Should We "Let Teenagers Try Adulthood"

The essay, Let Teenagers Try Adulthood, was written by Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College. The essay states that we should send teenagers out into the world earlier to get jobs and/or continue their college education. This would allow the students to learn to contribute to and join the  society.  Botstein also wrote that the current education system is outdated, both culturally and biologically, and that is why he suggests that students instead graduate at the age of sixteen. I do agree that the education system is desperately outdated and needs reform, but I do not completely agree on his new education system setup.

Is sixteen too early for students to be sent out into the world? Maybe. Some students need the two extra years to mature. Others are ready to start their lives separate from their parents. Would changing the graduation date, two years earlier, change how we, as a society, look at who is an adult? Would a teenager, at sixteen, be legally an adult? Changing our education system, so that students graduate at sixteen, would be a huge change to our society and even to some of our laws. I believe that we should keep the graduation at eighteen, but allow for more freedom and exploration into the future. It would allow for the teenagers to have more time to mature and prepare for their future.

In the essay, From Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, Horace Mann wrote that the people with the higher education get the majority of the wealth. Botstein wanted to forgo middle school, add 6th grade to the elementary schools, and lesson the amount of time spent in school by two years. I do agree that middle school was rather like a place holder and not worth the time and may be eliminated. Would our students, with less time in school, still get the same knowledge, will they leave high school with a better education, or will they leave with less than those who are using the current education system? I would worry that with a decreased time limit, the students would obtain a lesser education. This could also effect our wealth, with so many people obsessed with their own wealth, it would be something to address.

Both Botstein and Todd Gitlin, author of the essay The Liberal Arts in an Age of Info- Glut, complain that the education system is outdated. Gitlin wrote that it is because of the thousands of images that a person sees a day, by television or otherwise, that the majority is garbage and it causes a disregard for the liberal arts. Both also addressed that the world is different and our education should resemble that fact. This is something that I completely agree with. The times have changed and so have we.

While Botstein's idea of students graduating at sixteen is not the most appealing, his thoughts on modernizing the education system is ideal. Also allowing teenagers to 'try' adulthood is a great way to create a brighter and better future. Reforms are necessary, but more thought should be put into our ideas before we make any changes.

 

Literary works are teaching values?

In the essay, I Know why the Caged Bird Cannnot Read, Francine Prose criticized the use of literary works to teach students values. She wrote that focusing on one aspect of the challenging and extraordinary literature, takes away from the actual writing piece. I have to agree that Prose is correct in her allegation.

Most teachers focus on the values: good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, racism, sexism, and it continues to include everything wrong or right in this world.  We push these novels on students, not because of their ability to challenge our students on a more literary standpoint or to increase the students' reading ability, but to teach them our values. Teachers have students read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird to teach students about racism. To Kill a Mockingbird also has the ever present good vs. evil with its simplified characters. Why are they talking about ethics, when the point of reading these novels is to learn to appreciate the writing?

When did reading a novel in Language Arts class become less about the language, the style, the characters, and all of its complexity, to become more about teaching lessons that most students at the high school level should have already learned. Teachers have to show what is beneath the surface and what is above it. In the novel Gone with the Wind, Scarlett's character has much more depth than being just a selfish woman. Her character was a modern woman placed in a time that being a business woman and a woman that fought for what she wanted was not something that was accepted in the late 1800s. Teachers should not simplify novels, just because they are a harder novel to read and understand.

Teachers should have students read classic novels and intricate modern novels. They should show the students the elaborate plots and complex characters. The Style and the language are also important elements, that should have more time dedicated to them. If these aspects are not addressed, are we really surprised that many students do not like to read? The reading lists of the Language Arts classes should be changed and the lower number of students that like to read should also be addressed. What happens in Language Arts classes can and will influence some students' future reading comprehension or if they read at all. Language Art teachers, especially in high school, should leave teaching values to the students' parents or elementary teachers and start focusing on the writing itself.

Queen of Education

The question on many people's mind is what we should do to improve education. How do we change our education system? Many people have, over the years, complained about our education system and they want change. They keep so- called "reforming" the school system, but everything looks the same, all the books are the same, the children do the same things, it is the same as it was before. Reforms are needed to create a competent and successful new generation. This new generation is, many people hope, going to pay off our debts and lead the country to prosperity and happiness and even allow us to compete with other countries in all areas. Reforms for education are a necessity for a brighter future.

Our students’ effort and participation in schools should be recognized and they should be appreciated. Everyone has a different area that they are good at. There are also many different kinds of smarts. People can be horrible test takers or just bad at school and still try just as hard, if not harder, at school work. We say that effort, hard work, and perseverance will be rewarded, but where is that reward in the education system? We should award those that work hard at it, not just those that get the best grades.

Grades should not be everything to students, but they are. Grades help decide your future, your collage, and your future occupation. The importance of grades has been related with an increase in cheating in schools around the nation. In recent years, teachers and parents have been stressing that cheating is unacceptable, but that is not enough. Our schools should crack down on cheating by at least changing their policies to have stricter consequences for cheating. When the consequences are harsher, less students will attempt to chea

 Advanced placement classes should also be reformed. These advanced placement (AP) classes are supposed to prepare us for collage, but do they really? The AP classes do help you learn study habits and how write essays. Many of those classes are not structured like a collage course, so it does not prepare you for that aspect. Reforms should be made to recreate the structure of a collage course and use that structure in the AP courses offered in high schools.

 Everyone in this nation believes that reform in the education system is needed. Everyone in this nation also can't agree on how to accomplish these goals. I believe that reforms are essential in the AP classes and in our grading system. Schooling is all about you and your future. AP classes are the best college preparation classes that we have at this point. We should maximize their potential. The students' efforts should also be accurately shown and rewarded. Education has never been more important, than in today's society.

Trying Something a Little Different

I am going to do a post on education this week and will hopefully get back to my reviews soon. My teacher wants to try something a little different for blogging. I hope you like it and hopefully it will just be for this week.


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