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Importance of Education
Improve school systems
Importance of Education
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Do students actually learn everything they are taught in class? In the article ‘O Americano Outra Vez” by Richard P. Feynman, he expresses his opinions toward the educational system in Brazil. While in Brazil, Feynman taught classes and sat through entry examinations to see how well students have retained the information. Feynman would ask questions that were answered simply but then when the question was said differently the student froze. Feynman exposed school systems for not being able to teach students how to properly learn .
In our educational system, students are not taught fully about a subject. While in Brazil, Feynman asked a student some questions after his exam that regarded his exam responses and he could not apply his calculations
to the questions. “You can know the name of a bird in all languages...but...you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird” (Feynman 54). This quote goes hand in hand with the situation with the student because the student knew about something, but did not know it like the back of his hand. What is the point in going to school if all that is done is brushing through topics. If the topics are not learned thoroughly, then information will go through one ear and out the other. However this is not the fault of the students per say; It is the fault of the teachers and how they teach students. For example Feynman asked one of his classes to look outside with polarized lens They can say all the information about the lens but could not apply the simple fact that light was being reflected off the water. This helps the reader side more with Feynman in the fact that students should not be taught to just memorize information because it surely will be forgotten after it’s purpose is over. “After the lecture [Feynman] talked to a student...you take all those notes -what do you do with them” (Feynman 55). Students in every college even in Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences’ has students that memorize the information but forget or do not truly learn the information. This is a troubling matter because how will people know if a student is ready to tackle their major when they consistently memorize information.
A nobel prize winning, architect of the atomic bomb, and well-known theoretical physicist, Professor Richard P. Feynman, at the 1955 autumn meeting of the National Academy of science, addresses the importance of science and its impact on society. Feynman contends, although some people may think that scientists don't take social problems into their consideration, every now and then they think about them. However he concedes that, because social problems are more difficult than the scientific ones, scientist don’t spend too much time resolving them (1). Furthermore he states that scientist must be held responsible for the decisions they make today to protect the future generation; also they have to do their best, to learn as much as possible,
There is a “fear of being unorthodox…rooted in the American teacher’s soul” (Burgess 237). Burgess stresses the prohibition of an American teacher’s competence to instruct students using any type of experimental approach other than the standardized design. In consequence, America is unable to breed eccentric geniuses and has no capacity to create a burning desire to learn within their students. The reason this dilemma has been continuing for so long is because America has been blinded by their previous accomplishments, such as the landing on the moon. On behalf of their successful progressive past, the American people are in denial of how poor the education system is now and have a state of mind that the nation is still advancing just as it was decades ago when it is in fact, the exact
Students do not learn in the same, they are individuals. Thankfully for society, students bring to schools all kinds of intellect. Some students excel academically, others are artistic talents and other have vocational talents that VCE exams do not take into consideration or measure.
Aside from school or Universities, our world is a huge classroom. All of us learned things that are not taught in school, but there are some methods that we follow in order to simplify and to understand more regarding the task of different fields of knowledge. In our society today, most people learn by mimicking others and their actions that are influenced by past experiences. There is knowledge that is handed down from mouth to mouth generation that never committed in writing. When I think about knowledge, the first thing that comes up with my mind is education. Education requires self-determination, dedication, and experience. According to John Henry Newman’s philosophy of
... possibilities, students who choose to study more might be smarter, on average, than students who choose to study less.)”,The article further stated that the difficulty to attain causation was due to their being no feasible or ethical way of providing for a control study into cause and effect between the factors of study effort and grades ‘ The difficulty of discerning cause and effect among naturally correlated events prompts most sociologist to create laboratory simulations of everyday processes whenever this is feasible or ethical’(pg.24)
There is a fear that one will be looked down upon for asking questions because it is admitting you do not know or grasp a concept. This fear is present in all classrooms including Feyman’s, “It was a kind of one-upmanship, where nobody knows what’s going on, and they’d put the other one down as if they did know (56)”. To maintain a sense of pride, no one revealed their misunderstanding of topics choosing silence instead. This silence was also presented by the onlookers in the painting. Many expressed interest in the experiment, others sat quietly contemplating, another upset by the event, the child confused yet looking on without a word. The older gentleman conducting the experiment is asking his audience the importance of the experiment and what it teaches them about the bird, but none of them are answering, instead they turn to each other expectantly as if the other should know. Pride prevents many people from inquiring about matters they do not understand, especially when peers are present. Confined thinking takes place in the painting as well, shown by the small circle of light which highlights the observer’s faces. All present are thinking about what is happening to the bird but do not ask its implications or importance. They only focus on that exact moment, so their mind has only gained minimal information, which accounts for the partial illumination of the room.
