What changes do you hope to see in education over the next 10 years? by Annalease

Annalease's entry into Varsity Tutor's July 2022 scholarship contest

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What changes do you hope to see in education over the next 10 years? by Annalease - July 2022 Scholarship Essay

Education is an extensive part of developing a child's life. This education system, though taking a huge part of a child’s youth, isn’t admirable. Today the school systems are stuck on old principles of the Industrial Age, with children not being able to manage or do things without being told and controlled on what to do. Though school life may not change tremendously in the next 10 years I hope that there will finally be a positive change in this old fashioned way of “learning”.

In school today, adolescents are being administered and controlled rather than being able to be on their own creatively. Some may argue against this, while arguing how learning is better this way because of the silent and focused environment which helps with studies. As a student today going through this type of environment 5 times a week, this idea of a nice work environment limits creativity, self expression and even mood as a result. I find it strange that we are being forced to not talk to our friends or to follow instructions obediently when our society has developed so much. What I mean by that is, back in the Stone Age, humans first began communicating by the fire. There, they were able to establish a language to talk to each other. Communication and talking is a very huge part of being a human even back in the Stone Age and communication is very important now. Even now modern work involves a lot of imagination and is very hyper-collaborative, this differing to an almost prison-like state of education. With this controlling tendency, schools have become increasingly more about passing than actually learning and education.

After exams students usually can barely remember what they have learnt. I’ll attest that I barely remembered what I had learnt towards the end of the year and had to go over it all over again in time for finals. This is simply because schools are more focused upon passing. In the next ten years I hope this will be out of our education system since now no student really is being taught the subject, they are more just memorizing the subject. Merely memorizing isn’t going to hold up by the whole year, especially if you have almost 8 classes. I’ve always wondered why it mattered for us to get good test grades for our teachers, it’s because they literally are being evaluated based on their students test scores. By doing this, teachers have to prepare them instead of educating them for the tests in order to gain job security. It’s messed up that students are not learning authentically without being enforced to be obedient and for their schedules to be managed for them.

In the next ten years, students should be able to attain their own schedules and be able to take control of their own youth. This controlled system of learning during a daily 8 hours a day of student’s lives differs from the way they will be living in their job. Yes they are still developing children, but because they are developing children, this is a great way of getting them ready for their future. Their future involves setting their own schedules to an extent and managing their time. I do believe children should be controlled to an extent in the future of education, but not where the environment is prison-like and controlled fully like this. School life is definitely different, displaying that they are not in charge of their lives and have to go along with what is laid down in front of them instead of taking charge and going off of that.

Education should be improved upon during the next 10 years. I am a student right now and I can attest that school really is monotonous, and controlling .I feel as if all I am actually doing is memorizing as an alternative to learning something. I hope that schools, instead of keeping these bad tendencies, will re-evaluate and sway away from the controlling and orderly tendency in which they conduct students and schools.

Annalease Stroz

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