Sunday, January 7, 2001

Skewed Approach To Education All Across The Land

And then I realized, it was true.  I have always known this.  For goodness sake, I figured this out in elementary school.

It is rampant.  It has gripped the nation.  They say "ohh what's important is that you tried your best."  Or "it's not whether you win or lose that counts; it's how you play the game."  'Winning isn't everything."  "Why do you always have to be the best at everything?"

They talk about how there is too much "pressure" being put on kids to achieve.  They talk about, "oohhh stop trying to turn me into something I'm not."  Something you are not...  Like what?  An accomplished, successful human being?  Who plans for his or her future?  Who makes sure to secure her future by studying a subject that has good job prospects and choosing a college major that has actual promise of good fortune?

Or, "the sky is the limit."  But I noticed something weird about all the people saying that stuff...  They could not actually reach the sky.  "If you really believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything."  "If you really put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."

There is this whole "self-esteem" thing, which to me sounds like an outer branch of the exact same nonplussing phenomenon.  I remember the Buffy the vamp slayer girl saying in a magazine interview back in 1997 or something, that her character has "high self-esteem" even though she is not great at a lot of things.  Even back then I thought, Hang on a minute.  So you admit that you are not intelligent, you're not smart, you're not skilled, you are not talented, you're not a good student.   So what exactly are you having high self esteem for?

They say that "everyone is special in their own unique way."

I would much rather expend that energy and effort on the smart kids.  It would be a much better idea to wisely spend resources on the kids that actually have a chance at succeeding.  On the kids that actually have the potential to learn.  On the kid who are actually going to do well on their tests.  On the kids that are actually gong to learn and absorb the material.  On the kids who will truly retain the knowledge and will be able to apply this knowledge toward future endeavors.  Such as college and towards careers that are useful.

Public grade school systems should be allocating those efforts and resources towards kids that will actually put it to good use.  So many kids in public schools just simply don't care.  They do not care at all about their futures.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment