Educational System in The 21 Century

Introduction

This highly debatable topic was brought to my attention by the grace of a friend who is and will always be of true value to me. Some of us know who he is. We began this debate on a very minimal scale, initially within our classrooms or sometimes only in our minds. But the world has descended too far into chaos. This needs to be shared. So, this is me and Saad Ali speaking. Take a look.

Educational System in the 21st Century

What has become of the youth of this age? Why have we fallen to such a state that even our families have been replaced by virtual friends? Why have we turned our backs on beautiful Mother Nature and embraced the hypocritical digital world? Why have we become so dependent upon just a piece of scrap metal that claims it can replace almost everything in our lives, but alas, it has! Why are we so inclined towards such material objects that we have reverted to inheriting primitive traits towards people around us? Why, oh why, have we stopped being creative, productive, and the insane thinkers of the insane as we were before? We strive so hard to expel these 'smart' phones that have become like an oxygen supply to us.

The Flaws in the Current Educational System

One of the reasons that have led to our current state is the educational system. Right now, all it does is make us do what it wants from us with both hands tied behind our backs and blindfolded. The multi-talented and diverse group of youngsters that enters a classroom each year exits with a monotone attitude, no longer as bright and eager as they were at the start of the year. We are being educated out of our creative capacity (Robinson, 2006).

The educational system no longer serves as a colossal think tank. Students who become victims to such a system are no longer brimming with far-fetched dreams. Instead, they only think: What will be my GPA? What will be my SAT score? God, if I get below 50%, will they promote me to the next class? It's the old and boring Physics teacher who says dark energy can create wonders and there's something called antimatter with enough energy in one microscopic molecule to wipe out the entire planet. Let me tell you something: the grades you care so much about are merely a receipt of the transaction you made—money for knowledge. The receipt doesn't matter; what you learned matters. Like every other receipt, this one should be discarded too (Kohn, 1999).

The Role of Teachers

Speaking of the old and boring Physics teacher, this reminds me of another reason why we have become nobodies. We students have fallen into the wrong hands. The educational system isn't the only one at fault; it's also the teachers who teach by that flawed system. What does a real teacher do apart from teaching? A real teacher challenges the educational system and strives to individually dig out students' talents and areas of strength, building their teaching procedure upon those particular skill sets. That is real education, where the inferiority complex is shot out of the sky, and a multi-talented class of exceptional students emerges. This is where their 'best' is brought out and where they flourish. That is the best classroom in the world (Palmer, 1998).

Conclusion

In such an environment, the teacher extracts and enhances each student's talent so that the passion for learning emerges, allowing them to learn everything they need to become the person they dream of being in the future. However, the present times pose a fearful problem, closely resembling the American Dream, perfectly impersonating the workings of a factory. The robots' programmer is the biased individual who designed the educational system. Every empty packet on the conveyor belt is a student ready to fill themselves with real knowledge. What really goes into them is identical to what goes into other packets. Some embrace it, others are force-fed, and at the end of the line, they all emerge in boxes called classrooms, all identical to each other. That is what has become of a multi-talented class of highly talented students (Freire, 1970).

Clearly, that is not teaching. Teaching is when the child truly learns, not when he hides in the corner of the classroom thinking he wasn't able to do what his "friends" did, so he is stupid, dumb, a nobody, and an unsuccessful man. But when you take him to a music class, he takes the stage. All I want to say is that teachers, to some extent, and the educational system, run hand in hand in the art of destroying someone's future. And this art is very easy to master.

References

• Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
• Kohn, A. (1999). The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards". Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• Palmer, P. J. (1998). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Robinson, K. (2006). Do Schools Kill Creativity? TED Talk.