In the essay “School Is Bad for Children,” the author John Holt argues that traditional schooling prevents children from using their curiosity and stunts their interests in learning. He believes that in the school system, children do not have a chance to learn what they like; they learn what the teachers tell them they must learn causing them to become passive learners. The children don’t have a chance to learn from mistakes or through other children because they are scolded for talking and having wrong answers. John Holt believes that because of all this children learn to hate school and he proposes ideas to reform the school system and make it a more efficient place for children to learn. Holt was persuasive and I found myself agreeing
The teachers blamed the students but they were trapped in the same strict structures of the compulsory school program as the students. He then suggests that maybe that there is not a "problem" with the schools. That they were right when they designed the school to do just what they are doing. Designed not to teach us but to keep us from ever really “growing up.” With that thought the author asks, "Do we need school?" Gatto gives us examples of well-known people who have accomplished great things in their lifetime and were not educated through the school system.
Schools cannot beat the entertainment industry at its own game. What they have to offer students is the chance for intellectual freedom, the power to think for themselves…(Ravitch 163). In school, students are always taught to have an open-mind, how can they have an open-mind when they are being censored? Schools only offer boring, bland topics and cause students to lose interest. Students are so highly influenced by the media that if they aren’t hearing about violence, death, sex or lies, then they have the “don’t care” mentality.
That he is strayed by the rest of the town - peer pressure. Mr Cunningham is also just like everyone else he has his blind spots. In conclusion, Atticus against the odds teaches his children that people should be judged by their own merits and not my the social norms. Through the thematic theme of prejudice Attiucs is the role model to children, He is looked up to by his family and his friends who "trust him to do
With homeschooling, the parents are the ones teaching their children, so they know their progress, strengths and weaknesses. Bittner explains that there are numerous problems with testing and that teachers actually have a problem with it. There is such a frantic need to teach children everything that will be on a standardized test that learning is almost disregarded. If any material isn’t on the main test then it is not taught. The author point out that critical thinking is not on a test so it is overlooked by routine memorization.
Some parents ignore to teach their children when they were young. It cause many children don’t care their behavior and they will get the wrong worldview. I like this book because that is a good advice for children and parents, it can help parents teach their children keep a good behavior when they were young. How to listening to the other people, that is a serious problem for children, especially for parents. Now, more and more children don’t like to listen to the other people.
By showing to the readers that he was once a public school teacher it helps them see him as an expert giving his own expert opinion. He stresses that the public school system is doing the youth of this generation an injustice. He does this through analyzing the goals of education, not schooling. He uses the third goal a lot which is to make each person their best that they can be. He also says the today’s school system suppresses the word genius.
Many people argue that development is vital in the younger years in the child’s life, and the ability to solve problems and apply ideas help in the long-term. Hyman argues that the lower classes create a self imposed barrier to learning their values. This is because he believes that they have a low value on education, with a ‘play safe’ culture and also a low level of self belief. This would all impact on the child performance at school as they would not have the attitude needed to progress. If at any point they failed, they would see this as a big mistake and give up and have a lack of motivation.
Cheating, fear of failure are just some of the examples that existing in the graded-oriented environment. Measureable outcomes are necessary but it doesn’t mean that teachers have to turn everything into numbers; in fact grades are the “least significant results of learning”. Although the absence of “assessment-based grading” is a necessary; teachers should consider these following grading techniques: replace numbers and letter with rubrics, prepare students to every test without fortify their knowledge, post grades online only add more destructive effects on learning, students are willing to read your comments about their works and finally
Instead of learning some actual useful information, teachers fret over the test rather than about how much that student is actually absorbing into their head. It has become a practice to ‘teach the test’ in today’s teaching world. Tests like SAT, ACT and AP have you pay quite a bit and don’t even show you what you did wrong, blocking out the possibility of even trying to learn from your mistakes. It is believed to be a clever tactic used to gain more profit, students keep coming back to prove they are worth more with those silly numbers. They stress day and night over these overrated tests, like previously stated channeling out the imagination, curiosity and good will.