American Education

    In the article Education and the Proliferation of New (Old) Concepts the author argued that the education that the children of America are receiving is setting them up for corporate America. The author's perception of American education is that the students are currently being trained for an economic role in society, based off of the new educational project of this country. My response to the author is, "Is this necessarily a bad thing?"  

      One of the problems that currently exist in the public education system is that students are learning all the basic fundamentals to every subject but are not getting any hands on work of applying the information they are receiving. Students are taught a lot of things that seem to have no real world meaning which is pointless. Some may find some of this information necessary, but lets be honest, it is not. Currently there is a lot of fluff that just is not necessary to be teaching our students, because everyone needs to remember that students will not retain everything they are taught, that is just the way it is.

      Paul Theobald and Hibajene Shandomo both make a lucid summary of the way the current education system is doing. They say, "one might also hear a resurgence of concepts advanced many decades ago, things like project-based learning, social reconstructionism, community-based curriculum and much more." What good is a community-based curriculum? In the real world there is no need for knowing what has happened in your community and what is going on. The whole purpose of a education is for students to learn ideas and the key concepts of things. It is not the state's responsibility to teach them what has been going on in the local community, that is just a waste of tax payer money. If parents find it an essential for their kid to know about whats going on locally then it should be their duty to teach them that.