Documentation
Why is better, better? (ßRhetorical)
Why should education stay just in school, homework eradicated and learning become
a structured part of your day that ends when the bell rings?
Works Cited
United States. National Commission on Excellence in Education. A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform : A Report to the Nation and the Secretary of Education, United States Department of Education. Washington, D.C.: The Commission, 1983.
Exploration
Part 1
On August 26,
1981, then Secretary of Education T. H. Bell created the National Commission on
Excellence in Education to investigate the quality of education in the United
States. Their report, A Nation at Risk,
brought about findings divided by content, expectations, and time critiques.
·
Content—it
was found that “curricula have been regulated, thinned, and diffused to the
point that they no longer have a central purpose.”
·
Expectations—In
many other countries, “courses in mathematics - other than arithmetic and
general mathematics - start in grade 6 and are required of all students. . . .
The time spent on these subjects, based on class hours, is about three times
that spent by even the most science oriented U.S. students.” (65-66)
·
Time—three
disturbing trends came about: Firstly, American children spend much less time
on schoolwork than those elsewhere. Secondly, time spent in the classroom and
on homework is often used ineffectively to help the student grow. And thirdly, schools
are not doing enough to help students develop good study habits.
Part 2
I
begin this discussion thinking with a question? Why is it that we, the people
of the world, always believe in this change, that we need something better and
different, but in reality we end up just not getting anywhere? This is
rhetorical of course, many people believe that when they come up with an idea
they think it’s ingenious and new. I wish that some people would realize their
idea probably isn’t new. Hell, I bet this idea isn’t. Why don’t people look at
the history of man flip back a few chapters to, say, the mid/late 1980’s? A
time where education was rather average and bare and people did alright. It’s
what they did. Education, for the most part, stayed in school. Meaning homework
wasn’t really around and the things they learned it was learned in the class
room by average people. But people
complained that our students were getting dumber. Ah no! Clearly people weren’t
being educated properly until the 1990’s. Clearly we must push our students
really hard, assigning more and more homework and tests and evaluations. Wrong.
Some of the most important people who changed the 21st century were
born, and educated before the education reform of 1983. Steve Jobs and Bill
Gates graduated high school in 1973 while Oprah Winfrey graduated high school
in 1971. ‘Guess by education standards, they’re not smart. My point, as you may
be wondering, is these highly intelligent and successful people came from a
less educated world and created incredibly significant things—perhaps we reform
to the old ways. Learn and do like how we used to.
I
may just be finding what I want to find, but as the article points out,
“curricula has been homogenized, diluted, and diffused to the point that they
no longer have a central purpose,” I think its safe to say that even at a time
people are in a way admitting to the uselessness of work and homework. Yes
these people were calling for change and improvement. Maybe they got that. But if
we look at that, we see even then, people say the uselessness of homework, that
maybe it didn’t improve the retaining of information like how we hoped it did.
The time that they spent on
homework declined despite grades were improving. That is a major point I am
trying to bring about or to point out; we are still able to study and retain
information without the need to do homework.
In regards to
time and the reform that this aged article refers to is about three disturbing
trends. These trends are important because I find it plays the most important role
in answering my question, to understanding, or at least lead to new questions. Firstly,
in A Nation at Risk, it pointed out how American children spend much less time on
schoolwork than those elsewhere. This doesn’t necessarily mean people are “better
off” doing more school work. But this is true, as people of privilege we have
this opportunity to do so and we still are a superpower led by people who have
been educated the same way our children are today. It’s not how you teach its
how you learn. People always think it’s the fact that the student hasn’t been
prepared for something that he fails. Like when a test comes and they do poorly,
people immediately assume the student wasn’t taught properly or didn’t study
enough of the right things. The wrong “solution” is to give more practice, more
homework, to “ensure” they succeed. This doesn’t always help, sometimes it
causes stress and brings a student’s grade down. Secondly, as brought about in
the time portion of the findings, the time spent in the classroom and on homework
was found to be often used ineffectively. This brings up a point in favor of
both sides. The students may not be learning anything because of distractions
as phones and other forms of technology increase, however as additional work is
being piled on to assist in one subject we fail to even begin to scrape at more
topics in a particular subject. And thirdly, it was and today is believed that schools
are not doing enough to help students develop good study habits. I agree with
this statement because I am one of those people. I have no clue how to study. I
have gotten advice but not gotten any progress or significant change in my test
taking. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.
So in short, to answer the question
why should education stay just in school; the homework students got back in
1983 clearly didn’t hold them back, didn’t hold this nation back from achieving
great things. They’re style of education brought about and educated many bright
minded people we look to today in awe. So studying differently, and increasing homework
clearly isn’t the, isn’t AN issue either. We won’t get anywhere until schools are able to provide ways to
study and learn in a controlled tone that doesn’t push us to the point of
educational recluse—to all homework but no place to call home. Schools and
education won’t truly change for the better until we find the reason for why
our children are “doing so poorly in school”, which isn’t any different than
the students from, A Nation at Risk, 1983.
Part 3
For Journal 1, I wanted to know if frequency was the truly fundamental
question that needed to be addressed. But I think as I hit this topic from
different angles using different sources I think how looking back helps grasp
at the importance of frequency. In A Nation
at Risk, the research found that the lack of education was “bad” and that it
needed to change out of the need to compete with other countries to be the best
educated people on the planet. It is biased of itself, the U.S. and so ignorantly
points out that education needs to be changed. However I think it accidently
brought up important points. It brings up frequency of homework. It believed
that the amount of homework given was too little and needed to be substantially
increased. But it then immediately points out how we students seem to less and
less while still maintaining good grades. It steps on its own toes and stops its
momentum indirectly saying that the homework we get is irrelevant to our
success in the classroom. I questioned the importance of frequency and the
answer was in A Nation at Risk.
Part 4
To put
it simply, I wonder what became of this paper, A Nation at Risk, and did it change anything? How did it bring a
positive change to education? These are questions I want to know more about.
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