Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Over-medication and Your Child's Education
American education is in a
nosedive. The perpetuation of economic principles and media influence has sent
American education, public and private, into a downward spiral. Fueled by capitalism
as well as the policy makers of our country, the next step our nation needs to
take for its education system is shrouded by doubt and uncertainty. Not only is
our floundering education system one of the roots of domestic troubles it is
only perpetuated by the overmedication of children in our country. The two
issues our country is now facing are inherently tied together. Both serve to
reinforce the idea of school as a political and social tool rather than a
learning environment. About one in five males and eleven percent of school age
children overall have been diagnosed with ADHD and receive medication for their
supposed problem. This issue ties directly into the problem of our education
system as both highlight conflicts of the system rather than the individuals
operating within it. The reform of education has long been a heated subject
dating back to the late 18th century and early 19th
century. Men with noble intentions attempted to change and improve upon the
model, but for all their work we are still stuck in the mud with our industrial
based schooling system. The principles by which decisions about schools are
made need to change, not the application of those principles. Our crippled
system relies on standardized test, made to fit the dying ideal of objectivity
(Brookhart). To truly move or country in the right direction, a comprehensive
system needs to be put in place, one that teaches students how to learn instead
of what to learn. There is no right way to answer the question of how to educate
children, but there are vast improvements to be made. A need to break down the
blocks upon which our education systems rest is essential to the future of the
country. Our capitalist education system, as well as the overmedication of school-aged
kids, is crippling our country by producing generation after generation of
children whose lives revolve around the capitalist principles of our nation.
The American Psychiatric Association plans to change the definition of A.D.H.D.
to allow more people to receive the diagnosis and treatment. With an
astronomically large number of children already receiving drugs, this spike
could have dire effects. The issue is again in the principles of diagnosis
rather than the application. If children are not sitting quietly at their desks
doing their work it is seen as abnormal. That very idea is absurd. To believe
that the root of the problem is pathological rather than children being
children is a notion that requires debate. In our country, however, there was
no debate. The quick fix was to diagnose and prescribe ADHD medication. The
dispute of the overmedication ties into the conflict in our education system as
both can be traced back to the same root issue, that is, the problem in the
principles and foundation of our system rather than its application. The causes
of our modern system can be traced back to the influx of immigration that
occurred in the late 1800’s.
As more
and more immigrants arrived in America, bringing with them a plethora of
languages, cultural traditions, and religious beliefs, American political
leaders foresaw the potential dangers of Balkanization. The public education
system, once designed primarily to impart skills and knowledge, took on a far
more political and social role. (Hood)
This quote explains
the idea that the homogenization that swept the nation during the late 19th
century still exists today. The fact of the matter becomes that what the
leaders of counties and states want to see is high-test scores, not smart kids.
The problem is in assuming smart kids and high-test scores correlate. This idea
of the objectivity of education needs to be dismantled. But the conformity that
the overmedication of children perpetuates is in the same vein. Just as policy
makers believe that the smartest kids get the highest test scores, physicians
and parents hold the belief that any difficulty focusing equals a need for
medication. Both ideals put trust into a system that has been dropping steadily
in the global ranks. There has been a shift in public consciousness that good
kids and good students sit quietly at their desk and do their work; which is
the exact opposite of what most kids want to do naturally. What is interesting
is the lack of empathy involved with making ADHD diagnoses:
In a 2010 study in the Journal of
Health Economics, researchers found that the youngest children among U.S.
kindergartners (those born in August) were 40% more likely to be diagnosed with
ADHD and twice as likely to take ADHD medications as the oldest kindergartners
studied. (Koplewicz)
The study described above, performed by Dr. Koplewicz of New York
University, presents the case that the ADHD that is “diagnosed” can be
influenced by a variety of factors. Rather than thinking a child is innately
inattentive, doctors should look at a variety of factors. Obviously in Koplewizc’s
study, age plays a role. Eleven months should not make up for a forty percent
hike in diagnoses. But the production of student-drones will not so slowed by
easily. It will take change in the stringency of FDA laws, as well as a shift in
the public understanding of education. Neither of these goals will come easily.
But when our system of education and overmedication of children are placed side
by side with European countries the difference is obvious to the most oblivious
of Americans.
In most European
countries, schools are privatized. Kids are not locked into districts as they
are in America. With the competition that the privatized system brings schools
are forced to meet the needs and demands of student and parents. This differentiates
from our system because of the fact that our students and parents must conform
to the school rather than vice versa. In their framework of European schooling,
the students attending the school and the parents of those students are catered
to and are put in the power position (Shedlock). Their system, however, is not
without fault. In our understanding there is no route for those without the
money to attend private schools or the location to go to a decent public one.
