Why do we learn?

Why do we have education? How should we educate our children? It seems that over the years though all intentions have been good ones we still do not know the answer to the later question and at times it seems the reason for education does not reflect how we educate our children. It also seems that sometimes testing and assessment are more important or at the very least hinder learning.

There is a pendulum that swings back and forth when it comes to societies reasoning to education. At different times it meant job training, Americanization, assimilation, family/household skills which are gender specific, a focus on the three R’s (reading arithmetic, and writing), focus on math and science or a focus on the development of the child. It seemed that during each time some children might have fallen through the cracks. So how do we as a society teach to all? It seems though that when we educate one way does not work with all students. I always thought through the adults around me that education was to get us ready to be adults. Later on I realized that education is more than that. Education is and should be to better ourselves as individuals and the community we live in.

With this idea of education I would think than that education would continue throughout our lives. But when our government tried to educate a mass amount it ended up educating different groups in different ways. How now do I as a teacher move back to the idea that everyone can and should learn as a way to better themselves and the community we live in? How should I teach in the classroom to start supporting this idea of education? Especially when there are some things in place that I will have to do to keep my job that may not support this ideology. If children are the future of our society and we as a society do not support each and every one of them in their education and bettering themselves is that a moral issue or something else?

Tracking seemed to have started way back in the 1920s when it was for career tracking. Students were given an IQ test which would then help administrators and teachers know what classes they should take and what to teach them. But the test was in English possibly given to students who barely understood the questions. And the questions were at times very culturally bias as well as being just darn ridiculous. Today is tracking any better? By labeling our students correctly or incorrectly, does it help in their education or not? To put students with other students at the same developmental level does that hinder their growth or expand it? I am not sure. I can see where if you have a group of very advanced students they could do more than another class at a lower level, and stay challenged. But I also know from coaching that if I put a new player with a veteran player both will improve greatly but in different ways. The new player will gain confidence and better their skills to play the sport quicker than if they were to stay only with another new player. And the veteran player not only has to learn to communicate better with a team mate but builds self-confidence in that they have to share and partly teach what they know to the new player. Does the amount of growth, the level of thinking increase or decrease in either scenario or are they the same in a classroom of students with the same level of cognitive thinking to that of a classroom with different levels?

Do we educate to be greater, to get to the next benchmark or beat the other country in math scores? Or do we educate to personally grow and better ourselves? I finished reading a book last week that made me grow a great deal in terms of how I thought of policy making in government to reflect my own moral values but others haven’t necessarily read it or thought of this same thing. Are they less developed cognitively than I? Did I really learn something or do I need to pass a test on the book first?

I thought I had a good idea of why we educate ourselves and I thought that how we educate reflected that. Now I am not too sure. If I want my students to develop emotionally, physically and mentally when I am teaching is the education system in place the best that it can be to do that? I don’t think so. How then can I help to change the educational system that we now have to benefit our children more? I have an idea of how I want to teach but will the educational system in place help me do that? What will I have to be able to give up so to speak and still be able to teach? Is why we educate a moral issue or something else? So many questions and so few answers; must keep learning.