The “No Child Left Behind” policy has caught a lot of flak in recent years, in large part because of its emphasis (overemphasis?) on standardized testing. It’s been criticized as an unfairly one-size-fits-all method, and one that encourages teachers to “teach to the test” rather than trying to instill a love of learning.
But, as with any major problem, we can’t attribute the cause to only one single source.
Hmmm . . . the nine other countries on that graph all pay their teachers more than we do. They are also all ranked high above us in math, reading, and science. We’ve spent a lot of time and effort throwing money at this problem to little effect; maybe it’s because we’ve been throwing it in the wrong direction.
Of course, cultural attitude has to have an impact as well.
These t-shirt designs for children are meant to be funny, but they reflect a sad truth about our country today: to be smart is, indeed, not considered cool. And that message leaks through to kids at a very young age. We can’t pin the tanking of our educational system only on institutions and policies; at some point, we have to recognize that we - the general American public - bear some of this blame, simply in the norms and attitudes that we uphold.
This post is really fantastic. I agree with the overall argument in the blog about how our country needs to put more emphasis on education, but this post highlights the biggest problem with american schools; children's lack of motivation for learning.
ReplyDeleteI love how you challenge the "No Chile Left Behind" policy. I'd never really thought much of it, just thinking that it's nice we're trying to teach everyone, but you're totally right about trying to get people to love learning, not force it on them.
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