may not truly want to become doctors do not accidentally become doctors. Yet this happens constantly in the teaching profession. Teachers ironically graduate from school with less rigorous education and experience than many other professionals, yet kids, our future leaders, are sent to learn from them seven hours a day, five days a week? As a student, I have experienced this firsthand. I notice the zeal some teachers have in the classroom because I naturally enjoy those classes more, and subsequently perform better. In other classes, I am merely attempting to memorize material to pass tests. Elevating our national standards for teachers will be a win-win situation. Teachers who definitely want to work in the classroom will be paid the appropriate amount, and our students will benefit from their additional knowledge and passion. Having suitable teachers in our classrooms will save our country the excessive time, money, and energy constantly administering tests to their students to track performance and instead. Though it is important, America spends far too much time giving standardized tests. If we train our teachers with higher expectations, fewer people will be concerned or dissatisfied with our public school system. Therefore, fewer tests will need to be administered, and less money spent on such time-consuming and hardly conclusive (well, hardly positively conclusive) procedures. The government should replace these tests with more opportunities for the teachers themselves to experiment with new techniques. Once teachers receive a higher status, exploring new education strategies could (and should) become as highly regarded as researching new cures for cancer. The minds in control of our country’s future will be much better off with proper, fundamental citizen knowledge. Once we train our teachers adequately, our current expectations of them will be appropriate and our students’ performance will improve. The amount of training our teachers receive is not nearly enough to produce the results society constantly demands of them. In an attempt to gain these desired results, the government proposed Common Core standards in 2009. Theoretically, using these standards would be an appropriate evaluation of classroom effectiveness, because the teachers would know exactly what is expected of them before the school year begins. However, with Common Core, we have made teaching more monotonous, which restrains those who are truly adept for the position. Strict policies nationwide have been implemented to equate standards and classroom rules, which disappoints the most innovative and passionate teachers. These Common Core standards lock teachers in, yet we still expect them to perform superbly. This is entirely unfair. If we appropriately train our teachers, we will not need to continue down the path of Common Core and a robotically structured and restrictive classroom. Students’ grades will reflect the benefits of creativity-driven classrooms. As the teaching profession develops, so will our virtuous education system. The demand for exceptional individuals in our developing era of technology is only growing exponentially. Though other issues have risen and rob our education system from appropriate reform. For example, many want to ensure that one neighborhood does not have fewer educational opportunities than another. Others want to focus on developing the curriculum of certain subject areas. Special education is a division begging additional assistance as well. Improving the quality of our American teachers will take the largest leap toward general reform because they will be able to use their knowledge to provide assistance in these areas and receive the respect and pay they truly deserve.
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April 2017
CategoriesAuthorEmily Tam '17 |