In “The Essentials of a Good Education” by Diane Ravitch, she states that students are not getting a full curriculum because schools are focusing too much on the subjects the government has mandated. Since public schools are insistent on maintaining good test scores from their students, they taking more time for practice tests and are making cuts to other classes or departments they feel are less necessary to the students’ education, but in reality make them well-rounded students and future citizens. The No Child Left Behind law and the Race to the Top program have caused schools to obsess over test scores and data instead of keeping an advanced curriculum for their students. Educated parents would only want the best school with a full curriculum
The first point that I disagreed with in Freire’s essay was that all classes should have open discussions because some classes such as mathematics classes or science classes are concrete subjects that cannot be disproven. These
Fundamentally, development of the brain is an immense determinant of someone’s ability to learn. Therefore, the success of most learning patterns will be premised upon this notion of brain development. Other aspects of learning involves practice, teaching methods applied, the complexity of the concepts being taught and so forth. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of these other methods is dependent upon the brain of the learner. People have different levels of brain development. This manifests itself in the different abilities of learning. Some are poor learners whereas others learn pretty fast (Iba & Miyake, 2010).
In teaching to get an ‘f’, the writer, Steven Slon, tells a story of how he almost killed his son’s teacher. Why you ask, well she single handedly killed the student’s appetite for learning. He immediately had the principle change her curriculum to a more flexible one, this lead to the increase in curiosity of the child to want to learn again and gain knowledge (Slon 47-49). What this shows is that a teaching with a curriculum that takes the fun out of learning can be detrimental to a child that wants to learn and can push them away from school. The same can be said if you bombard students with testing, doing that will have the same effect as the boring curriculum. Now that we know that testing is not working why do we still do it? Sir Robinson brings an interesting idea, which is that it is all a political game. He says,” that education should be taken out of the hands of Politian’s, because they do not have an interest in education, all they want is to have hig...
Probably not. Because to fully understand and know something, one must experience it and to the work himself. Educators can drill everything that was ever thought or discovered at their students and the students may retain some of the information, but the odds of them remembering it in the long run are slim. Because there is no teaching going on. There is only listening. William James, a Harvard Professor, says education can only be defined as “the organization of acquired habits of conduct and tendencies to behavior” (James,15). To acquire habits, the students must act and learn with their senses. That is why hands on learning is encouraged at a young age. Hands-on learning gives the students the opportunity to experience what they are being taught. So instead of just hearing or reading the words, they are able to experience what is being said. This will help the students learn their interests and abilities better than if they were to just hear about
I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder how we could have tolerated anything so primitive. The pieces of the educational revolution are lying around unassembled."
Russell(1932/2013:107-108) knew however that one of the difficulties in large educational facilities is that the administrators, the people in charge, are not generally teachers; so they do not have the knowledge of what is possible to be learnt and what is not during a time frame the teachers have to impart the knowledge they are expected to, thus they put too much into the curriculum, and the result is that nothing is learnt thoroughly. Russell stated that “the problem of over-education is both important and difficult” (Russell, 1932/2013:109). Important because over-education can lead to loss of self-confidence, spontaneity, and health which leads to them being a less useful member of society than he may have been; and difficult because as the amount of knowledge there is in the world grows, it becomes more difficult to know what is relevant. However; Russell(1932/2013:109) acknowledges that merely letting children not learn will not work as society depends on trained and well-informed intelligent
I think that the nature of knowledge is relative. Not all children can learn in the same environment. I believe that if a child is put in an environment in which they cannot learn they should be placed in another environment so that they can. Some students learn at a slow pace and others learn at a fast pace. Then there are the students that learn better by lectures and others that learn better by activities. If you mix these children in the same class, than there are usually some lost kids in the class? I know that in my experiences with school, I would have never made it in a normal classroom since I learned so much slower than the other kids did.
Learning is depending on different factors. My own willingness but also the environment can influence the effectiveness of my learning. I will use Vygotsky’s social learning theory (1978) who usually get used to explain child’s development, to underpin my conclusion.