The People We Are Becoming

Opinion

In the last few years there has been an abundance of media attention on America’s education system and how it measures up to other countries such as Europe and Asia. Statistics show America slipping further behind and it is distressing and disheartening.

CNN correspondent, Soledad O’Brien’s documentary, “Education in America: Don’t Fail Me”, goes into several schools to view the crisis behind the American education system. She uncovered the naked truth during her interviews that included, former Governor Phil Bredesen, admitting Tennessee’s deceit in revealing to parents the reality about their students’ state test scores. This demonstrates the lack of ambition within state governments to push U.S students to succeed.  The state reported that students were 80 percent proficient on their tests, while nationally only 20 percent had general knowledge in math.

If there is one thing that will guarantee the inevitable failure of our youth, it’s graduating students without giving them the ability or opportunity to reach their full level of potential.

There should be a certain amount of passion that goes along with educating students. In Asia, education is considered a top priority. With its overwhelming expectation to push success amongst its students, this allows them entrance into universities, not simply based on intelligence but on their aptitude to work harder and longer.

The U.S has always relied on replicating a process to make it better and by producing teachers and administrators with the Asian education system in mind might generate the positive results the US seeks. Let’s replicate and duplicate the process top nations are using to educate their youth.

Educational experts are saying that teachers, and parents alike do know that their public schools on a whole aren’t that good. In an astonishing article, ABC 20/20, John Stossel, interviewed students at New York’s Abraham Lincoln High School in which he found that teachers are oblivious to the behavior of the students. In fact, so immune that it’s common for kids to walk into the school smoking weed. Also, parents are more focused on sports than education.

Alan Dunn of Business Insider states “Education is something our politicians must find room for by way of obligation to their constituents and fellow human beings.” And, although Dunn’s point may hold true, in which some of the responsibility lies in the government to provide a quality education system for learning, it is not necessarily up to them to raise our children. Learning can take place both inside and outside of the home.

I, for myself, am less concerned with who’s to blame. We all bear responsibility for the inadequacy of our school system.  Some administrators aren’t fervent enough leaders, some teacher’s aren’t as motivated, and some parents aren’t involved enough.  There are many individuals that play a role in educating our future. Therefore instead of waiting for someone to make leaders out of our children, lets all contribute by helping our children make leaders out of themselves.

Three years after the U.S economic downturn grappled the nation, many areas are still trying to climb their way out. The financial collapse on the education system has made it difficult for states to maintain competitive academic standards and the high school graduation rate which is a key strategy for economic growth is at an all time low.

Catherine Rampell of New York Times reported that only 74.9 students of the 2004 freshman class graduated on time in 2008. There was also a variation state by state, and a difference among ethical and racial backgrounds. For example, in Nevada just 51.3 percent of 2004 freshman students graduated in 2008. Additionally, only 61.5 percent of black students graduated as compared to the 91.4 percent of Asian Pacific Islanders.

A key strategy to strengthen the economy may be to produce reformatory ideas in education. America cannot continue to do the same thing while desiring to produce a different result.

Gaston Carpenter, of The Huffington Post, found that the importance of a college degree is growing, while the ability to compete in the U.S is lessening. To tackle this matter, The College Board released an agenda detailing their goal to ensure at least 55 percent of young Americans earn a college degree or higher by 2025. Carpenter’s finding showed that as of 2010 no state has achieved this goal.

Although the U.S as a nation still remains the worlds largest economy, with a per capita GDP of $47400, the largest military, vigorous technology companies and entrepreneurial climate, there is a lot of work that must be done to remain in the driver’s seat.

In the March 03, 2011 article, Time reporter Fareed Zakaira found the decisions that created years of prosperity and achievement in the U.S especially in education were made decades ago. “America is living on policies and developments that were created in the 1950’s and 1960’s.” While countries, such as Asia, have become colorful peacocks in implementing modern policies that reflect a global leader today and to become more competitive in science and medicine tomorrow, the U.S. still hangs on to outdated tradition that is a tired and failing grayscale.

Recent reports show the U.S ranking is 12^th among developed countries such as Russia, Japan, and Korea in college graduation. This illustrates that the world has changed significantly since the 50’s and 60’s and the U.S. will have to undergo a serious makeover if they are to regain their competitive edge and the number one spot in the world.

Ambitious, driven, and talented describes this 14-year-old scholar and athlete. Eric Gilgenbach is an 8^th grade student taking 10th grade honor courses. He’s the captain of his football team, and a mentor to incoming students and his unique mindset, and work ethic produces positive results. Eric understands that there are many characteristics that separate a great student from a mediocre one, which is the reason why setting and visualizing goals are high on his priority list.

