My Opinion on the Failure of Education Today

This poster was on the wall in the hall of a school I worked at only a year ago. 
Taken w/ my iphone.

I could go into the data and link to articles which support the fact that the quality of our public education has declined over the last several years, but I would be willing to wager that any reader would understand the validity and accuracy of such an assertion. As a retired educator, such assertions are from experience and understanding from the changes witnessed over time.

So, what is it that I think has contributed to this decline?

There are many factors which may be playing into this issue, but I'm going to focus on just one issue which has become obvious to me recently that I would like to share.

Let me ask a question or two. What media industry outspends education 10 to 1? (Hint: There's a profit in it for this industry.)

Advertising outspends education in brain research because they use the understanding to more effectively connect - usually on an emotional level - with the viewer watching the ad to make a product "stick" in their mind and recall it when out shopping.

Education? It's still training its teachers in elementary classrooms to use little "sing-song" mnemonics to memorize something, if that! I know from Common Core curriculum in teaching mathematics to fourth graders, the process of learning the multiplication tables is considered a waste of time; as one specific example.

Here's another question... What has been replaced by technology, causing it to gradually disappear, or fade away, in our modern culture?

If you guessed stories, or more accurately, story telling, you're correct!

Why are stories being read aloud, or spoken, significant to the developing brains of children? Through the audible mode of listening, children use their imagination to contrive images in their minds. Today, our youth are saturated with visual stimuli along with the audible, and the child doesn't have to create any imaginary imagery in the minds to go with it; it's all done for them.

Here's another question I have which I believe relates to mental laziness. Why do today's children give up on working out difficulties?

Brain research has revealed that developing brains in children grow through having to make an effort at understanding something and being able to articulate, or demonstrate the concept learned.

I can't tell you how many times my students were giving up at learning something new. However, when they were told that their brains were having a difficult time with it because their synapses and dendrites - the components of the brain's memory network - which were created during the process of learning something, it took a greater effort to hang in there over time for our brain to make the connections. 

Knowing this, they gradually began to realize that, if they were going to get smarter, and better marks on whatever they going to be assessed on, they shouldn't give up, but press on with determination and effort; knowing that it would eventually pay off for them.

Rather than training today's teachers to understand this and utilize it in their instruction, they are focusing on how to save the planet from a mythical threat of carbon pollution, or loss of forests, or being a social justice warrior. This has become more prevalent than most of us realize.

I believe if there's one thing that would help combat our culture's march toward bringing up future generations of mislead and compliant generations to not learn to think for themselves, it would be reading aloud to them from an early age. Why? Because while raising our two daughters from infancy, we read aloud to both of them until they didn't want us to. Yet, both of them started Kindergarten possessing an independent reading ability at a 3rd grade proficiency level. Talk about a head start!

They also grew up as intelligent, thinkers who understood the need to question and cross-check things before accepting them as gospel by the media advertising and news that worked daily at brainwashing them.

I grant that there are many other factors not touched on in this post, but it still is a huge one.