Anna Maria Richards
Current education models across though popular and widespread, have been identified as having negative impacts on child development and the promotion of creativity amongst children. Should such a statement be true, this would spell doom on not only the children, but also the economies and future prosperity of multiple countries. Creativity and free thinking are basic building blocks of progress and success. Since the beginning of time, humanity has shown great creativity and ingenuity to solve the various problems he comes across. The entrepreneurial spirit portrayed across the world, however, might slowly become curtailed due to the way education systems are focused across the world today. Just a few issues that are wrong with education systems world over include:
Its Linear Nature
Education systems today insist on all learners following a similar path. What’s more, these path is never straight, and at various levels, the seemingly ‘underperforming’ students get cut off or left to pursue their education at substandard institutions while their peers pursue excellence. Think about it, your academic life, kindergarten, all through campus, was one journey of test after the other, all the while looking forward to earning the promotion to pursue further learning. Junior and senior high school were also subject to you passing some test or the other. One problem with the straightforward nature of education systems is that innovation and creativity are never linear. Rather than obey such rules, it is often spontaneous and instant. Think of the Walkman or the compact discs they played. They were a revelation at their time, only to be replaced by the IPod, which was in turn replaced by the smartphones that we have today. In each of the three cases, innovation was disruptive and not linear and flat, as are the current modes of learning.
They Require Conformists
Today’s schools, all across the world, are built and designed in a manner that encourages the conformism of its learners. Every time a child come’s of age, they are expected to attend kindergarten, and this marks the start of their academic journey. From there, these students will be expected to stick to the program and fulfill the various requirements, including studying for a predetermined curriculum, which is most often stale, dated, and impractical. By their nature, schools assume the roles of a factory churning out products (learners) that are standardized. However, humans are innately different, possessing different talents and abilities, joys, and hobbies. While tapping into this diversity would be a sure way of fostering creativity, education systems do little to fulfill this objective.
It Requires Compliance
Education systems today also require high levels of compliance, rather than free thought. Teachers and school administrators work to curtail disobedience, high energy, and other traits evident in creative, and innovative beings, yet all these are common traits in highly innovative, intelligent and creative people. Rather than encourage and build these traits and talents, schools across the world will instead burden their learners with a fixed curriculum, regular exams and take-home tasks that require assignment help. What’s more, encouraging a high level of conformity is detrimental to overall child development, and this is evident in the high number of children that don’t even finish high school. According to research, a third of all students attending high school drop out before they graduate. What’s more, research also shows that over 50% of all graduates report experience some form of depression and lack of interest at the workplace at one point in their careers.
Trigonometry is considered to be one of the most important chapters in mathematics because of the practical relevance and weightage of the exam associated with it. Trigonometry formula is another very crucial component of this particular system which very well makes sure that people will be having a good command over the entire chapter without any kind of hassle. With the amount of great pressure in terms of studying and scoring good marks, normally kids get confused in the entire process of learning and memorising the formulas. Hence, following different kinds of tips and tricks in the whole process is the best way of memorising the trigonometry formulas by heart to ensure that kids never get confused at any point in time.
While the prevailing situation is dire and undesirable, not all is lost. Various modifications have been put in place by various institutions in a bid to enhance creativity within their institutions. Such actions, however, are being implemented by only a few schools that have been quick to identify the importance of promoting the creative process within their children. Accordingly, these efforts are highly different and fragmented according to what different jurisdictions, curriculum developers, school administrators, and other stakeholders see fit. Such efforts show promising signs of rectifying a problem that for long has gone unnoticed. In the various efforts seen, there’s hope that the first steps have been taken to help fix the problem and what’s left is to build on these positive efforts.
On this quest to better the quality of education within our society, teachers also comprise the most important players. As ever before, teachers are the primary educators to young minds. They influence, inspire, motivate, and look on the whole, assist a student to fulfill their highest potential. By virtue of them having primary contact with learners, their input will be most crucial in bettering the system to better suit the learning system currently in place.
