Re:I agree! (Score 1)

Three major factors currently hold the American secondary school system back. Fixing these three problems will by no means be easy; it will take years of effort to accomplish, if it is accomplished at all. These three are as follows:

1. Waste of time Your average high school student spends nearly half of their school time waiting. Waiting to get into the parking lot, waiting for first period to begin, waiting for the teacher to be ready, waiting for the bell to ring, waiting to get to the next class, waiting in line at lunch... This waiting amounts to some three or four hours a day, and over the course of four years it adds up to an unimaginable amount of time that was simply flushed down the toilet.

To eliminate the waiting, or at least a large amount of it, you need to eliminate the Fordist, or factory, school. The Fordist school has many weaknesses, not the least of which lies in it's inefficiency for the student. Just the concept of fitting as many students in a building with as few teachers as possible creates far too many problems to humanely deal with, considering how schools are charged with the enlightenment of our youth. If it were to be replaced with a more personal version of itself, emphasizing more on individual initiative and study, not only would the waiting to be accomodated by the system become largely elminated, it would drastically improve the quality of education provided. One drawback, though, would be that such a system would be much more demanding in terms of manpower than our current system, and even though money could be saved by cutting the largely irrelevant wastes of money found in our schools, it wouldn't be enough to offset the difference.

2. Lack of interest There is an ever-growing concept in the American secondary schools that to be intelligent is repulsive. More than anything else, this is the greatest roadblock to quality education, and yet it is almost nonexistant in other countries. Part of it stems from poor parent interaction. Part of it stems from the media and popular culture. Part of it stems from the way students are treated by the administration and a significant amount of the teachers. (Note that I differentiate between the administration and the teachers; I am not accusing all teachers of being slouches. I have nothing be the greatest respect for those excellent teachers I can thank for a large part of my personal education.)

This problem cannot possibly be fixed overnight. My personal favorite plan is to take the compulsory out of compulsory education. Once changes have been made to improve the quality of schools, make it easy for kids to drop out, and even force kids out at the end of middle school at the recommendation of their teachers. Of course, you need to make it feasible for kids to get back in. This would accomplish two things: 1. Children who willingly leave school, or have been observed as having no interest in school for the first eight years of school, will not do anything but waste money. If you coast through life and refuse to take education seriously, then education should refuse to take you seriously. No need to waste money on people who won't learn anything anyways. You can't educate someone who does not wish to be educated. 2. It will create a demand to get into high school. If you tell our children they can't get in, they will knock down the doors to hurry up and learn. That is what we need in our schools - people who want to learn, not people who feel they're having an education forced on them whether they want it or not. Additional things that can be done to improve attitudes in schools involve enlisting the media to help generate interest.

3. Curriculum American secondary schools focus on rote memorization as opposed to a more fundamental approach. Quite frankly, we need to switch over to an method that allows students to learn whatever they want, as opposed to just feeding them facts so they learn only what the administration wants them to learn. Also included in this topic is the lack of individual focus I mentioned early. I do believe that many others in this thread has discussed this very topic; I'll suffice it to say that I agree with their views.

Solve these three issues and we may just see a rebirth of education.

For your information: This post was written by a junior in a central Ohio high school, albeit one enrolled in AP Calculus and is on track to graduate this June, a year ahead of schedule.