Every year, everyday, every election cycle, every time a new teacher comes and an older one retires, every time 10 kids fail to the one who succeeds, we wonder....after so many years of scratching our heads:
1. Why has so little changed in public education?
2. Why are foreign languages still taught by conjugating verbs instead of having conversations?
3. Why do children leave school after six hours, many with no where to go in mid afternoon?
4. Why are children let out for three months to work the fields each summer?
5. Why are schools, handicapped accessible, wired for the Internet, have fewer kids in each class, have more nutritious lunches, have full-day kindergartens, have students reading and writing earlier and better than ever, high schools offering advanced placement courses by the dozen, and vocational-technical schools expanded to include everything from biotechnology to robotics but still have American students lagging far behind internationally?
6. Why do teachers 'teach the test' leaving students unmotivated?
7. Why can kids navigate iPods, video games, the Internet, and the shopping mall to buy designer sneakers, but cannot compete with their counterparts in countries like Singapore and Japan...who do the same?
8. Why do students and teachers still not aim to reach their true potential, in school and beyond?
9. Why has so little changed in public education?
I think the answer to question 5 is something that we are aware of. In a country like India, education is one of the most efficient way to be socially upwardly mobile. The difference between a job as a marginal farmer on the brink of suicide and having a job that feeds the family is EDUCATION. Parents know this, children know this....its about survival. In the developed countries, one talks about quality of life rather than survival.
Posted by: Akhil | March 3, 2007 10:20 PM | Permalink to Comment