Eric Gilgenbach

“I don’t like being average. I like to standout and to be good at whatever I do. I have high goals for myself and I visualize reaching them. Visualizing them always pushes and motivates me.”  Eric Gilgenbach

Name:  Eric Gilgenbach

Age: 14

Hometown: Rochester Hills, MI

Becoming ME: What characteristics do you posses that you think are outstanding?

Eric: I am able to maintain all “A’s” in school while playing sports at a high level.

Becoming ME: As an 8^th grader taken 10^th grade honor courses, are there times in which you find classes intimidating?

Eric: I really think of the class just like any other one. I expect to do well in all classes even if they are advanced. I just know that it might take extra effort.

Becoming ME: How do you find balance to study, play sports and maintain your grades in high-level courses?

Eric: I do get stressed every once in a while with everything. It does take a few late nights of homework and I’m usually the last one up in my family. I catch up with my sleep on the weekends though. When I am stressed or need some time for myself, I either work out in my basement or play some music. My parents understand it can get hard and help me balance things out.

Becoming ME: Do you consider yourself gifted intellectually or is it a result of hard work and studies?

Eric: I think I have always been smart, but I do have to work hard to make the grades.

Becoming ME: What advice can you offer to other students to help them boost their grades?

Eric: It’s all mindset. I feel that the higher expectations you have for yourself, the better you will do. Even if you don’t reach the goal, you’ve gotten farther from where you were before.

Becoming ME: What activities are you involved in?

Eric: I play baseball, basketball, and football, but I plan on focusing on basketball and baseball in high school. I took a few years of piano lessons and have been playing guitar for a few years also.

Becoming ME: How are captains chosen?

Eric: Captains are picked by the coaches. They look for hard-workers who are leaders on and off the field or court.

Becoming ME: As captain what do you do to inspire your teammates? Describe team-building activities?

Eric: During football, I would talk to a lot of the players who didn’t really get a lot of playing time and didn’t want to be on the field. Also, some other players and I would be screaming and chanting the whole practice trying to pump up the team. Our coaches wanted us to be like a family, so we would always do this tough running drill after practice. After you would finish, you would have to run back and finish it again with someone else who was behind you.

Becoming ME: How would you describe the role of a mentor?

Eric: A mentor is someone who introduces a new student to a school. They basically help them find their classes, give them the scoop on the school, and make some new friends.

Becoming ME: What is your inspiration/passion?  What career path would you like take?

Eric: My passion has always been in sports. I want to make it to the highest level I can with them. My goal is to play baseball or basketball in college while pursuing a degree in sports medicine.

Becoming ME: Give an example of an occasion when you demonstrated good leadership?

Eric: One day in art class, we had a substitute teacher and all my classmates were fooling around and messing up the room. When they left, the classroom was a mess. So I decided to stay back and clean it up by myself.

Becoming ME: What is the hardest decision you have had to make? Either school related or not.

Eric: Choosing my high school. I had to pick between going where most of my friends were going, or going where I have a better opportunity to reach my goals. The high school I’m going to is equal to the other in academics but has a better art program and better sports teams (I still have friends at this one).

Becoming ME: Who are your role models/mentors and why?

Eric: I try to model myself after my parents because they were able to maintain great academics and do well in sports in their lives. Also, my basketball trainer, Rashad Phillips (University of Detroit Hall of Fame), inspires me and pushes me to achieve high goals.

Becoming ME: What is one advice that you can give teens/tweens your age that has a goal/passion in life?

Eric: I would say set small goals for yourself that lead to that one big goal. That way, you can achieve goals more often and see your improvement. Never give up on your dreams.

Becoming ME: What advice can you give tween/teens on challenging fear?

Eric: Don’t let fear get in the way of something you want to do. Everyone faces fear, but you have to overcome it.

On motivation?

Always keep yourself motivated. You may get tired or bored of things, but always try to remember what you’re fighting for and keep your eyes on the prize.

With someone like Eric in every school around the country, imagine what the level of students will be and how high the bar of achievement will be set.

Takuya Otani would love an MBA from a top U.S. business school, but he won’t apply, reported Blaine Harden of theWashington Post.  Once a voracious consumer of American higher education, undergraduate enrollment in U.S. universities has fallen 52 percent since 2000; graduate enrollment has dropped 27 percent.

It is a potentially harmful decline that may prevent U.S students from competing in a global market. Education, which is the foundation to everything, is needed to guarantee a country’s success and here in the U.S. it is spiraling down to something obsolete.

CNN Contributor, LZ Granderson informed May 11, 2011, that at 180 days, the U.S has one of the shortest school years of the countries tested, and ranked 14^th in Reading and 25^th in Math. South Korea has 220 school days, and a No. 2 ranking in Math. Finland is first in Math and Science at 190 days.   Although cutting into summer vacation won’t solve all of the education problems, Granderson suggests that more class time could help.

By ninth grade, summer learning loss could be blamed for roughly two-thirds of the achievement gap, explained David Von Drehle of Time Magazine. Harris Cooper, a summer-learning expert at Duke University, stated that U.S kids lose about a month of progress in math. These problems compound year after year. The three-month stretch serves as an “education eraser”. At the beginning of each academic year after a child returns from summer vacation a month is required for teachers to focus on re-teaching what the students learned the previous school year.

Today, more children are becoming sedentary. To tackle this issue, some public schools, parents and advocates are suggesting year round school to help continue exercising the minds of children. In 2009,  The Chicago Board of Education voted to put more than a quarter of elementary school students in the nation’s third-largest school district on a year-round schedule. And, many parents are excited about the schedule, as illustrated in the video above, reported by Jane Park.   The switch will lead to better student retention of knowledge and less time being spent playing catch-up in the fall, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

While the benefits are present in year round school, implications have been shown for state and local governments as well as parents.   In Traverse City, Michigan, Kate Fox, of UpNorthLive.com, conveyed that school districts are facing up to $900,000 in budget cuts. Food, wages, electricity, and transportation would go up with year round school. And, parents say this will complicate their attempts to juggle family schedules and childcare.

Although the lack of funds and scheduling may be a damper for both government officials and parents, undoubtedly, the education system in the U.S needs to improve if it wants to remain the most influential country in the world.

Hoover publications reported that Europeans and Asians alike have rapidly expanded their educational systems over the past 50 years, while stagnation in United States has been apparent since the 1970’s.

President Barack Obama speaks on education during an event at Kenmore Middle School March 14, 2011 in Arlington, Virginia

A two year study provided by National Education Commission on Time and Learning found that only 41% of an American school day is based on academics while the remaining 59% is jammed with course work in self-esteem, personal safety, AIDS education, family life, consumer training, driver’s ed., holistic health, and gym. While, these areas are important, shouldn’t learning be a layered curriculum, teaming academics such as math and science with social and creative skills?

Jill Tucker, a San Francisco Chronicle journalist, found that 3 out of 4 U.S. students lack a basic understanding of democracy, of how the U.S. political system works and what it means to be a citizen of this country. Relatively, fewer than half the country’s eighth-graders were able to identify the purpose of the Bill of Rights on the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/05/MNBP1JB8FE.DTL

While improvements can be made in what is taught in the classroom, we must also consider advancing how students are educated in the U.S. We must prepare them with well-trained, engaged teachers and adequate resources.

Although the foundations of society are torn and distressed, parents, advocates and organizations must reposition themselves and refocus. They must persistently move beyond pessimistic predictions, and open the eyes of the leaders of tomorrow by illustrating the magnitude of being prepared with the right tools.

This rings true for some education advocates.  On May 03, 2011, President Barack Obama presented Michelle Shearer, a chemistry teacher at Urbana High School in Ijamsville, Md., with the 2011 National Teacher of the Year award.  Leina Hetlin of Edweek stated that Shearer spent 4 of her 14 classroom years at the Maryland School for the Deaf in Frederick. At MSD, she was the first teacher to offer Advanced Placement Chemistry in the school’s 135-year history. http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2011/05/03/teacheroftheyear.htmltkn=PXPFydkphv0mDrEwlbHhxNzXz9rOvPdAKFDP&cmp=clp-edweek

“America can only be as strong in this century as the education we provide our students,” the president said. “We desperately need more Michelle’s out there.” President Obama

Some parents do remain focused on the importance of education. Although homeless, the Collins girls of Orlando, Florida — Brianna, 8; Tamara, 7; and Sydney, 6 are finding sanctuary at their school. Recently declared homeless and becoming accustomed to it, Sydney walked into school in the middle of the day, sat right down and went to work with enthusiasm. “She’d immediately adapted to her new situation.” Ms. Schreffler said.  Michael Winthrep of New York Times affirmed that nationally, the number of homeless students at public schools reached an all-time high after the recession hit. But such adversity doesn’t hinder the Collins family. As their father, James Collins, says, “To get by at a shelter, you have to focus yourself.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/education/02winerip.html?ref=education