Bailey Egan
Eng 102
Changing Education Paradigms
I attended private school for the majority of my life. It wasn’t just any private school, however, it was a Montessori school. The Montessori method is all about giving children a hands on experience and allowing them to learn at their own pace. There was never a dull moment in the classroom because we were surrounded by enthusiastic teachers, and were always going on fun fieldtrips. I feel like growing up with Montessori teaching helped me in many ways and I love person it has made me become, but it didn’t do a good job of bracing me for public school. I am a slow learner, and have always learned best with one on one attention…when I got to high school this wasn’t even an option. In Montessori school we weren’t given letter grades…in public school I was constantly given tests and if I didn’t do well or wasn’t fully prepared, I felt like an incompetent fool. In the RSA animate, “Changing Education Paradigms”, Sir Ken Robinson brought up some really great questions on education reformation. He opened my eyes to a new way of viewing education today. I agree with many of the arguments he made, including the over medication in America today, and the negative ways that our economy is affecting education.
As Sir Robinson pointed out, it used to be that if you went to school, did fairly
well and graduated, a job was set in stone. In today’s economy, that is far from the case. There are highly educated individuals spending their life savings on higher education at prestigious schools that end up without a career and working at Walmart. It’s sad but true. This leaves many today wondering if higher education is even worth the money spent if they have no guarantee of a job.
Today’s society is filled with distractions. We are technologically advanced and with this advancement comes hundreds of different ways for us to be distracted from our priorities. Many children today own computers, iphones, gaming systems, laptops, ipads, etc. It’s not surprising that when they are expected to do their homework, they play with these items instead. When parents notice that their grades have dropped they automatically think it’s because of an attention deficit disorder. I have first hand experience in being overly medicated for ADHD, and it is miserable. In high school my grades were decent, but had room for improvement. One of my friends had gotten prescribed to adderall and was ranting and raving about how wonderful it was and how it made her want to learn. I convinced my parents that I needed to go see a psychiatrist immediately and that I had to get help for my attention problems. They don’t believe in medication like that so it took a lot of convincing, but they eventually let me go. When talking to my psychiatrist, I expected to have to explain my situation in detail…instead, we had a 60 second conversation and then he sent me away with my prescription. I doubt he even stopped to learn my name. On my first day back at school with this magic drug, I
felt like a zombie. I didn’t want to talk to my friends, I didn’t want interact with anyone, really. All I wanted to do was focus. It was terrible. I felt like I had been stripped of my personality. I’m sure I am one of millions with similar experiences with drugs for ADHD, and am probably one of the few that hated what it was doing to me. It’s sad to know that we are medicating young children like this, turning them into zombies rather than focusing on the real issue at hand.
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