What do you think our school system lack of?

Answer 1

As a teacher I can tell you that elementary teachers are forced to teach too many different things rather than sticking with the basics meaning the students have no solid grasp of said basic when they leave.
Society has lowered the bar and then began making excuses and changing standards to disguise the failings of our system. No one wants to admit their schools are failing. Rich liberals want to deny poor parents the right to choose which school their kids go to- but hey those rich ones have school choice.
Parents are no longer acting as parents. Kids come 2nd if they are lucky as self absorbed parents seek that vacation or new car or new pool or new lawn mower etc or just go out partying. Parents are failing and that is the major problem in our system

Answer 2

This will not be a fashionable answer. I think that corporal punishment correctly applied would be a wonderful thing. Teachers are the best and brightest among us and obviously start with the best of intentions. They do not go into it for the money. If a teacher were allowed punishment as well as (grading) reward things could work out better. Blunt speaking--- If a teacher could slap a disruptive student without regard to civil rights then maybe some learning could go on. The old sit down, shut up and learn routine.

Answer 3

Worrying too much about political correctness, having way too much government interference and believing "big is beautiful" are probably the three main reasons our educational system. Reforms needed:
1) Keep the schools small; neighborhood schools are ideal.
2) Have multiple classes or tracks for those who are capable & motivated and those who are not.
3) Get government bureaucracy out of education to the extent possible - competition among publicly funded, privately run schools would be ideal.

Answer 4

AS a student and teacher these are the following: (besides higher pay, as much as the athletes.)

Critical thinking classes.
Classes that that teaches and have classes built upon these core concepts:
Awareness
Honesty
Responsibility

Courses and classes in:
Understanding Power,
Peaceful Conflict Resolution,
Elements of a Loving Relationships,
Personhood and Self Creation,
Body, Mind, and Spirit: How They Function,
Engaging Creativity,
Celebrating Self, Valuing Others,
Joyous Sexual Expression,
Fairness,
Tolerance,
Diversities and Similarities,
Ethical Economics,
Creative Consciousness and Mind Power,
Awareness and Wakefulness,
Honesty and Responsibility,
Visibility and Transparency,
Science and Spirituality.

These classes are not a 2-day unit in semester-long course.These should be separate courses on each of these things.

Change to Value-based curriculum, yet we are a large fact-based curriculum.

In a valued-based curriculum, classes would focus our children's attention as much on understanding the core concepts and theoretical structures around which their value system may be constructed as we now do on memorizing dates and facts and statistics.
Arithmetic and mathematics are the most basic tools in the universe for living life.

Right now schools exist primarily to provide answers. It would be far more beneficial if their primary function was to ask questions. Schools should be a place that encourages all children to discover and create those answers for themselves.

You think it would lead to chaos? As opposed to the non-chaotic conditions under which we now live our life.

My point is not suggesting for our schools never to share with our offspring any of the things which we have learned or decided about these things.Quite to the contrary.
Schools serve their students when they share with Young Ones what Elders have learned or discovered, decided and chosen in the past. Student may then observe how all this has worked.
In our schools today, we present these data to the student as That Which Is Right, when data really should be offered as simply that: data.
Past Data should not be the basis of Present Truth.
Data from a prior time or experience should always and only be the basis for new questions. Always the treasure should be in the question, not the answer.
And always the questions are the same. With regard to this past data we have shown you,
do you agree, or do you disagree? What do you think?
Always, this is the key question. Always this is the focus. What do you think?What do you think? What do you think?

Now obviously children will bring to this question the values of their parents. Parents will continue to have a strong role-obviously the primary role-in creating the child's system of values. The school's intention and purpose would be to encourage offspring, from the earliest age until the end of formal education, to explore those values, and to learn how to use them, apply them, functionalize them,-and yes, even to question them.
For parents who do not want children questioning their values are not parents who love their children, but rather, who love themselves through their children.

Our education system has to accomplish a way which focuses on "wisdom" more than simply "knowledge."

Answer 5

Damn near everything. I hae to teach these kids when they get to college--and it's pathetic. Not the kids--they're smart and motivated. But the schools are not doing their jjobs.

Here's a few o fthe low spots:

>Lack of writing (and critical reading) skills.
>An inadequate grounding in history and literature. The majority know little of the history of the United States, virtually no geography, and nothing about the Constitution and how our government works.
>Mathematically most of them--even the ones that make it to college--are virtually illeterate in math.
>Science is even worse. Some of them know formulas and such. Virtually none have even a basic grasp of scientific methnod--most of them can't even define what science is.

Some things that need to be done:
--start kids READING again--and require that they write analytically--and using proper grammer, spelling, etc.
--Bring back "civics"-either as a seperate course or as part of the social science courses. But no child should gratuate high school without understanding the Constitution
>I'm all for the use of computers--but not when they are used as a means of NOT teaching the basic reasoning skills that are the real value of math. No one is every going to use the "binomial theorem" in daily life--that's not the point. Its the logica and reasoning skill that study of math gives that is of value-and just punching buttons on a computer or calculator is NOT a substitute.
> start teaching the scientific method again--in depth. Andstop allowing junk science and religious doctrine to be treated as science-it is not.

Answer 6

I shall be the iconoclast. The school system is lacking competition among the schools themselves. Its based upon a nationalized industry, which I presume why do we put our kids in the hands of the same people who run the post office? With Schools competiting, teachers would have to be a good teacher or won't have work. My proof for this is that grocery stores are available to give us multiple and exotic foods as well as low prices. If they can do that with food with such effeciency why not give education to the market.

Also something to note is one of the 10 plancks that Marx and Engels advocated was public schools.

Answer 7

Quality Teachers

Answer 8

Our schools lack inspiring teachers

Answer 9

Its lacking discipline.Think about it.Back when teachers were allowed to paddle the kids,schools were more behaved,which lead to more kids paying attention,which lead to more kids graduating.Now it seems like the kids run the schools.Hell,when I was in school I had a habit of sleeping in class.But there was one math teacher who had no problem paddling anybody who slept in his class.Math was the subject I hated most,but you can bet your a** I stayed awake in that classroom,and guess what,I passed that class too.

Answer 10

If I was the one asking this question, I would have to give the best answer to myspace.com/paul! It is a direct quote from Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch! This world would be a far better place if most people would read these books. *sm*