Sometimes I feel like, as Americans, teenagers (and students of all ages), take the education, and the education system, that we have for granted. I know I know, you've heard it a million times "You need to be grateful for what you have, think of the children in Africa who have no education and in china who are told what kind of life they have", But have you ever really, and I mean really took the time to just STOP and realize how LUCKY you are? We get free education when other countries do not, or don't even get one at all. We get to CHOSE what we want to be, instead of our government deciding for us, or deciding if you'll have a future at all.
Now I understand that sometimes, sitting down and listening to lecture, after lecture, after lecture, isn't always the most enjoyable, or effective way to learn, but sometimes we have to engage in things we don't particularly like. However, its understandable that in some instances teachers aren't truly effective in their teaching, but never the less, students need to learn to cooperate more in class activities if we want to get the most out of class.
The article got me thinking, I mean, I've heard that foreign counties like Finland and Sweden had the highest success rate in teaching their students, but I never really knew why. Its obvious that students in America take for granted their education and all together have this ungrateful I don't care attitude that pushes us to be so...not in the top intelligence, but that couldn't have been the only reason, there had to be more. The article gave me the other reason I was looking for. The way people teach....hands on learning, personally, I enjoy it and learn a lot from the activities. Things like chemistry and science are not easy classes to take by any means, but they...I feel, have more of an appeal to them because there are so many hands on activities involved with them. Creating things, dissecting animals, things that you learn about in class taking action in your hands and creating memories in your brain, it just seems like such an easy way to learn.
Elementary school was (learning wise) a fun time. Field trips, art projects, I mean things like that, small and not so significant, but very hands on, are good ways to teach students an people how to learn. Of course we still need to train ourselves to work by just listening, and train our brain to memorize what we hear, but doing things has a long last effect on the memory maybe even more so, than hearing. ALSO something that we NEED to work on as youth and as a NATION is the community within schools, and the atmosphere presented by them. To learn better, people shouldn't have to work about being picked on, or something like that, they should feel comfortable and safe within the school so that their brain can hown into just learning, and not worrying about what's going to happen after school, or at lunch. I feel that the article made a nice point when pointing out how community plays part in an effective learning environment.
Well, I liked this article, it actually interested me a little because it was something that I wondered about and thought on. I read through it with interest but occasionally had to pause because it was lengthy, but didn't hesitate to finish it. I enjoyed reading through it and thinking about things as I read along.
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