Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Our Values and Culture Shape Our Schools


As I mentioned in my last entry, money is not the only problem facing our schools, the real problems are teaching style, culture, and values. According to the TIMSS results on schools, “In fourth grade, American kids do above average internationally. By eighth grade, they slip a bit, and by 12th-grade, they’ve slipped a lot.” The U.S. is the only country that slides down that much from 4th to 12th grade, so what is the problem?
Now of course there are many reasons why schools fall behind, but I believe that besides teaching style, which I explained previously, the problem is our culture’s values. There has been a change in both students and parents mentalities that is creating students, who are not motivated to learn, or who do not see the point. Many students no longer consider studying, planning for college, and learning as priorities and instead are consumed by fads, celebrities, fashion, being thin, and most importantly being popular. Since our media and environment is covered in useless information about these things, children do not see the point is researching the mass genocide in Darfur, or our countries involvement in the middle east. While living abroad, I was shocked to find out that in other countries the national and international news is actually news and not celebrity gossip, or diet fads. Improving the actual schools and teachers is not going to go very far, if our culture’s values do not change. We must create an environment for learning and growth outside the classroom that motivates children to pay attention and understand the world around them. In other countries, teenagers discuss politics and world events over dinner, or while shopping, while in the U.S. teens gossip about Britney Spears, or how fat the girl they just passed was. I’m not saying that preteens and teens in other countries do not care about celebrity gossip, what I am saying is that they understand at the end of the day what really matters in the world. The reason why student performance drops so much more from 4th grade to 12th grade in the U.S., is because of our culture and its values. If we change the way we think and what we value, everything from our schools to our foreign relations will improve. Contrary to popular belief in this country, ignorance is not measured in how well you scored on a test, it is measured in how you go about your daily life, the decisions you make, and how you react to the world around you. More than anything, these are cultural, social, and environmental problems, not problems related to what U.S. children are currently learning in school, although they should be. The only way U.S. children are going to catch up with international students, is if we rewrite the values that are promoted in our country and make sure that those values are emphasized in all areas of our cultural environment.

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