Topic: Why school is the choice that most parents made? Do they really know why they send their kids to school other than just going with the flow among the other parents? Most kids cry on their first day school experience (or nervous as moving on to an unfamiliar environment like middle/high school) but parents still choose to send their kids to shape by school systems that unsatisfied them. What is a persuasive or satisfied answer for students who attend to school, so it can lower their level of denial and hatred for going? Or in other words, What is the purpose of school and how students should see it?
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Perspective of parents
This article talks about how a couple make decision for their bad behavior kid (“manipulative teenager who cursed out her mom and dad and had started failing in school” as described) by sending her away to a program call Therapeutic Wilderness that made her “hike three to five miles a day with a 25-pound pack” and “learn to make a fire with two sticks”. In their case, their daughter was successfully transformed to someone that they can live with again. The reason why parents decided to send their kids away according to the article claimed by psychologists was that parents are admitting their failure as a parent. Which it seems to be true, because one parent said, “I can provide all the love in this world, but I don’t have skills to treat my son”. Therefore, even sending your kids to some strangers to take care of, it requires "a leap of faith" for the parents.
This article brought something that might not be what most parent do to their kids by sending them away completely, but it is worth for the parents to know and be aware of what they are doing. Such as sending kids to school, it did not only reveal their inadequacy in certain areas, it also shows that they are trap in a situation that they need to seek help from – school. School has professionals who might be able to solve their problem, and often times it did help their kids which seems to be one of the satisfied answer for kids to know that school are there to help, not to harm. However, I believed parents do have something to offer to their kids that the teacher might not be able to, and school is not the only thing that shapes the youth.
Perspective of Students
An interesting statistics done by an organization or program call “The Japanese Youth” regarding on youth from varies of countries (Japan, Korea, U.S.A., U.K., and France). The report/research that this program has done only focused on currents students and former students. The first focus that they did was the “significance of going to school”, and they provide 11 choices for those still attending school. For the U.S., 79.1% of the students think the significance of going to school is for “general and basic knowledge” which is the highest compared to other countries and is the highest choice that students in U.S. choose out of the other 10. Follow up, from the second to greatest to least were:
“Better education background and qualifications” (54.1%),
“Specialized knowledge” (50.5%),
“Learned from the advice and good example of teachers” (45.0%),
“Work skills” (42.6%)
“Improved my friendship with others” (39.2%)
“Cultivated my talent” (27.3%)
“How to enjoy free time” (26.8)
“No particular significance” and “Don’t know” and “Refused” (1.9%)
Note: Since I am only focusing on the U.S. and reason why students attend to school, I will just analyze the data for this country to narrow down the topic although it will be interesting to see the different perspectives of students from different countries in varies of areas.
This research reveals that most students who attend to school are for "general and basic knowledge”. Not only this was the most chosen one throughout U.S., it was also the highest out of all the other countries. Not only this proves that students values learning at school, it shows the most students in the U.S. are being shaped in certain ways, and to think in certain ways. Most significance out of this research was that it shows students do know why they go to school for, and they do enjoy school in varies of perspectives. As seeing the orders from greatest to the least, it implies that U.S. is definitely competitive in terms of education, and it did play a major role in the society.
“Going to school: significance and evaluations”. The Japanese Youth. Part 2: Outline of the Survey Results. II. School. March 2009. Web. 23 February 2010.
Perspective of John Dewey
This is an article(II) written by John Dewey arguing that school is a “social institution” where is just a “form of community life” that gathers the children to share what has been passed down which he called it the “inherited resources of the race”. Therefore, be able to use what they have learned from school for “social ends”. A powerful statement, “I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living”, meaning school should teach things that are relative to “life as real and vital”, so they are able to make use of it wherever they go. Since school is an institution, it’s responsibility is to “simplified existing social life”, so students are able to see their relationship with the material being given at school, then make use of it for their own. However, he argued that lots of the present education fails this mission because of ignoring the fundamental principle of school. He believed that school is not a place where students take lessons, and learn certain required information given by teacher because that’s forms a pattern for them as john said “stepping stones”. By forming this habit of “doing something for the sake of something else s/he is to do” will disable the students to be part of the life experience and thus they are not “educative”.
John Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed did made a lot of strong arguments, such that school itself should be part of living experience, not preparing for the future. This is something that most of the students don’t see school as; including myself, I often think school is preparing for my future, and that’s why I am here. I agree with John Dewey’s perspective on this, and I think by helping the students to understand what is the real purpose of school, they will be clearer of what they are doing other than, “I am just here because is the law”. Overall, I think people should practice to have the habit of learning throughout the rest of their life. By doing that, they will know that even though someday they are not at school, they are still learning, it is part of life. Although John Dewey said that school should not give people the image of “certain habits are to be formed”, I believe that school is somewhat an institution that still shapes other than simply learning as experiencing life.
Dewey, John. My Pedagogic Creed - Article Two "What the School Is". School Journal vol. 54, pp. 77-80. January 1897. Web. 23 February 2010.
Perspective of Daivid Warlick
What is the purpose of education?
Perspective of John I. Goodlad
Perspective of research professor of psychology at Boston College
This is an article by Peter Gray who argued that the book by a “cognitive” scientist, Daniel T. Willingham, call “Why Don’t Students Like School?” fails to answer his own question that was used as his title of the book. Nevertheless, Peter Gray is suggesting that the answer is simple, school is a prison. But most people who been to school or still attending to school do not often say it because that was not polite or they have been brainwashed that school is good for them, therefore should not say anything about it. Lastly, he argued that if we continue to ignore this elephant in the room, or refuse to face the fact that school is a prison, no one will ever be able to improve education.
Peter Gray seems to try very hard to put his shoes into the students, totally defending for freedom and encouraging the students to admit that school is a prison. Although it might be true that students do want freedom and just like to play and learn along through social experiences, he never seems to provide any effective suggestion of how to fix this problem. In addition, he never opposes the school system also but blame the ones who avoid elephant. I personally believe that a lot of us do say this and do admit this, but we are just powerless to change this school system. I don’t believe simply by admitting school is a prison will help improve the education to make it more interesting and appealing to students. Yet, freedom is not the biggest reason why students don’t like school.
Gray, Peter. "Why Don't Students Like School?" Freedom to Learn. Psychology Today. 2 September 2009. Web. March 1 2010.
Perspective of Bestselling Author - Seth Godin
On Seth Godin’s blog, although he did not talked in depth into what he thinks of school, he raises up a discussion for people who cares about education to consider. A simple question “What is school for?”, but hard to answer in his opinion. He argued that we spent so much time and money on school, and if we do not know what school is for, we might not be able to figure out how to use what we have learned to market ourselves to compete with the others. Thus, he provides a long starter list of “purpose of school”, with 27 reasons to start with. Then he ended his post by suggesting others to think about it, or maybe forward it to school board or principals for discussion.
In this list with 27 reasons, most of them make sense and are authentic to me. Such as “to become an informed citizen” and “homogenize society, at least a bit”. I found out that most of his list about purpose of school reveals an interesting point that schools are there to shape us. Such as his other reasons like “be trained in the rudimentary skills necessary for employment”, “teach future citizens how to conform”, “teach future consumers how to desire”…etc. A lot of these not only reveals how school will sort us and shape us in many ways, it also gives me a thought of going to school is not simply for “future”, there’s more into the word “future”, and by listing them with many reasons, it avoids the vagueness of the word.
Godin, Seth. "What Is School For?" Typepad. 31 January 2009. Web. 1 March 2010.
Perspective of Passionate Marketer
Perspective of a reader from Seth Godin's blog post, passionate about education and schooling
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