Their privatized system is also unable to escape the idea of the objectivity of
standardization. Standardized tests are not built for the student; they are
built for the individuals who buy into the hegemonic idea that objectivity
reigns supreme: that SAT score and IQ test results prove one’s knowledge. This
idea is the very essence of the social authority that our society has come to
accept and be restrained by. Knowledge, true knowledge, can be defined as the
set of relationships one attains and nurtures with the world around them. When
the standardization of education is viewed from a perspective beyond the scope
of it’s role in politics and economics, our system seems outdated. Everywhere,
in all schools, children have it drilled into their minds that they need these
standardized tests and information to succeed in college and in life as an
adult. But it is becoming increasingly clear that critical thinking and problem
solving, paired with the relationships one develops over the course of their
young life, is what is important later in both life and in finding work. But
still the federal and local governments cling to uniform teaching policies “in
which students become receptacles” (Freire). With the issue of standardization
comes the debate of overmedication. Both issues maintain the conception that
conformity and objectivity produce the best results, that students should all
be taught the same way, no matter the situation. With this issue, there is a
muddying of the waters because of uniqueness humans are imbued with. No two
children are alike, yet how do we differentiate and to what ends?
Because of the
inherent acceptance that comes with the hegemonic ideals of consumerism, the
answer does not lie in the privatization of the system. The answer can be found
when examining the teachers. Our government has tried to just throw money at
schools with the hope that it would solve America’s spiraling test scores. More tests have been mandated to determine
which schools get what amount of money. In doing this, a broken system is
crippled further because the less successful schools get less money, and as a
result, worse teachers. The fact that the best teachers only go the best
schools is a consumerist ideal hidden in our education system. The difference a
teacher can make in a child’s education can make or break a classroom. In
Finland, teachers are required to have a master’s degree, paid for by the
state, before they can teach at any level. Obviously, our country could not
take the added weight of paying for teacher’s education, but even a two year
graduate school requirement to teach could make all the difference.
In terms of what there is to be done outside
of the shift in consciousness of the teachers, there is the matter of school
day structure. America has a lot to learn from countries such as Finland. In
Samuel Abram’s article he describes the fact that “Finnish educational
authorities provide students with far more recess than their U.S.
counterparts—75 minutes a day in Finnish elementary schools versus an average
of 27 minutes in the U.S.—but they also mandate lots of arts and crafts, more
learning by doing” (Abrams). There is no busywork and no burnt time, because
children are engaged in play, hands on activities and engaged learning. In
Finland, just one out of a thousand children receive medication for ADHD. Just
as our system produces conformity, theirs nurtures creativity. A documentary,
titled “Stupid in America” Mike Shedlock, the filmmaker, sheds light on our
floundering system. When making the film, producers ran into a problem. Most
states would not let them into their public schools to film. The states that
obliged to the filmmakers still only let them into a few of their top ranked
schools (Shedlock). What is amazing is the fact that the creators of the
documentary were still able to get their point across. Not only is our system
failing the poorer schools, even the well-off establishments are stifling the
abilities of students.
To revamp the system, overhaul is required. An arduous
process to be sure, but well worth it. A country lives and dies by its
education of youth. By imbuing students with outdated ideals as well as a lack
of critical thinking, we are crippling our country. And yet, this idea is
reinforced everywhere. Kids are being prescribed ADHD medications in
Kindergarten, parents are sending their kids blindly to whatever schools is
closest, teachers are handing out worksheet after worksheet. Everywhere, the
consumerist, conformist ideals are being ingrained in children’s heads, and
those that stick out are diagnosed with ADHD. The overmedication of children
completes the circle, bringing it to a never-ending loop. The capitalist and
conformist ideals that dictate our education system as well as the
overmedication of children work together to close the loop on American
children, giving them no choice but to buy into what has become an economic and
political system. In doing so America is crippling itself. Our country’s
increasing problems cannot be solved by instilling our future leaders with the
same ideals that have failed over and over again.
Works Cited
Abrams, Samuel E. "The Children Must Play." The
New Republic. N.p., 28 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Apr. 2013.
Brookhart, Susan M. "The Public Understanding Of
Assessment In Educational Reform
In The United States." Oxford Review Of Education 39.1 (2013): 52- 71. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.
Freire, Paulo. "Chapter 2." Pedagogy of the
Oppressed. [New York]: Herder and
Herder, 1970. N. pag. Print.
