The United States has been facing an education crisis for the past 10 years, getting worse, and worse. Now, 2010, many are thinking of ways to fix the education system. However, most arguments are for one of three probable issues; techers, students, or administration.
From my experience in school, more and more of the good teachers are getting fired, retiring, or quitting. These teachers mostly get replaced with teachers that either care less about teaching, and more about their paycheck, or are very opinionated in their teaching. There are the good teachers, those who know what they are teaching, how to teach it, and keep their own personal views and life outside of school, out of the classroom. Then there are the bad teachers, who like to add their own view, talk about their personal life while teaching something, don’t know or care about what they are teaching, don’t know how to teach what they are teaching.
While I was in school, most of the students with me seemed to care about their studies, and tried to get good grades. Even those who didn’t want to be in school, tried to get at least D’s. However, there were those who frankly didn’t care. They didn’t care either because of drugs, laziness, or even, they were so rich, they didn’t ever have to have a job. I don’t see this as an issue in the education crisis.
This is a big one I have seen. Rules are set in the aspect of money, not how well the teacher can teach with that rule in effect. Administrators get paid too much. When the superintendant of one school district gets paid more than the governor of the state, there is money getting thrown away that could be spent for education. Administration does not have to do what a teacher does, their work is much simpler.
How to fix it all
First off, teachers need to be taught how to teach in the real world, not like how one of my high school teachers told me, “…they told me that the students are craving for someone to teach them, and they come to school ready to learn.”
This is obviously not the case. Teachers also need to know how to teach their subject, and care about that subject or teaching for that matter. More time needs to be spent teaching the information, and not review the past year, or “teaching how to learn”. Teachers also must not get mad at a student for being an open atheist, or dressing a way the teacher does not like. Teachers are there to teach a specific subject. If the teacher is teaching “how to be like the majority of the populous” or “Ethics”, then fine, but in math, who cares what the student is wearing or thinking.
Administration needs to be reduced, drastically. Administration came into the picture in the mid to late 20th century. We got along just fine without it. That is basically it for Administration. More power to the teachers.