Reflective and analytic approaches to essay writing

Education

John Gatto is one of the few teachers who are speaking out against the current educational culture who knows what he is talking about. After teaching the state of New York, which has one of the highest per student budgets in the nation, uses many progressive teaching theories, and still produces some of the lowest test scores in the nation, his frustration comes from a wealth of experience. Teachers who start their careers with a sincere desire to educate students have their hands are tied by multi-cultural disconnectedness and a socialist teaching culture which discourages individual accomplishment. The frustration expressed by Mr. Gatto (Berlau, 2003) is likely only the tip of the iceberg representing the depth of the nationwide problem. From Atlanta to Minneapolis, news papers are filled with stories of failing students, failing schools, and school systems which are confused as to the source of the problem. Maybe it is time that the teachers and principles admit that the source of much of the problem is current educational policy which has settled into the comfortable hammock of teaching kids 'how' to think, rather than insisting that they master a specific body of knowledge as part of their educational career. The goal of education is to produce high academic achievement, which comes from obtaining specific knowledge and building critical thinking skills, not one or the other. For at least 3 decades, public education has been subtly changing the definition of education, and the result has been a dumbing down of curriculum (Haines, 2002), and accepting the mediocre results they produce.

Out of this disconnect has emerged a quiet grassroots rebellion aimed at reinventing both the form and the function of American education, and as a result, charter schools have boomed. In 1992, there was one charter school in the United States. Today, there are more than 2,000. (Pink, 2000) Today's public schools, Gatto says, are irremediably broken. A framework which was constructed to supply a mass- production economy with a docile workforce, schools ask too little of children, and thereby drain youngsters of curiosity and autonomy. Tougher discipline, more standardized tests, longer days, and most other conventional solutions are the tools by which the education culture can begin to be changed. Gatto says that even these efforts may fall laughably short of the mark. "We need to kill the poison plant we created," Gatto wrote. (Pink, 2000) In his book, "The Underground History of American Education," Gatto says: "The destructive myth of the 20th century was... that forced schooling was the principal agency of socialization for children." (Smith, 2001)

Socialization research has identified that these skills are not a function of education, but are built from relational accountability, family relationships, and high levels of expectation together with a consistent moral foundation which gives children meaning, purpose, and value for their activities. The schools play only a small part in the overall process.

The method to return high expectation of educational excellence to the classroom includes reintroduction memorization (called over-mastery by come educators). The reasons for this lie in the physiological benefits of memorization for young students rather than the forced retention of every detail. Memorization expands the brains ability to think, accept, and retain knowledge at developmental stage which the mind is chemically, and physiologically ready for growth. If this window is missed, the child's educational capacity, and the habits which will aid learning in the future are forever lost.

In education, constructivism has become an appealing alternative to traditional process-product educational practices because it seems to address the criticisms of current educational practices. Constructivist theory promises to deliver higher levels of literacy, multiple forms of literacy, self-reliance, cooperation, problem-solving skills, and satisfaction with school. (Asghar, 1995) As Piaget (1959) commented, constructivist approaches "do not imprint themselves upon the child as on a photographic plate; they are 'assimilated,' i.e., deformed by the living being who comes under their sway, and they are incorporated into his own substance" (p. 256). Piaget (1969) explained, "according to this view, the organizing activity of the subject must be considered just as important as the connections inherent in the external stimuli, for the subject becomes aware of these connections only to the degree that he can assimilate them by means of his existing structures" (p. 5). Under constructivist theory, adult rules, standards, criteria, and many kinds of memorization required of students are understood simply imposed, therefore the results of memorization, the accumulation of a specific knowledge base, is not to be necessarily regarded as part of a child's own knowledge.

While it has been shown that learning that is relegated strictly to external control of list-like memorization is easily forgotten, memorization gives the child a number of beneficial experiences. A child who memorizes a specific list, such as the mathematics multiplication and division tables, experiences the positive self-esteem building exercise of completing a project, and doing it well. The child can then proceed with confidence into algebra, geometry, and advanced math because the foundational understanding has been built.