Every child is born with an established character and a bend towards certain thoughts, ideas and actions, both good and bad. The belief that we are shaped by our surrounding culture and society is true only in part, as many of us are largely the same people at 25 years old, that we were at five years old.
The pillars of who we are and what our strengths and weaknesses will be are present and evident from an early age.
For example, some kids have a natural bend towards music, while others are gifted athletes. While that can certainly be honed and developed in later years, it’s not installed in them by an institution or societal side-effect.
Instead, it’s completely inherent.
This reality makes it difficult and ultimately ineffective when you put 30 of these kids in one room and educate them as if their only commonality is their age.
The truth is that every one of the kids in a class room are completely unique and incredibly different from one another. In every category, whether it is strengths, weaknesses, interests, struggles, ideas, creative energy or thought process, those kids are fiercely individual and set apart from their classmates.
This is a huge reason why the American education system is at times so ineffective when it comes to educating our kids and preparing them for life in the real world.
A Blanketed Approach
Because of a low teacher to student ratio, the school system’s only real option is to approach the education of kids using a blanketed approach based on age. This means that the material must be presented generally, without specific tutoring or explaining going to any child, but rather a generalized delivery to an entire classroom.
Because of the diversity in that classroom, some students will understand that material and be able to process it, but most will not; though for many young kids, processing that material requires that it be delivered to them and explained in a different way. A teacher with 30 kids to educate doesn’t have time for that sort of one on one attention, even if they agree that it’s helpful and necessary.
The result is a small percentage of kids who understand the material and are put in a place to excel, while the rest of the class might scoot by, but don’t really have a firm understanding of what they’re being taught, therefore no real tangible education ever occurs.
What’s the Solution?
With so much of the responsibility for educating our kids resting in the hands of teachers with larger classrooms, the options for avoiding this kind of scenario make up a short list.
Many parents have chosen to address this inefficiency by pulling their children out of school and homeschooling them, either for the duration of their schooling years or for a certain portion of it. While this certainly solves the problem of catering to a child’s personality, a family needs to be in the right situation to make it work, with enough time and energy to devote to their kid’s education, while still providing financially and maintaining their home.
In short, not everyone has the resources to do it.
Private schools are always available; though again, resources can be an issue here in terms of cost. Even still, with a private school you can still end up with larger classrooms and less personal attention given to each student.
Whether the answer is to be found in a new form of school system that stems from private schools, or a more widespread homeschooling movement, our kid’s education needs a bit of a facelift.
No matter what direction the debate goes, there’s no denying the fact that our children are unique and personal individuals, thus they needed to be treated and educated as such.
Kristen Thomas is an avid blogger and contributor to TheLearningExperience.com, a leading day care provider with quality child care centers in Florida.
