Reforming the School System

The average high school student today has the same levels of anxiety as psychiatric patients in the early 1950s. We are overworked, held to unrealistic expectations and told we’re going to fail miserably in life if we don’t achieve A-aggregates. Of course this is stressing us out. The school system incentivises insecurity and emotional turmoil. Our well-being is completely disregarded.

“Here, take this material, do all your homework and know everything we discussed in class off by heart tomorrow. Oh, and do that same thing six more times today.”

“You only got home at eight after choir and athletics practice? You were up until 3 AM studying? Not my fault you procrastinate.”

It’s honestly exhausting! We are demotivated and despondent. On top of this, we are all seen as immature and entitled, when in reality we’re just trying to keep our heads above the water, and being diminished and treated like petulant children certainly isn’t making it any easier.

We are being sent to school to prepare us for the “real world”, for the future, which is mutable; constantly changing. Nevertheless, our educational systems haven’t changed for hundreds of years! They are archaic! The current system is modelled in the interests and image of the Industrial Age with the primary purpose to produce factory workers. This mentality of mass production and mass control still forms the foundation of schools in the 21st century.

Children’s lives are governed by bells, dictated by following instructions. “Sit down, take out your books, turn to page 100, solve problem number 1.”

This is an example of an Industrial Age value. You’re awarded for doing exactly what you’re told, for not questioning your superiors and for suppressing your own ideas and opinions. But the modern world values workers who can be creative, who can communicate their ideas and who can collaborate with others. We never get the chance to develop these skills during our school years. We are faced with a complete lack of autonomy, trapped in steel-coated boxes that inhibit our innovation and originality.

Learning has become inauthentic. It relies on the memorisation of a generic set of knowledge. Exams are administered to determine how much has been retained. You need to learn the same thing in the same way as everyone else. This creates an extremely unhealthy culture in which we only value marks and not broadening our horizons. There is no room for passions and interests. How fundamentally dehumanising is that? Potential goes unrecognised in the current system.

We can all agree that REFORM IS NECESSARY!

So what would an effective and engaging school system look like? Education needs to become digital, automated and highly personalised for the individual so that we can use our natural inclinations to make the world a better place. The system needs to stop bombarding us with insurmountable amounts of work.

Finland has the shortest school days in the entire Western world, and their students rank first in the world. They don’t have a drop out rate either. This is all because the immense pressure is removed, and instead they are taught to think critically and for themselves while also having the liberty and time to pursue their hobbies. More focus needs to be put on the arts and humanities since these subjects develop the parts of children that are otherwise untouched. We need subjects that actually manage to switch on our brains.

Human beings are different, diverse and prone to curiosity. Forcing us to fall within the very narrow spectrum that schools perpetuate will never deliver positive results. We need a system that helps us to flourish, a system that excites our creativity. Standardised tests should be diagnostic, they should help, and they should not be the dominant culture in schools. They should support learning, not obstruct it.

Teachers should mentor, stimulate, provoke and engage. Thankfully, there are teachers out there who succeed in enlightening and developing children by using interactive methods in class and making the work thought-provoking.

Schools need to consider switching to collaborative learning so students can capitalise on one another's resources and skills. It will develop a higher level of thinking, oral communication, self-management, and leadership skills. It promotes student-faculty interaction. It increases student retention, self-esteem, and responsibility. It exposes students to diverse perspectives and it prepares them for real life social and employment situations.

The current school system is restrictive and needs to be dismantled and replaced with a propitious and interactive paradigm.

Once you stop learning, you start dying.

And once you start going to school, you stop learning.

By Bianca du Plessis