Archives - Education: Page 27
Author: amparo enriquez (Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:07 pm)
Title: education
I welcome the president’s new spending plan on education. The only way to overcome the commercial challenge presented by China and India is to become more competitive and the only way to become more competitive is through higher education.
Years ago when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik we roused to the challenge thanks to our investment on higher education and we can do it again.
Higher education means better technology and production, in quantity and quality, a more competitive America with better performance in global markets.
I think the fundamental problem with education in the US is that the role of teacher has changed so dramatically from distributor of information to a no-perks parent. Parents are considerably less responsible for their children which wrongfully applies more pressure on the teachers to develop the non-educational needs of the students when they should be learning those things at home.
I've been fortunate to have taught at the college level and one of the things that really struck a chord with me (no pun intended as I taught music) was how terribly immature some of these students were--even at the graduate level.
I'm not sure there is a solution; even doubling the amount teachers would make. Our society has already demonstrated that education is such a low priority that the children who would need the money 10 years down the line at the college level wouldn't be mentally or socially prepared to deal with any of the information presented to them.
I agree that doubling teachers' salaries would most likely not solve the problems with our education system. One problem with our current system, is the clear line between what students ought to know when they enter college, and what is actually the case. We must find a way to reform our system at the foundation, or we can never hope to achieve higher levels at the top. It makes no sense to groom a horse for racing the week before the first race. So why then, would we attempt to solve our educational crises at the upper echelon? We have students entering college that do not possess the most fundamental of writing skills necessary to enter a competitive workforce. We have students enrolling in remedial mathematics courses and failing. The truth is, we shouldn't need these classes in our colleges and universities. We should be better preparing students from elementary school forward. In my mind, this is the only way we can ever hope to increase technology and production. As of late, America is churning out many more graduates in the quantity column, and much less in quality.