Dear
American education system,
Who are you? Why do you
appear to limit any and every student in some small or extensive way? When were
you, such an important matter in society, forgotten, leaving you common,
unindividualized and widespread?
Within the past week you have
disappointed me. You have showed me a glimpse of the future that looks far from
pleasing. And why you might ask, because you are unchanged, the same as you
were 100 years ago, teaching students the basics of the past versus how to
prepare for the future. Students are doing the same activities that were
done long ago. Sitting in a desk for seven hours discussing what has occurred
in the past and why such actions were wrong. But this is far from successful in
efforts to enhance society in the advancing years. Students must be taught the
characteristics of today’s society and soon after have the opportunity to change
today’s society for the better.
In a
similar way, students must be given the opportunity to be different. Allow
communities, cities and states to look far from the same. Thus, we must allow
students to go their own way, go beyond their one seat and personalize their
course in school to allow for them to have more than one class that interests
them and reflects their future career paths. Their must be an increase in the
number of directions a student may go, no cap put on any student’s education,
no mandatory courses for any individual.
Ultimately,
you must change. In hopes of advancing, you must advance first. What has worked
in the past will not work forever. You must teach present day to prepare for the
future, instead of teaching the past to prepare for today. You must personalize
your curriculum, mandate nothing and expand everything. Allow students to
express themselves in hopes of a more customized and infinite future.
A famous artist once said, "
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who
prepare for it today." ~ Malcolm X
Those preparing
for it today are the students in class taking in what is being taught to them.
They are being handed their passports, but they aren’t any good if they do not
have their name, birthday, eye color, etc., all information that is different
with each person and expanding in presence with each day, specifically each
birth. Therefore, as passports are handed out please do me a favor and make
sure they are the right ones, the new ones, the tailored and the personalized
ones that allow students to go anywhere and everywhere.
Sincerely,
Abby Bright
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