America's Education System Dcq

Recently, our country has experienced a downfall of intellect. Even students from top universities like Harvard, Yale, and Brown cannot pass a simple, straightforward high school level exam. Our nation’s schools are lowering their standards thus making students feel that it is acceptable to be stupid. Although some may argue that America is a nation that generates genius’, there has been an increasing demise in the U.S. education system as exemplified in the unpopular truth of “The Banking of Education”, in the stunningly, worrisome television show “Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader”, and in the shocking stupidity of many recently elected officials, all of which portray how our country is raising a nation of ignorants. One may argue that not all students are subject to the demise of education. Many private schools that have unlimited budgets can afford to buy their students more resources (new textbooks every year, computers for every student, an updated library with thousands of books) to better educate them. Since private schools are not funded based on how well their students may score on a standardized test, teachers have the freedom to expand on many important concepts that are not a part of a standard public school curriculum. Some fortunate children in public schools may have families that teach them important ideas at home. Certain parents may expect their children to be very knowledgeable. However, the majority of America’s youth is sucumbing to stupidity. Adults are becoming increasingly ignorant as well! Schoolteachers are not to blame for this downfall; the lack of importance our society has towards education is causing these issues. Paulo Freie’s excerpt: “The Banking Concept of Education” explains an excellent theory of why school children aren’t producing knowledge. Freire develops an analogy comparing the banking system and the education system of America. According to Freie, “The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Thus the student memorizes exactly what the teacher says without applying the concept learned; the students merely “receive, memorize, and repeat. Unfortunately, knowledge can only be born “through inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other." The excerpt goes on to say that instead of the teachers presiding over their classrooms like absolute monarchs, the teachers should work with the students and learn with each other. This piece explains why even some of the brightest students at Ivy league colleges don’t know when the civil war took place. These students memorized their ways through grade school! Public school teachers feel pressured into cramming as much material they can teach their students as possible due to various state mandated standardized tests. Therefore, students cannot truly grasp the concepts of various things taught in the classroom. Some teachers do not understand certain theories they are teaching! This is a huge flaw that the American education system has developed. It is a shame that the United States has turned into the laughing stock of various other countries due to it’s uneducated population. The television show “Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader” is a game show on the Fox Network which portrays the stereotypical ignorance of the average American adult. Random adults are selected from a live audience and asked ten questions from first to fifth grade textbooks. For each question answered correctly, the contestant receives a sum of money and can ultimately win one million dollars. The depressing fact is that only two out of eighty six contestants have ever answered all ten of the elementary level questions correctly and won the million dollars. The contestants selected aren't what one would consider idiots either; just a typical American adult. This show illustrated the sad truth about how undereducated our society has become. The show opened many people’s eyes to the fact that America was becoming a nation of idiots. Before the show, the average U.S. adult thought his society to be the most intellectually advanced of the world. “Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader” also created popular video games and phone applications so people could learn basic facts that they may have forgotten through the years. The show has helped to emphasise greater importance on elementary education. An American congressman makes three times the amount of money that a teacher makes in a year. While a teacher is shaping the future of America, the congressmen is arranging black market business deals. Nowadays, teachers have little say as to what they can teach in their classrooms; congressmen and other officials are left to decide these matters. The officials are placing very little importance on education. Though the United States is in a period of financial crisis, funding for education should be of top priority. Hundreds of New York City schools are functioning without principles, schools all over the nation are in shambles, textbooks are outdated, and libraries are disappearing! This is unacceptable, yet politicians are still cutting education budgets and paying teachers less and less everyday, yet they can still “scrimmage” millions of dollars to spend on election campaigns! Who are politicians to say how students should be taught? Most politicians know nothing about the education system. Many cannot even answer the questions on the standardized tests that they require all children to take annually. Ironically, many politicians who argue for education budget cuts are complaining about how children in place like Asia and Europe are so much more advanced than in America. In Michael Moore’s “Idiot Nation” article, local elected officials are given a pop quiz of common knowledge and political questions. Most representatives could not score higher than a fifty percent. If our nation’s leaders are uneducated, how will the rest of society rise above the ignorance? The level of ignorance in America is increasing daily. Our nation's education system is filled with flaws and is generating more and more undereducated citizens. Many individuals can manage to graduate with great honors without gaining much knowledge at all. Students memorize information like robots for a test and then forget various details that they may have learned. Even some our country's leaders lack knowledge in an extreme way. Stupidity is now widely accepted this country, so why should children strive to gain the best education they can possibly attain? These factors, along with the amount of hours people spend in front of their televisions watching programs like "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" instead of reading a book, are ultimately killing intelligence in the U.S. If these issue continue, America's future will be very grim.