I-Search Paper
This assignment has tasked me with constructing an argumentative research paper. This will be made to satisfy the requirements of the I-Search Paper assignment sheet.
I-Search Paper Draft #1
After a great deal of procrastination and stress, I have made the decision to approach our grade based education system. My current opinions of the system are heavily biased upon my past experiences with the system, however I will try to keep an open mind on the issue to allow the most productive solution to be found. I believe that our system is heavily flawed, as it teaches everyone in a rigid fashion, with the expectation that everyone single person in the country learns at the same rate, and has a eclectic memory, meaning once they "Learn" something, they will not forget it, and thus consistent review to enforce long term memorization is unnecessary. It also judges individuals on a arbitrary grade system, which while it is important to hold a standard of education, it cannot be enforced so rigidly and in a way that it does not accurately reflect one's acquired knowledge. I personally believe that we should look for an alternative system that not only stresses learning, as opposed to satisfying a grade requirement, but also treats students in a more individual manner in order to ensure they are learning at their own rate.
The First Place I decided to check for arguments was the Nytimes' Room for Debate, however they did not have an article that would allow me to have a look at both sides of the issue, this can mean that the question has simply never been bought up, or it alternatively is not good grounds for debate, which would mean that everyone, to a certain degree, would agree that the system of education is flawed in its current state. So, as a result, I resorted to surfing Google for alternatives for our current system, it was easy to find a plethora of articles as proponents to reform, however it was nearly impossible to find articles supporting our current state of education. However, I eventually found opposing arguments by searching keywords, such as: "The education system isn't failing", which shows a vast distance between proponents and opponents.
The first article I found was This Article from CNN. The system proposed is a level based system focusing on ability rather than grades, in which students would advance from level to level as they became ready, many times students would advance level multiple times a year. The system already proved to be extremely effective, as it was implemented by a non-profit organization known as the Re-inventing Schools Coalition in the past to great results to a small struggling school district in Alaska, which jumped from basically none of the students advancing to secondary education, to an astounding 90%! This system, while still experimental, shows great promise in educating our children effectively, as it is highly flexible and individual. A school in Colorado recently adopted this system, and while the long term results have yet to show, they have already seen a massive 76% decrease in Discipline issues around the school, which the school's principle Sarah Gould states is attributable to the fact that students are challenged exactly where they need to be.
My next query was related to other countries around the world that surpassed our position in the world in terms of overall average educational progress. Finland was notable as one of the best education systems available, being in third place, but is notable for a very different approach on the education system. This article from the Smithsonian Magazine's official website. Finland's schools are very much different from ours as they seem to stress a human aspect to the learning system, as opposed to a statistical approach to the learning system. Teachers are used to doing whatever it takes to ensure each and every student is prepared for life. Starting the article was a story focused on one foreign student who was resisting any attempt to learn, and the school was eventually forced to hold him back, something almost unheard of in Finland. The child then spent the following year being personally taught by the Principle, who refused to believe it was laziness. By the end of the year, the child not only mastered the Finnish language, but grew up to open his own car repair shop and cleaning company at age 20, and happily thanked his principles diligence for saving him. However, to the Finnish Teacher and Principle, he was merely doing his job. Overall, Finland pushes a massive lead in Education worldwide, despite spending 30% less on the average student than the United States.
After setting up points on the side of educational reform proponents, I went looking article that were opponents to the idea of reform, as stated earlier, t was much harder to find these. This article, by Daniel Greenfield was from a site known as FrontPageMag.com, this site is a conservative news site, proclaiming "Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to get out!", which speaks greatly of the site's obviously open minded approach to delicate matters such as the education of children, however I digress. The article claims "it’s not the schools that are failing. It’s the students." as well as "Any student who makes it through twelve grades without achieving basic math and literacy skills hasn’t been failed by the school. He has made a choice not to learn." Which not only puts all the blame of a failed education system, and a poor support system on a child. Children cannot be blamed for failing themselves, for they are products of the world they live in, and when a child is not given the attention necessary to learn to learn, then a system designed to educate them to live in the world has failed. Interestingly, the writer immediately contradicts himself by stating "More often the choice has been made for him.", however I will leave that for you to decide. Outside of that message, the article states one's own volition, and family are what brings about child success, and states 19th and 20th century prodigies, such as Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and the Wright Brothers as examples. However, I believe that a school should also nurture each student's natural thirst for knowledge, and those prodigies are simply individuals who have found a way to satisfy their search for knowledge on their own. This article, while it supports the education system as it currently stands, does not provide any direct support for the grading system, other than linking to another article.
