<p>I frequently find myself only studying material for a test and thereafter all that material is gone unless its cumulative but even then when that class is terminated I forgot the majority of it during the summer. I feel as students, school is no longer a place to learn but simply to take multiple exams. Perhaps more students would enjoy learning if tests weren't so frequent. Personally, I enjoy the maths and sciences but specifically in my math classes we only learn to take a test, no longer is there application to the material in real world scenarios to help solidify what we have learned. The education system is greatly flawed and America is far behind other Nations. What are your thoughts on the education system? How can it be improved?</p>
<p>I mean, the US has the best colleges in the world.</p>
<p>Did you mean you only study for tests? Because that can be defeating.</p>
<p>I feel that the responsibility for learning is primarily up to the student. How can we create an environment- not just in school but in society as a whole- that values learning for its own sake? Until we do that, a large percentage of students will just be marking time in the classroom, memorizing material for a test only to be forgotten a week later.
Your education is largely within your control. Take it.</p>
<p>The obligation is on the student to learn, it always has been. People who just try to cruise through school and have nothing to show about it after four years will be hit really hard by the real world. That is, unless they have outside connections that can get them jobs (which happens all the time.)</p>
<p>That being said, doing this can be a useful resource for students, particularly in classes that aren’t related to the major. I didn’t have this skill and had to learn everything in my classes. As a result of that (and my good memory) I still remember things like what the ablative absolute is from my first year latin class. But that served me little value as it had no relation to my major, and serves me even less value now that I’ve graduated.</p>
<p>I remember reading a book by a teacher in Washington State, who was also a novelist. he happened to homeschool his own kids. He did a test on the value of tests as a measure of learning by giving a second test a few weeks after the first, on the same material, without telling his students (no grading). They had forgotten most of the material.</p>
<p>The educational system, and more specifically the traditional evaluation system, of tests and grades, encourages the use of more short term memory centers in the brain, rather than long term. If you are genuinely interested in something on your own, notice how much better you remember it. </p>
<p>The application of this is complicated in real life and it does not mean there is no place for memorization and rote learning (as with math facts) but does mean that motivation is an important piece in retaining information over the longer term, I think.</p>
<p>There are memory tricks discovered by the Greeks in the 5th Century BC. I can, for example, memorize a 30-item shopping list and, if I choose, parrot it back three weeks later. It’s just a trick, it has nothing to do with intelligence, or reasoning, or anything else. If we wanted kids just to memorize, why don’t we teach them the tricks to do so?</p>
<p>(I did exactly that with a group of Dalit girls staying at one of our India hostels a couple of weeks before the exams that could make or break their futures. I am sure that, if they used the various tricks, they did much better. But it doesn’t mean that they actually learned anything - except the ability to memorize using the tricks.)</p>
<p>My question is somewhat rhetorical: the reason we don’t teach the kids the tricks is that the teachers don’t know them either.</p>
<p>If you’d like a fun book on the subject, read “Moonwalking with Einstein”.</p>
<p>Compmom, was it by David Guterson?
I think OP is probably burnt out.
I am an advocate for taking a deliberate gap year between high school and college.
Experiences that broaden your perspective can assist you in getting more out of higher ed, and more than make up for the time “off”.</p>
<p>Emerald, yes- my memory failed me!</p>
<p>I think a gap year is a great idea. The thing is, if you leave the educational system, you come back with a fresh viewpoint and are better able to learn on your own terms, rather than learn for the shallow system of grades.</p>
<p>Also, college is different from high school, The reading, lectures, discussions and papers are a more palatable way to learn, with more self-reliance and self-motivation, than in the average high school.</p>
<p>ps You might also like online classes…try Virtual High School or a college or university online course. I have seen kids who were turned off by education, blossom after taking online courses which require a lot of written discussion and require more creative responses rather than rote.</p>
<p>The OP is a sophomore in HS. I think the OP needs to grow up a bit.</p>
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<p>Let me guess, you just finished Calc 1?</p>
<p>IMO, I agree, intro calc classes that make you memorize how to integrate inverse tangent or something like that are not useful. If you’re going to take further math though it gets much better past the intro calc series.</p>
<p>No, I think that the OP has a legitimate point. Many people feel this way, and it isn’t just the current generation. I graduated high school in the 80s and people were saying the same thing then. I think that cultures can be vastly different school to school, and unless there are inspiring teachers, courses taught in interesting ways, etc, it can feel like you are just doing time until graduation. The trick is: Once you realize this you have to actively do something about it. It can be difficult for students with limited life experience to know what these things can be. It will be like this all through life, also, and the sooner you realize this the better.</p>
<p>You will not retain everything you learn. One reason there is so much repetition- over the years material will have been repeated many times in many ways. You sound as if you memorize instead of learning concepts. Some educational systems are like that- for example, India in my H’s generation. I still remember that the most important part of my medical school education was in learning how to learn as facts change over the years. </p>
<p>School was, and always will be, a place for knowledge. Knowledge is not just facts but how to use them, principles and critical thinking. Knowing some facts make it easier to know more- the simplest being knowing multiplication so you don’t always have to add to get the number you want. Learning what makes up a good piece of writing helps in evaluating future writing. </p>
<p>You need an attitude readjustment. Do not study to do well on tests. Study to master the material. Your teachers will present information, you need to thoroughly understand it, to own it. You need reasons to retain the knowledge learned. Some ways are by learning a lot more than the core you will retain, finding links to other information, having a reason to know the material, using the material. Without a reason to remember material it slips away fast.</p>
<p>Calculus, for example. Interesting in its own right for some but not for all of us. I found it fascinating when I realized it meant not just memorizing physics formulas for speed and acceleration but that it gave the link between the two. I used basic chemistry to recreate a formula when I couldn’t remember it on a medical school Biochemistry test. Knowing history helps in understanding why the world is as it is today.</p>
<p>The best students go far beyond the material presented. They evaluate the WHY of it and find ways to make it stick in their brains. Repetition helps reinforce the neural pathways. Using the material does this- I find a use/disuse retention or loss of material once well known years ago. Today’s neuroscience research shows us more and more about learning.</p>
<p>I’ll quit now. As others have posted- it is up to YOU, not the system, to learn.</p>
<p>I think many kids in the system don’t have the proper perspective to realize they are learning the information. Sure you might for get the date of a battle or some of the trig identities that are only used in specific cases. But over time the important concepts become ingrained and you know how to find the other facts you have forgotten.</p>
<p>How do you do calculus without having learned algebra? You can’t. How do you learn algebra without arithmetic? You can’t. The things that you really learn become so “learned” that you don’t even realize that you learned them.</p>