We all know that the American education system is deeply flawed and we can often see that many people are not learning enough within the current system. There are ideas about how to fix it coming out every week. However, there is one thing that many people are not considering, which is critical to the functioning of the system: the views of the students – the people who are being educated – which should be thought of as critical to building a functioning education system.
There are so many debates about education could be improved. At first, there was standardized testing. Later, there was the Common Core, and there are constant hypotheses presented. Many of these have seemed to do little to affect how education works overall. Some students still seem unmotivated and their learning seems to be stagnant. Many involved seem to have an opinion about why this is, but the answer seems self-evident when one thinks about it: we have to listen to the students.
Students should be the basis on which any education system is built. Everything depends on the students’ receptiveness to learning. Students who want to learn will be able to learn and the right educator will find it easy to educate them. If you have students who do not want to learn, even the best educator will not be able to teach them.
So the question must be: how do you find ways that all students will want to learn?
A good place to start would be by asking the students how they learn best. The students are the ones being educated, so it seems best to ask them about how they would be the most receptive to education.
This is why students should be given an active role in determining how the education system works.
Students should have meetings with school boards and other structures in which they can discuss what is working and what isn’t, as well as any new ideas that could be implemented. Understanding that a certain educational base is required, with students taking an active role in determining the education system, we could see a new surge in the students’ ability to learn.
One of the best ways that students can learn is if they are happy. It is obvious that if students are happy with what they are doing in school, they will have a greater desire to learn. However, it is also obvious that a large number of students are not happy in school and think of school as an experience to be endured rather than enjoyed.
This is because the effort put in by many educators is often misdirected, when it should be used to make schools places where students are happy. The students’ unhappiness might be attributed to the inability of students to provide input, due to lack of a means for them to do so.
In conversations that I have had with educators and education officials, a common sentiment has generally been, “This is school, it isn’t supposed to make people happy.”
To which I say, “Why can’t it?”
This is an especially good question since it is common sense that students who are happy with what they are doing will learn better. Many educators will blame the students for this, charging that students are not working hard enough and that lack of motivation is the fault of these students. These educators will often cite the common saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” This is ridiculous; a horse would die of thirst if it didn’t drink.
In all seriousness, a better saying would be “a horse will choose apples and carrots over hay.” What I mean by this is that like a horse will enjoy apples and carrots more (and will therefore be more likely to eat them), a student will be more open to consuming education when that education is more enjoyable, even when it may be difficult.
There are plenty of ways by which education can be made enjoyable. An interactive side to education, with activities and visual demonstrations will almost always make it more enjoyable, as can inserting a few jokes and entertaining bits into lectures and keeping long hours of reading a textbook and answering questions to a minimum.
However, what is most important is that we listen to the students. It should be mandated that educators listen to whatever group of students they preside over and take in ideas from these students.
Students should be invited to meaningfully participate on school boards in order to become more active participants in determining the curriculum.
Despite the fact that it is self-evident that this would improve things, education officials still have an attitude that students aren’t educated like them, and therefore cannot figure out what will work. They say things like, “I was once a student so I know what it was like.”
This is problematic for multiple reasons. The first is that people cannot remember every detail of their lives going back that far, and most of these officials have not been a student for a long time, so their memory of that experience has inevitably faded. The other problem is that students aren’t stupid. There are students who have been capable of amazing things, and students who are highly intelligent despite the system being inflammatory.
Educators should work with students to design classes and other learning spaces to create the optimal design for students to learn. Student representatives on the school board should wield actual power in making decisions on how things are run.
While school boards ultimately have to decide which Shakespeare plays to put in the English curriculum, what matters more is how that material is being delivered, and how the students want it to be delivered.
For instance, in a science class, students should have some say in what kinds of class activities should be done. Students should be able to help decide which labs the class should do, and which videos and other resources the class should watch. Students should also have a voice in what the class spends the most time on, in order to benefit their learning the most, and what they would enjoy the most in the classroom.
Students are the only irreplaceable part of our education system, so we should put a strong focus on trying to find what works for them. We must work with the students in order to assure that they are getting the education that is optimal for them. We can build the next step of a better education system by increasing our consideration for those who are being educated.
Images: Ivan Aleksic and Annie Spratt