Hood, John. "The Failure of American Public
Education." : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education. N.p., 1
Feb. 1993. Web. 03 Apr. 2013.
Koplewizc, Harold S. "Are ADHD Medications
Overprescribed?"
Http://online.wsj.com. N.p., 14 Feb. 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.
Shedlock, Mike. "Stupid In America; What's Wrong with
the U.S. Education System?" Safehaven.com. N.p., 15 Mar. 2010. Web.
03 Apr. 2013.
A+ for Finland
Over the past thirty years the
United States has increased the amount of money spent per student from $4,000
to $9,000. Yet test scores have leveled off in the mid-range compared with the
rest of the world as more and more kids are dropping out of school. As America
throws money at our drowning system other countries, such as Finland, leave the
bureaucracy behind and revamp their systems to suit the human rather than the
test. I her article, Lynnell Hancock uses an example of a troubled student
becoming successful through Finland’s comprehensive system. In the example
Hancock describes a student who is struggling. The school’s psychologist, and
its private social worker assured the teacher it was not laziness. Rather than
continuing down the beaten path with the student, the teacher takes special
interest and tutors the boy himself. Hancock describes the student’s treatment
as something “akin to royal tutoring” (Hancock). By the end of the year the
student has overcome the language barrier that was to blame and had begun to
thrive. The student, Bosart, was from Albania, and was not used to the similar
yet different vowel rich language of the Finns. In this example, the reader
sees the lens being brought upon the school and teacher rather than the
shortcomings of the student. Given the freedom to act as he or she feels, the
teacher can connect with students and take the necessary steps, whatever they
may be, to ensure the students success. This article promotes the idea of
teaching students how to learn rather than filling them up with information and
backs up this claim with evidence from Finland’s system, and in doing so points
out the flaws of our own American system of education.
Hancock stresses the importance of a
comprehensive schooling system over a structured, test-based performance
system. Another key point raised is the effect of this comprehensive education
system on the economy. Forty years ago when the Finnish went bankrupt and were
redesigning their country, the emphasis was put on education as the most vital
propellant for a prosperous future. Hancock never clearly states a thesis but
in the same vein as the comprehensive education of the Finns she gives you a
well-rounded idea of what she is talking about and why it is vital information.
Hancock describes the Finn’s education through general facts and specific
examples. She is promoting an education system that teaches students how to
learn rather than what to learn by giving examples of its variety of successes
in Finland. Her first main point
outlines the idea of the teacher playing the most important role the education
system. The paragraph that begins with the phrase “Whatever it takes is an
attitude that drives
not just Kirkkojarvi's 30 teachers, but most of Finland's 62,000 educators”
(Hancock). Hancock goes on to describe the freedom the teachers have to go the
extra mile with students and do whatever is necessary to help the child learn.
She then describes how their system came to be put in place, as a result of
their economic recovery plan. The details Hancock includes support her
reasoning that teachers are the frameworks for a good education. She points out
that all teachers are required to have a master’s degree. This is an expensive
endeavor, but in the Finn’s revamped system, the state covers teachers Master’s
degree fees.
Hancock’s points are followed
by both cited statistical evidence and personal observation from the Finnish
schools she visited when writing her article. Hancock uses her experience
spending time in Maija Rintola’s elementary school class to prove her point of
teachers and other staff being the source of Finland’s excellent education
system. She describes the attention Maija gives to each student individually
and the acceptance and guidance she offers to those who are on different levels
of reading or mathematics. Hancock also provides the reader with insight into
how the Finns perceive our system. While they provide students with the same
teacher for all five years of elementary school and require no standardize
tests; we do the opposite, shuffling kids around giving them test after test.
They look at our system and see a country obsessed with bar charts and ratings.
Meanwhile, they can boast, as Maija puts, “We know much more about the children
than these tests can tell us” (Hancock). Given the freedom to teach students on
a personal level teachers can get them interested in reading with books like “Kapteeni
Kalsarin (Captain Underpants)” (Hancock). Hancock also provides the numbers to back up
her claim that the Finn’s system provides the best education in the world. She
makes the reader aware of the extra “82,000 euros a year in positive
discrimination funds to pay for things like special resource teachers,
counselors and six special needs classes” (Hancock). This money helps kids who
fall behind or don’t know the language. She also provides the reader with the
numbers that prove the Finn’s success compared to the rest of the world. She
cites their 93% graduation rate from high school compared to our 75% rate. She
also includes their world rankings in math, science, and reading: rank 6, 3 and
2 respectively. Hancock’s narration of personal experience as well as her use
of statistics provides a compelling argument for the Finnish style of
education.
