Yes.
Currently, the US is ranked 14th in the globe in education, and is continuing a downward spiral on the list. Why is this? Why can’t we fix this? Throughout the nation, the basic high school schedule is like this; Classes start at 8 in the morning, and classes end at 3 in the afternoon. The school year begins in late August, and finishes early June. Why is there a three month gap you ask? Summer break of course, so the students and teachers can finally take a break of the constant pressures of homework, extra-curricular activities, exams, social pressures, and finally just sit back and relax in the warmth of summer. Was this always the reason? No. Originally, this “Summer break” was so that students could help their family work full-time on their farms. Makes sense, right? Well what if I told you that only 2% of Americans are farmers today. Our education system allows us for a three month break in the system so that one in every fifty students can work on their family’s farm, those families are definitely going to need their children with all of these highly advanced combine systems which practically allows the farmer to sit in the vehicle and watch TV the entire time. So that’s one thing wrong that requires some tweaking if we are trying to improve our status in world education.
Another thing, is what goes on during the school day. In school, we learn new ideas, new equations, and then we are required to perform small repetitive tasks in succession, without fail. Nearly a hundred years ago, in the early 1900’s, a large amount of the workforce in America worked in factories, where they did exactly what we’re doing in school today, perform small repetitive tasks in succession, without fail.
Today, we see the industry economy shifting to countries with extremely large populations, whose workforce will work for extremely cheap, China, for example. Today, the United State’s economy is no longer based upon the Agricultural or Manufacturing sectors, and more and more careers are created for those who can be creative and work collaboratively with one another on large projects where in the end it will all come together to create something that can benefit society. We see replications of this in the education system today with Project Based Learning initiatives like Iowa BIG. But these attempts of changing the education system are not happening fast enough, and they are the only way to get America back on track towards leading the world in education.
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