HEAR MY VOICE
  • Home
  • Athens NewsBreak
    • Broadcasts
    • Meet the Team
  • The Fourth Estate
    • Gen Z Up To The Ballot
    • Gen Z Beyond the Ballot
    • Gen Z in Focus
    • Spotlight on Research
  • Features
    • Articles
    • Active Centralized Empowerment
    • Aggregation
    • Culture Cues
    • First Voices
    • From Margin to Center
    • Moments in History
    • Not Everyone is Born Equal
    • Young Voices
  • Podcasts
    • Cooking 4 College
    • Creative Corner
    • Off The Shelf & Online
    • Ohio River Valley Uncovered
  • Resources
    • Breaking Down Mental Illiness
    • Budget-Friendly Grocery Tips
    • Coping with Race-related Stress
    • Dealing w/ Depression and more
    • Overcoming Domestic Abuse
    • Stress Tips

The "Messed up" school system

the "messed up" school system

4/6/2017

1 Comment

 
When you were a kid, you heard all the time that each person is different from another so why when you go to school the educational system forces you to learn what they want to teach and what they think is important to you to succeed? To make things worse, even the things you love to do and you are good at, are considered less important than math or history. Therefore, they make 30 kids, everyone is so different from the other, sit in a room for 8 hours every day and study the same things.
Albert Einstein once said, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" (quora). The school system is an ancient institution and nothing has changed in the last years, even with all the progress around it. Let us look at the progress of phones for example, so much has changed in the last few years one can say the same about cars. So, why has the school system not changed? Why does it make the students feel like fish that need to climb trees? Why makes them think they are useless and stupid? "Schools kill creativity" says Sir Ken Robinson because it judges the children by their grades and not by their abilities or skills. Children are 20% of our population but they are 100% our future. So, what do schools do? Prepare children for the future or chains them to the past?
Every kid is different from each other. Scientists say that every brain is much different from each other. Ask a mother with two kids and she would tell you that they are different so how do you expect the students to get the same results in the same lessons when they are so different from each other. Outcomes are important: they reflect how well we expect students to do. But expecting everyone to reach the same level is naïve and, in light of the unequal resources schools have, also cynical.
Why is it important to do what you love and not let others tell you what to do? Giving you grades for things that you don’t relate to and that you are not interested in is contradictory to logic. Take a look, for example, at some people that succeed without finishing school. They succeeded in things they loved and they got passion for like Steve Jobs, one of the great minds that we know and Matt Graining the creator of the Simpsons. All of them succeeded without a diploma. They are brilliant in their own way and they follow their own path.

My Point of View
In my point of view, the school system is the most important system in the world because it designs the people of the tomorrow: the next doctors and scientists, engineers and the next politicians that will rule this world. So, why when the world is so advanced the most important system stays behind and does not take care of the people that work for it.  The teachers are not less important than doctors because they are the people that make the new doctors and scientist so let's take the education system one step ahead and let the children have more fun to study and not be upset when they wake up for school.  By doing this, we can change the world of the future. Providing all resources to the next generation to learn and have fun from it and let them do what they like and love and that makes them do it in the best way and push it to the edge.




Relevance to the Story
In the story we read about the life of an African- American girl and the struggle that she has been through with her mother being ill. Geraldine, the heroine, has to work when she is still at school and that affects her grades and her grades are not good because she is not interested in the regular school subjects. But when she is asked to write a poem for homework, she produces the best poem in class because she wrote about her life and her personal experience from a miserable reality. She discovered that she is actually talented at expressing her pain and frustration in writing. This shows that when a person follows his unique ability and fosters his talent, he can succeed – even without the school's support.




-Shalev Cohen





Bibliography
Einstein, Albert. Retrieved March 2 from https://www.quora.com/What-did-Albert-Einstein-mean-when-he-said-Everybody-is-a-genius-But-if-you-judge-a-fish-by-its-ability-to-climb-a-tree-it-will-live-its-whole-life-believing-that-it-is-stupid
(Prince ea, retrieved February 22 from :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTTojTija8\
Alfiekohn, retrievd February 28 from :http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/one-size-fits-education-doesnt-work/
Ken Robinson, retrieved March 1 from: http://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/.premium-1.2063340
​
http://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/.premium-1.2063340

1 Comment
Heidi Wesley
10/23/2021 08:34:55 am

HI! i love love love your story and what you have to say a about the school system!! i agree 100%!!
My son struggled with the school system for years. They labeled him early on in his school career and it was a shit show from then on so I hear you loud and clear!
I Thank you for voicing your opinion in this very important issues that plagues our children who are in school and the future generation of this world and quite honestly I am scared for the future.
I was looking up articles to find out if anyone else has experienced problems within the school system for special needs kids or any kid for that matter. My son is special needs and my daughter is not and i feel the school is treating her as if she has a special need like ASD when she does not, the principal even mentioned about getting my daughter assessed and im not for that. I hate how the principals thinks they can get the child to behave in a certain way and when they cant its all about assessments and behavioural classes in which case do not help the child grow and learn it only tells the child you are bad and you belong away from the other kids! Its really sad how that message creates very low self esteem in our children and who suffers in the end? the child, the parents who are desperately trying to help their children be liked and successful and accepted by their peers. It feels like school has become the hardest place on the planet to survive and then we expect them to go out and get jobs and be successful in the work environment?? i dont think so.
Anyway thanks again for putting this article here you have given me hope that i can still advocate for my children in the school system i just have to go at it a different way and i guess join their game and play it and see how far I can get!
Thank you
Heidi Wesley

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Shalev Cohen

    - 18 years old
    - lives in Karmiel, a small town in the Western Galilee
    - His English teacher, Mrs. Osnat Dumen, has urged him to put into writing some of his thoughts and beliefs. The result is this candid and thought-provoking opinion paper. 


    Archives

    April 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

disclaimer
ACE, Active Centralized Empowerment and ACEING IT, LLC., its content, and content from this course website cannot be used without the written permission from Dr. Janice Marie Collins.
  • Home
  • Athens NewsBreak
    • Broadcasts
    • Meet the Team
  • The Fourth Estate
    • Gen Z Up To The Ballot
    • Gen Z Beyond the Ballot
    • Gen Z in Focus
    • Spotlight on Research
  • Features
    • Articles
    • Active Centralized Empowerment
    • Aggregation
    • Culture Cues
    • First Voices
    • From Margin to Center
    • Moments in History
    • Not Everyone is Born Equal
    • Young Voices
  • Podcasts
    • Cooking 4 College
    • Creative Corner
    • Off The Shelf & Online
    • Ohio River Valley Uncovered
  • Resources
    • Breaking Down Mental Illiness
    • Budget-Friendly Grocery Tips
    • Coping with Race-related Stress
    • Dealing w/ Depression and more
    • Overcoming Domestic Abuse
    • Stress Tips