The U.S. school system is failing our children. The U.S. ranks lower than most developed nations in math and science and children spend fewer says in school (about 180 days – this Time article has a great graphic; however it’s not available on the web version). While in school, children are being taught to pass tests because that’s what teachers are forced to do under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Waiting for Superman, a documentary due out this Friday, sheds light on the problem with education in the United States. One quote from the short trailer on the website that sums up the state of education pretty well and it’s sticking in my head:
Your children, and future generations, are on the bridge of the Titanic and everybody is going to drown.
I am curious to see if the documentary talks about how to fix the problem (hint: more standardized tests are not the solution). Education needs to move from rote learning to critical and, just as important if not more important, creative thinking. For more on the revolution in education, I suggest reading Daniel Pink‘s A Whole New Mind and watching the two videos of Sir Ken Robinson below:
Sir Ken Robinson on why education reform doesn’t work:
Reform is no use any more because that’s simply improving a broken model. What we need is not…evolution, but a revolution in education.
Sir Ken Robinson on why schools are killing creativity:
