Rare Book Monthly
Articles - October - 2005 Issue
Taken To School: What's Wrong With Education
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Why is home schooling so successful? The instructors are inexperienced in teaching, and are not likely experts in their field. Some people will tell you this proves how bad our teachers are, and how bad are our schools. No, it doesn't. The home school teacher works one-on-one with her/his student. There is no peer pressure in a classroom of one. Your child's schoolteacher could do an amazing job if it weren't for the other 19, 29, or 39 students in his/her class, in front of which your child feels he must constantly perform. When you are continually putting on a show, and that's what peer pressure forces your child to do, it is amazing that he or she ever learns anything.
Now please don't lump me in with those people who say all we need to do is get back to basics, and not spend money on schools and teachers. I think those people are more interested in buying bigger SUVs than in providing their children a good education, but are too embarrassed by this position to admit it. So they say we don't need to invest more money in education. The quality of our schools and teachers are major factors in the quality of education, even if they aren't the most crucial one. And, I am certainly not one of those people who thinks we must conduct more testing. How many times must we test our kids before we recognize that they aren't learning enough? No we need to invest more in the education of our children, but it is still clear to me from observing children in class that the major stumbling block in the path to their education is peer pressure.
So what is the solution? I wish I knew. Just because I can see the problem doesn't mean I can see the answer. This was a problem when I was young, and I'm sure it was for generations before. Some of the indirect attempts to alleviate this problem, like school uniforms which reduce the need to show "independence" may help marginally, but that's all. They do not meaningfully reduce the pressure these kids are under.
And yet, these kids are not stupid. They are not uncaring, they are not uninterested in learning. It's all there, waiting to come out, but they can't let it out. I do not know the answer to peer pressure, but I do know that until someone finds an answer, the quality of learning in our schools will never be more than a shadow of what it should be. I observed, and now I know.
