Is the American educational system salvageable?
Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that many of the facilities and at least some of the teachers could continue to be use. No, in the sense that we need to blow the whole system up and start from scratch. There are so many things that our current education system doesn’t do right, from summer vacation to not teaching other languages early enough to giving vocational education too little emphasis, that I don’t believe the current system can be ‘tweaked’. If I were made Czar of All Things Educational, I would have a laundry list of reforms, including: —220 day to 240 day school years (as opposed to the current 180 day average) —Mandatory second language instruction starting around 2nd or 3rd grade —Mandatory music instruction starting around 1st or 2nd grade —Mandatory physical and nutrition education —‘How to deal with the Real World’ classes in high school, with a particular focus on financial/credit management —To the greatest extent possible, organic and locally-grown food in
It could be, if the government had the initiative to, but I think right now they are more worried about whether or not another country in the world will get out of line as opposed to whether the children in their own country will be in line or not. There needs to be more investment in education, and more focus on teaching the youth of this country things that will help them compete in a global market. Now, this may sound bad because I’m not from the US, but there needs to be something in the school curriculum that allows students to realise there is a bigger world around them, and that they’re not always going to win out because they’re American. With the way things are today, business and technology rule, and if you can’t compete in global markets you can’t compete at all. The US is setting their children up to fail, if you ask me. I’m in high school in the US, and I’d say about 90% of the people I know can’t speak another language, couldn’t find France on a map, and certainly couldn’
