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Thoughts on the U.S. Educational System

Written by Aaron on May 28th, 2009

As Kindergarten winds down for my six-year-old daughter Madeline, I found myself flipping through her finished schoolwork and was amazed at how far she has progressed from just about nine months ago. Counting to 500, writing complete sentences in cursive, reading at a 2nd Grade level, explaining simple scientific concepts to me as I cook, already mastering computer skills that didn’t exist for me when I was her age… the list goes on and I don’t want to brag on her too much. We are homeschooling Madeline and because she did so well in public preschool, we decided to try an advanced homeschool curriculum to see how she would handle it. She not only handled it, but she blew us out of the water.

During this whole process, I have been comparing her progress to public-school curriculums currently being used both in Ohio and Virginia, specifically the standards set by the states as well as the “required skills” checklists used for assessment by the schools to gauge a child’s readiness to advance. I also had the opportunity earlier in the year to actually see homework brought home by another student we know in Kindergarten who is attending public school. Madeline looked at the homework this other student brought home and showed it to me. “Is this what they do in ‘regular’ school?” she asked, totally astonished, pointing out that it was work she had completed in preschool and the first few weeks of Kindergarten.

Madeline’s incredible performance can either be attributed to her being gifted (which I haven’t ruled out), but also the fact that I believe our public schools are purposely slowing down the educational process to create a pseudo-equality among the students. I base this on the fact that Madeline’s homeschool curriculum is used by tens of thousands of students every year and from my understanding, most perform as Madeline: with flying colors. Are homeschooled kids smarter than public-schooled kids? I don’t believe so. So why, then, do homeschoolers often excel academically?

Why was my daughter writing her name in cursive three months into the school year when the other student I mentioned was just learning the letter “G” at the same point in their “educational timeline”? This baffled me, and I’m certain is had to do with curriculum and the speed at which new concepts are introduced. In a public school setting, there is very little room for students who grasp concepts quickly and are ready to move on to be able to do just that: move on to the next concept or goal. Studnets who pick up on these concepts quickly are forced to slow down to match the pace of everyone else in the classroom. They sit idle for what could be weeks. Madeline gets antsy now when the lessons at home encroach upon topics she already knows well — I can’t imagine how disinterested in learning she would be if forced to sit through concepts she’s mastered.

I was bored in school. I got straight A’s, and hated every minute of school because I sat their twiddling my thumbs most of the time. I was bored. So I found ways to entertain myself, which usually led to trouble, especially in Jr. and Sr. High, where my boredom with school turned into poorer and poorer grades as I just detached after 10-12 years of feeling completely unchallenged.

One of my favorite moments in the Pixar film The Incredibles is when Mr. Incredible is having a “heated discussion” with his wife over their son’s upcoming “graduation ceremony.”

“It is not a graduation,” he says, “He is moving from the fourth grade to the fifth.”

“It’s a ceremony.”

“It’s psychotic. They keep coming up with new ways to celebrate mediocrity.”

Brilliant! I don’t think the issue stops with schools finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity, either, I think the problem begins with aiming for it in the first place.

I understand that I am speaking in massive and broad generalizations here, but overall the issues I’m talking about are the norm and not the exception. Are there schools out there that are capable of delivering different learning options for different types of students? Yes. Are they common? No way. In the vast majority of schools in America, there is one way to learn and one way to succeed. If a student doesn’t follow the one road to academic success, their entire life is affected, not because they are a bad student, but because the school district they happen to have been born into didn’t offer a program of learning that suits that student’s individual learning style, pace and needs.

Study after study shows that there are many different ways that kids learn. If our scientists are saying that, again and again, why aren’t we adjusting our educational system to reflect it? Are we so content with our ever-falling position in this world in education that we just don’t care? Or does Friday-night football still hold more weight in our communities than the future of not only our students but our country as well? Do people really think that twenty years after high school, its going to matter that Joe Schmoe was able to run that last-play-of-the-game touchdown? Is that more important than him being able to compete in a global business market?

I’m proud of my daughter. She’s six years old and can read books that students in public school two years ahead of her can’t even pronounce the titles of yet. Why in the world would I ever want to put her in an environment that is going to stifle that?

Tags: Educaton, Homeschooling, School