The author,
Lynnell Hancock, is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. She
specializes in education as well as child and family policy. She is obviously
well versed on the subject matter, so the influence her background offers is
the voice of authority. Hancock’s target audience is the educated public as
well as the policymakers of our country. She is trying to raise public
awareness on our crippled system of education by shedding light on the Finn’s
thriving one. At the same time she is pressuring policy makers by pointing out
the fact that we spend more money with less results. She wrote this article in
2011, so the time period was not necessarily a factor. She also uses the most
recent statistics as evidence so her article is still relevant now. Relevancy in journalistic articles such as
this are uniquely tied to what magazine or paper publishes it.Hancock’s article
“A+ for Finland” was published in the Smithsonian Magazine, a reliable source
for scholarly articles. Smithsonian Magazine
is very credible and is geared toward the intellectual with the focus on
modern issues in arts, sciences and politics.
Hancock’s style
and tone compliment her analysis of The Finnish and American education systems.
She writes idiomatically, expressing her ideas clearly and naturally; yet her
writing style takes a more academic turn when describing the shortcomings of America
and what the statistics she chooses to utilize mean. Her tone also expresses
her clear perception on her subject matter. She uses an informative tone, and
this, paired with her extensive background gives her article a great deal of
validity. Her style and tone help her article to seem approachable to a broad
audience as well as serving to accentuate her credibility.
Hancock’s article
is structured as many scholarly articles are, with an assertion followed by her
support. Her support however, differs from the norm. Rather than just using
statistics, she leans upon her personal experience in Finnish schools to back
up her assertions. She uses the first hand account of teachers, by including
bits and pieces of her interviews with the Finns. Maija Rintola, a grade school
teacher, is quoted as saying, "Play is important at this age, we value play” (Hancock).
Hancock makes her assertion about the value of a comprehensive education, and
then backs up her point with stats and experience. To conclude however, she
gives a brief history of how Finland’s revolutionary system was put into place.
She goes from general to specific, and then back and forth again. By giving a
broad assertion and then zooming in on microcosms of its applications, she
makes her thesis seem real and compelling on a personal level.
Hancock concludes
un-dramatically with a brief history of how the Finns got to be where they are.
She also gives the raw numbers at the end, including graduation rate, test
scores and money spent per student. All the Finn’s numbers are placed next to
America’s for emphasis. This article advocates for teaching students how to
learn rather than what to learn as well as putting pressure on America to
change our current system. This article was written at a very opportune time
considering the cuts being made to liberal arts universities in America. The
sole institutions that utilize the most successful form of education are being
torn down.
Works Cited
Hancock,
Lynell. "A+ for Finland." Smithsonian Magazine Sept. 2011: n.
pag. UNCA Library. Web. Mar. 2013.
<http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html>.
Un-educate Yourself!
We are becoming products. Students
are being put on shelves with computers and calculators. It wasn’t always this
way-- over the last hundred years our country’s education system has grown out
of our fierce hold on capitalism and industrialization. The problem of our one-
track system, in which students are utilized for one aspect of their mind, is
slowly but surely being put in the spotlight. The issue is the ubiquitous
nature of our system. The philosophy of consumerism, of going to school with
the purpose of getting a good job, is so ingrained in everything we do that to
break away from the paradigm would be to ostracize yourself. Students should learn for the purpose of
learning, for their own betterment, not for some all-encompassing term like the
economy. Our education system, the product of industrialization, is annulling
creativity and commodifying students; this process of feeding the capitalist
beast is both debilitating to our students and our democracy as a whole.
True
knowledge can be defined as the set of complex and ever-changing relationships
one develops with the world around them; it is not as Paulo Freire satirically illustrates,
a process in which “students become receptacles” (Freire). Students should not
be filled with information and then asked to regurgitate it all for the purpose
of paying for the same thing in college. Today, there is no differentiation
between students--from the school’s point of view student are a bank slate, all
given the same information and all given the same test. That test then dictates
how they contribute to the economy and its never-ending growth. This is an
over-simplification of the way things work, but it sums up the general idea. Sir
Ken Robinson of the United Kingdom and an advocate for education reform words
it best by saying,
“We have to go from what is
essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is
based on linearity and conformity and batching people. We have to move to a
model that is based more on principles of agriculture. We have to recognize
that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process.
And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a
farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.
(TED).
