Effective Education

Fundamentally, the United States system of public education has remained virtually unchanged since it was designed in the 1800's. In the last few decades, our children have begun to rank further and further behind other civilized nations in educational progress in large part because our schools have not changed with the times. This makes them less able to compete in the global economy we face today.

To remedy this problem, our system of public education must be completely overhauled. There are five steps that need to be taken to make the changes needed in the educational system and shift it from being based on arbitrary testing to student centered learning.

1. ABANDON THE OLD ANTIQUATED SYSTEM OF EDUCATION CURRENTLY IN USE!!

2. CONCENTRATE ON REAL LEARNING AND CRITICAL THINKING, AND STOP THE OBSESSION WITH STANDARDIZED TESTS!

3. INCORPORATE ALL LEARNING STYLES - VISUAL, AUDITORY, TACTILE, AND KINESTHETIC, AS WELL AS TECHNOLOGY INTO ALL AREAS OF THE CURRICULUM.

4. INCREASE TEACHER SALARIES TO BE COMPARABLE TO OTHER PROFESSIONS WHICH REQUIRE THE SAME AMOUNT OF EDUCATION, such as engineering, computer programming, and the like. Contrary to popular belief, teaching is not a part time job. Teachers do not stop working when the bell rings to dismiss class. They often work more than 50 hours a week between class time, planning activities, and other duties.

5. ENCOURAGE STUDENT'S CURIOSITY AND INCORPORATE ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND SUBJECT MATTER INTO THEIR AREAS OF INTEREST. By utilizing children's natural curiosity to drive their learning experiences, they will be more involved in the process. This also causes them to be more responsible for their own education.

Stumble It!

In student centered learning, teachers work as partners with the student to develop activities within their area of interest to teach subject matter and skills they need to learn. For example, if an elementary student is interested in dinosaurs, they can read books about dinosaurs, count the different types of dinosaurs they find, and learn about fossils and the science of archaeology. If a high schooler is interested in dinosaurs, they can compare the skeletal structures of dinosaurs that walked on four legs versus those that walked on two, or study how scientists determine what the dinosaur's diet consisted of based upon their jaw structure and the mineral content of their bones.

This method encourages students to discover and explore while making them ultimately responsible for their own education. It engages them in the process, reducing the chances that they will get bored with school and ultimately drop out.

Recent brain research confirms that this method of learning is more effective for retaining information. Several studies found that when students are more responsible for their own education and more in control of what they are learning, they learn it better and they continue on to become life-long learners.

"Establishing lasting peace is the work of education, all politics can do is keep us out of war." - Maria Montessori

"Judge a man by his questions, rather than his answers." - Voltaire

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." - H.G. Wells

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." - Albert Einstein

"Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of men, the balance wheel of the social machinery." - Horace Mann

"Leadership and learing are indispensable to each other." - John F. Kennedy

"Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more you must have of the former." - Horace Mann

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." - John F. Kennedy

"Some superior minds are unrecognized because there is no standard by which to weigh them." - Joseph Joubert

"What luck for the rulers that men do not think." - Adolph Hitler

"In true democracy, every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself." - Mohandas K. Gandhi

"All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth." - Aristotle

"Let us think of education as the means to developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is...a dream, which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation." - John F. Kennedy

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Everyday Education