A school classroom                         Photo by Malate269

From the start of school in America there has been a problem with the education system. 

There are many problems with the American education system. One of the biggest problems is with the teachers: whether it be the fact that shortage of teachers due to low pay and difficult working conditions or teachers that are just doing it for the money, or poor classroom management all impact the quality of education students receive.

Low salaries make people who would otherwise be great teachers seek a higher paying job due to the fact that they can’t support themselves. It also makes many people not want to become a teacher in the first place which leads to teacher shortages or overcrowded classrooms. 

Schools are also causing teachers high amounts of stress which leads to a worse teaching quality. Some of this stress is from parents contacting the children blaming them even though their child is the one in the wrong. Other causes of stress is from student behavior which along with causing the teachers stress also takes up a lot of the time that could be spent teaching instead.

School also affects students’ mental health too. Some of this is due to the stress over standardized testing. This is predominantly the thing school’s focus on which leads to an overfocus on things such as route memorization which is just memorizing facts without actually learning anything. It is also not a fair way to fully judge a student’s academic abilities.

Another way schools are failing is the subject of Sir Ken Robinson’s popular Ted Talk “Do schools kill creativity”? This talk addresses the fact that children are born with a great and spontaneous imagination but by the time they graduate high school all the creativity has been zapped out of them. 

There are some things the education system is doing right but for trusting it to raise the whole future generation it could be doing a whole lot better.