We cannot hope to
continue rewiring children to fit the needs of our market economy. What’s more,
our country will not sustain itself if this continues. Without the creative
thought or the diversity of talent, no community can flourish, much less a
country. Our education system needs to raise creative, unique individuals that
can act as mediums through which change will occur. Instead, America clings to
the old model of educational conformity in which students are fed to the angry
monster of the “economy” so our country can stay afloat for a few more years.
The fallacy of the education system is a microcosm of the larger issue in
America. But it is also the root of the issue because it is through this system
of conformist education that individuals with the same backwards mindset are
brought up. Rather than learning how to learn and gaining real life knowledge,
students are imbued with essentially useless information.
When the outline of our broken
system is made clear, it’s easy to see the effects it has and will have on our
society as a whole. The philosophies that make an ideal democracy great are in
direct opposition to our schooling. The values of a true democratic society
should be empathy, and self-critical thinking. We are undermining our democracy
by educating students for the economy rather than the society. This mindset
takes its toll everywhere in our country including North Carolina. The
governor, Patrick McCrory has recently announced his stance against holistic
education. On a radio show he brazenly took a stance on the issue saying “I just instructed my staff yesterday to go
ahead and develop legislation – which would change the basic formula in how
education money is given out to our universities and our community colleges…It's
not based on butts in seats but on how many of those butts can get jobs"
(McCory Interview) This is the most obvious as well as the most recent example
of the capitalistic approach to education. McCrory doesn’t want productive
well-rounded intelligent members of society he wants butts in chairs at jobs.
He even had the audacity to take another jab at liberal arts education by
saying "If you want to take gender studies that's fine, go to a private
school and take it, but I don't want to subsidize that if that's not going to
get someone a job" (McCrory Interview). The first thing that tips the
reader off was his critique of the liberal arts; McCrory himself attended a
liberal arts college. But to come out and say that Gender Studies as a class
isn’t useful is incredibly arrogant and ignorant. He is claiming that only
certain majors are useful to society. What’s more, McCrory is under the impression
that gender studies and other uniquely liberal arts majors won’t get anyone a
job. To assume that no one useful to the workforce majors in gender studies is
another gross generalization embraced by the Governor. He has no way of knowing
what the students of these majors will end up doing but still postulates that
they won’t be useful. However, McCrory is just the tip of the iceberg;
everywhere we see budgets slimming and cutbacks occurring for the type of
education that should be embraced. The market-based influence that swallows
every aspect of American life needs to be slowed, even stopped, for real
education to thrive on a public level. There are schools that educate
holistically and parents that choose to home school, but to make a
comprehensive and well-rounded education available for all would require
overhaul.
John Dewey in his book,
Democracy and Education, uses his
experience in the world of academia to show the common man how to go about
their schooling. Many of his ideas still resonate today as our system
flounders. He was one of the first to realize that students have been
objectified: “Too
rarely is the individual teacher so free from the dictation of authoritative
supervisor, textbook on methods, prescribed course of study, that he can let
his mind come to close quarters with the pupil’s mind and the subject matter”
(Dewey). What Dewey is getting it is that the relationship of the teacher and
student has been mutilated. Ideally, we
could revamp the American way of life to support an education that produces
democratic and open-minded citizens. Not democratic on the political spectrum,
rather democratic in the sense of being able to make smart decisions on
important issues and being well informed. In this way, America has long since
lost its ways of true democracy. The Utopian democracy is about looking out for
the oppressed and your fellow man, no looking out for number one as we do. But in a system such as ours, governed by
the capitalistic hegemony that has dominated America since the 1920s, such an
idea seems impossible.
There is hope, most students today have been
lucky enough to have at least one or two teachers who will engage their pupils
and form a relationship based on mutual open mindedness and respect. The hole
we must dig ourselves out of is deep, but until we rid ourselves of an
education system that commodifies students by killing their creative powers in
preparation to contribute to the all-important economy, then our country will
never truly thrive.
Works Cited
1.
McCrory,
Patrick. Interview by Bill Bennet. Www.newsobserver.com. N.p., 29 Jan.
2013. Web. 10 Feb. 2013<http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/29/2641893/mccrorys-call-to-revamp-higher.html>.
2.
TED:
Ideas worth Spreading.
Perf. Sir Ken Robinson. TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p., June 2006.
Web. 27 Feb. 2013.
3.
Freire,
Paulo. "Chapter 2." Pedagogy of the Oppressed. [New York]:
Herder and Herder, 1970. N. pag. Print.
4. Dewey,
John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of
Education. New York: Macmillan, 1916. Print
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