Sir Ken Robinson discusses the topic of education, its flaws in the system and two reasons why public education needs to be reformed. The first reason is Economic. He chose economics because education is supposed to help students learn and find their places in the economic world of the 21st century. However, how can we prepare students when we cannot anticipate what the economy will be like the next day, next week, next month or next year. We are setting the students up with these expectations of what the world will be like for them when we cannot fully anticipate it. The second reason is how do we educate the students while helping them develop a sense of cultural identity. The effects of globalization and a English-only language in public schools end up causing the students to lose part of their cultural identity in order to assimilate. These two flaws are trying to make the future from what was done in the past. The past cannot be part of today's public schools because of the never-ending changes of technology, learning needs, differentiation, etc. We are still following the traditions of the past in our schools but this system is leaving out culture, language, imagination, and it is not addressing different learning needs and learning levels. The students are just expected to come to school, do their work, hear the bell ring, go to next class and it keeps repeating until the students go home. Sitting at a desk for the entire school day causes hyperactivity as well as prompting quietness and conformity not creativity and curiosity. Students are slowly being pulled away from being spoon-fed the answers and beginning to develop critical thinking, learning to ask questions, work with others, conduct research, silent read on their own or as a group, annotate documents and write strong thesis statements.
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Renee Marquis*History Enthusiast Archives
April 2015
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