Looking at the State of Education in the US

Today I would like to talk about the current state of education within the United States and shortly I will be covering Walnut Valley Unified specifically.  Everything I am going to say is based on my own research and opinion and is not intended to change the way you feel about education.

So, right off the bat as the US struggles to climb out of the recession many are wondering what will come of education.  Every day you hear stories of school districts laying off teachers and experts saying what is best to fix it. 

You will even see comparisons of the U.S. education system versus those of other countries.  Now, this may seem overwhelming and there is no doubt that there needs to be some changes here in the United States, but what? 

Well, here are some key topics that we need to look at: the way we teach our students today can not be the same way we taught them 20 or even 10 years ago; second, we need to strive to make education much more interactive and global; and finally, the way in which schools are run from the highest to the lowest needs to be rework in-order to truly be successful.

Let's first look at how we teach our students. Traditional teaching includes lecturing and test based assessments, which is a whole problem in itself and a expensive one. 

Teaching today needs to be much more technology based and use kids strengths to get them to understand the material. One thing that I like to do that many teachers do is have students teach parts of lessons.  Several reasons why this seems to work is they are responsible for learning material and presenting it to the class. 

This makes the students use critical thinking skills as well as traditional study skills to truly make it successful.  I often have gotten positive feedback and students tend to learn material better.  Think of this new way of teaching where everyone is teaching and the teacher is more of a moderator or there for clarification.

We also need to make classrooms more global and interactive. One way in which you can do this is by teaching to the many different learning styles. 

An example of this would be doing skits, picture walks where students observe pictures and make notes on it, or even have students create their own wikipages on a certain subject.  We need to be more global by including current events and impacts they have around the world at least three times a week! I like to talk to my students for the first five minutes about a major event in the world and why it impacts us. They really seem to enjoy it!

Finally, the education system as a whole needs a total revamp. Whether this means changing pay, benefits, tenure or just the way schools operate, I do not know.  This is where I am not sure on what needs to be done as I have little experience within this specific issue.  Teachers and administrators do not always see eye to eye, but we should always remember that at the end of the day, the students are what is most important.

Here's an interesting link on how to make learning more like a game, based on rewards and choices!

Thank you, please leave me your comments, and visit my website at: students-worldwide.blogspot.com