Josh Karthikeyan Week 6 - America's Education Thoughts
Education is a life lasting endeavor. For students to have a clear, consistent environment to achieve their best education, each student needs to have teachers, principals, and parental figures.
In a perfect world, together with equal effort from these three groups, students are able to learn at school.
In practice, often, parental involvement is neglected while teachers and principals are expected to carry the student’s success in the classroom. According to The Annie E. Casey Foundation, an organization created to develop a brighter future for children, explains how parental involvement leads to “higher graduation rates.” By including parents in their child’s academic journey, education becomes a shared responsibility for the teachers and parents, overall better supporting the child’s learning.
But because of how parental involvement is neglected; teachers and principals bear unrealistic expectations. Principals cannot meet these students outside of school but are expected to fix systematic problems that do not come from the school, but home. Teachers are expected to ensure that the student is learning but how can they do that if at home, the student is unable to do any homework.
Not every student has an equal amount of teacher, principal, and parental support, which reflects on the quality of education of the student.
How is education, an equalizer of opportunity, supposed to work, if the student can never get the equalizer in the first place?
The American truth is that education will not work.
The Public Policy Institute of California declare that in California only “half of the students met the state standard in English, while one in three were proficient in Math.”
If only half the population are able to comprehend English and only another third can understand math, then where will the next generation of innovators, leaders, and thinkers come from.”
Wherever they come from, this group will not come from America unless major changes are made now.
Image by Signe Wilkinson via Personal Website
The lack of involvement of parents in their children’s education is devastating, knowing that some kids are unable to live up to their full potential because they are held back by their surroundings. However I think there are a multitude of factors that contribute to a parent’s absent state which may include working overtime to support their families or struggling with certain issues that take more than just their own will to overcome. Whatever the reason may be it is disheartening to see how it is affecting their children. I can see how this transfers over more responsibility to “teachers and principles” who are putting more effort into a child’s education; however, I think that is just a reflection of how much they care and want a child to succeed. You claim that “education will not work” but I think it can work with a bit of altercations. If education were more flexible, such as providing students with better time frames, students who have major responsibilities at home can still have an opportunity to finish their education. Of course this change will not be reflected immediately, these things take time but if society is willing to put in effort to help these students succeed we, as a whole, will be better off regarding future generations.
ReplyDeleteHi Josh! This is also something I have been thinking about for a while, since education is vital for any human. Education is how a person learns, knows not to repeat mistakes made in history, and is how they build themselves in the future. Without education, a person is more likely to “fail” in life and won’t be successful. A really interesting point you brought up was how education can only work with parental involvement. I feel like that's an extremely valid point, since parent teacher conferences or keeping the child in check with work as well as checking their grades will have a higher chance of succession compared to the absent parent, since it would all fall to the child. At a young age, this may affect the child since they aren't grown enough to manage their own work. This normally is better however when the teacher chooses to put in more work and help the child, which is something that makes me extremely happy to see. You also mention how only half of the students met the state standard in English and only a third were proficient in math, and this is extremely disheartening to read. Our generation and generations after will not succeed unless change is made, as who are we supposed to rely on the way at our age we rely on leaders and doctors? Aren't they in a sense “dumber” than people who we look up to now? This slightly worries me for the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Josh! These statistic that you gave of only half of the students being able to meet the state standard in english and one third being proficient in math is very concerning. Education is one of the most important thing that a person can receive during this time. With it, you can comprehend, think, and conclude. A child ideas and thoughts are molded by the people around them and if the parents are not involved in this critical moment in their child's life, then we can not expect them to properly grow.
ReplyDeleteHi, Josh. This was a very interesting read. I also think that, especially in formative years, a parent’s involvement matters a lot because their desire for their children to succeed in school can translate to the child’s desire to succeed in school. If, at a young age, a parent instills the ideas to do well in school, their kid will likely hold those same ideas as they grow up. In that way, one could argue that a parent’s job is slightly more necessary than a principal’s. I’m obviously not saying principals are not important, but I am saying that for each individual student, their parent’s involvement can be more important than that with their principal. However, I don’t think that “an equal amount of teacher, principal, and parental support” necessarily fixes the American school system, especially since every student is different and has different needs. But also, even if a student was hypothetically given all three, there’s a multitude of different reasons as to why they still might not succeed. It’s very circumstantial and situational. On another note, I’ve also heard about the plethora of California students not being proficient in English/Math and I would argue this directly correlates to the parent’s involvement. Like you said, there is only so much a teacher can do, and parents are the reason their children are passing below state levels. It’s incredibly depressing to think about, but it could also be in part because of other issues. Of course, many children missed out on important learning milestones because of the pandemic, and that also led to decreased motivation that still continues today. It could also be because of funding cuts to the U.S. Department of Education. Or maybe it’s all three, and recent years have just been a perfect breeding ground for decreasing test scores.
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