Improving The School System – Three Strategies That Can Work
When you hear about reports about how bad our
school system is, and how we need to do something about it, many people are at a loss as to what can actually be done. There are many countries in the world that outperform the United States consistently, something that has to do with the very basis of how our school system is today. If you go back 50 years ago, there was a lot more control given to teachers, and students were more mindful back in those days. Today, teachers have to be very careful, or lawsuits will arise, giving more power to the students making them more complacent in their intent to study. There are several things that can be done to improve our school systems, three of which we will now mention here.
Shrink Class Sizes
One of the largest problems with teaching kids in the school is that there are so many in one classroom, it’s hard to keep control. The difficulty is that schools lack funding, which means they can’t have as many teachers as they should, which leads to larger numbers of students in classrooms all over the country. This is not a problem if you are
in a college because, by that time, kids aren’t as rowdy and will act accordingly within the classroom setting. It seems to be a conditioning that in elementary schools and high schools that the larger the crowd, the worse their behavior will be. To eliminate this problem, by shrinking the class sizes by half, and also adding an aide or two with each classroom, the problem would be solved. However, until we get funding to fix this particular aspect of the school system, the problems that we have right now will continue to grow.
Shorten Classroom Time
Although this may seem counterintuitive, if you have shorter amounts of time in each classroom, that means the students would have to focus more intently. Lessons would be dealt out rapidfire, requiring them to pay close attention to everything that the teacher said, lest they may receive a lower grade. Lengthening classroom time only makes complacency arise, and depending upon their age, kids will become bored, and in their boredom act out, or simply not pay attention as intently as they should.
Keep Kids In One Classroom
This is something that has been tried in the past where children are kept in one classroom and are either taught by the same teacher, or teachers are rotated in. The combination of shortening the amount of time that is allowed to teach, and keeping kids in one classroom throughout the day with only half the number of students, proper control of the classroom would resume, students would become more focused, and stress on the teachers would be diminished significantly.