اشترِك في نشرتنا الإخبارية
Growing up, we were all taught many different subjects in school. We have been constantly forced to sit through an endless amount of mathematic classes, sciences classes, history classes, French classes; the list is never-ending. However, I can’t help but wonder, where were the classes essential for our proper development as students? There were never any friendship classes. There were no classes that taught us how to buy a house, how to love a child, how to raise money or how to figure out what is important to each and every one of us individually.
And that is exactly the problem with our teaching system. We were never taught to be unique and distinct, but rather, we were all taught equally and on an identical level as if we all had the same learning abilities, passions, interests, imagination, hopes, dreams etc. And again, we have been led to believe that, after we graduate, we will be ready to face all the multiple challenges we may face in our lifetime. Unfortunately, we have quickly come to realize that that is simply not the case.
The problem is that the school system is blind to the children who never find what they are gifted at, and that eventually come to think and believe that they are slow and unintelligent. Albert Einstein once said that everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid. And that is exactly the case with our students. Instead of focusing on improving each individual’s strong aspect, we were too busy trying to teach a dreamer how to calculate or force an idealist to memorize historical facts.
Why were we never given an equal chance at education? Why were we not taught to collaborate with each other and understand each other’s abilities instead of competing with our classmates on who is going to get a higher grade on the next test? Why are we not being taught respect of others’ talents and potential instead of categorizing our students and encouraging the less accomplished in certain areas to believe that they are unworthy of education, that they are inefficiently ignorant?
In short, I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I stated that schools are killing creativity, individuality and, to a certain extent, are being intellectually offensive to those that do not excel in its limited educational disciplines. While most articles and structures have evolved over time to meet the needs of modern day society, such as phones and cars, the educational system has failed to evolve since its establishment hundreds of years ago.
I strongly believe that it is time for change. It is time that we take special care of the needs of each student instead of grouping kids of the same age with different strengths and different necessities into one intertwined classroom, with one teacher that will systematically drill them with information that only a few students will actually remember. Let’s give a chance for our future artists to create masterpieces, just as we expect our future doctors to memorize anatomy because, in the end, while students are merely twenty percent of our population, they are one hundred percent of our future and it’s about time we start believing in a future where fish are no longer forced to climb trees.