That article is from AmericanThinker.com, another clearly conservative site, this article attempts to justify its point that America's education isn't failing by continuing to blame the students, but adds cutting America into little race based demographics to the mix, which makes America look much more favorable, considering the Average White or Asian student generally has access to much better education than the average African American or Hispanic student. Fortunately for them, the 2009 PISA results, which they refer to extensively, doesn't include that little fact. In fact, the whole article relies on statistics, not upon the reality of the situation. In fact, they say that IQ screening immigrants would help our education, how about making better schools so the Immigrants that enter get the education that they as living sentient beings deserve?
Overall, I am unmoved by the counter arguments, while they make good points that stand on a statistical basis, they don't touch upon reality very well, they don't acknowledge the educational differences, the focus on getting good grades over learning, nor do they treat the students who suffer from our broken system with respect. I agree that a strong support system is essential for a child to become motivated to learn, but that isn't saying a school can't provide that as well. We have too few teachers, and a system that favors numbers over critical thinking. That isn't to say a better system isn't in the works, the success behind Finland's schools and the experimental school in Colorado as well as its predecessor in Alaska were successful because they custom tailored the lessons to each and every child, they advanced at their own pace, and it shows. The problem isn't laziness, its the lack of motivation to learn in a system that doesn't value learning.
The First Place I decided to check for arguments was the Nytimes' Room for Debate, however they did not have an article that would allow me to have a look at both sides of the issue, this can mean that the question has simply never been bought up, or it alternatively is not good grounds for debate, which would mean that everyone, to a certain degree, would agree that the system of education is flawed in its current state. So, as a result, I resorted to surfing Google for alternatives for our current system, it was easy to find a plethora of articles as proponents to reform, however it was nearly impossible to find articles supporting our current state of education. However, I eventually found opposing arguments by searching keywords, such as: "The education system isn't failing", which shows a vast distance between proponents and opponents.
The first article I found was This Article from CNN. The system proposed is a level based system focusing on ability rather than grades, in which students would advance from level to level as they became ready, many times students would advance level multiple times a year. The system already proved to be extremely effective, as it was implemented by a non-profit organization known as the Re-inventing Schools Coalition in the past to great results to a small struggling school district in Alaska, which jumped from basically none of the students advancing to secondary education, to an astounding 90%! This system, while still experimental, shows great promise in educating our children effectively, as it is highly flexible and individual. A school in Colorado recently adopted this system, and while the long term results have yet to show, they have already seen a massive 76% decrease in Discipline issues around the school, which the school's principle Sarah Gould states is attributable to the fact that students are challenged exactly where they need to be.
My next query was related to other countries around the world that surpassed our position in the world in terms of overall average educational progress. Finland was notable as one of the best education systems available, being in third place, but is notable for a very different approach on the education system. This article from the Smithsonian Magazine's official website. Finland's schools are very much different from ours as they seem to stress a human aspect to the learning system, as opposed to a statistical approach to the learning system. Teachers are used to doing whatever it takes to ensure each and every student is prepared for life. Starting the article was a story focused on one foreign student who was resisting any attempt to learn, and the school was eventually forced to hold him back, something almost unheard of in Finland. The child then spent the following year being personally taught by the Principle, who refused to believe it was laziness. By the end of the year, the child not only mastered the Finnish language, but grew up to open his own car repair shop and cleaning company at age 20, and happily thanked his principles diligence for saving him. However, to the Finnish Teacher and Principle, he was merely doing his job. Overall, Finland pushes a massive lead in Education worldwide, despite spending 30% less on the average student than the United States.
After setting up points on the side of educational reform proponents, I went looking article that were opponents to the idea of reform, as stated earlier, t was much harder to find these. This article, by Daniel Greenfield was from a site known as FrontPageMag.com, this site is a conservative news site, proclaiming "Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to get out!", which speaks greatly of the site's obviously open minded approach to delicate matters such as the education of children, however I digress. The article claims "it’s not the schools that are failing. It’s the students." as well as "Any student who makes it through twelve grades without achieving basic math and literacy skills hasn’t been failed by the school. He has made a choice not to learn." Which not only puts all the blame of a failed education system, and a poor support system on a child. Children cannot be blamed for failing themselves, for they are products of the world they live in, and when a child is not given the attention necessary to learn to learn, then a system designed to educate them to live in the world has failed. Interestingly, the writer immediately contradicts himself by stating "More often the choice has been made for him.", however I will leave that for you to decide. Outside of that message, the article states one's own volition, and family are what brings about child success, and states 19th and 20th century prodigies, such as Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and the Wright Brothers as examples. However, I believe that a school should also nurture each student's natural thirst for knowledge, and those prodigies are simply individuals who have found a way to satisfy their search for knowledge on their own. This article, while it supports the education system as it currently stands, does not provide any direct support for the grading system, other than linking to another article.
That article is from AmericanThinker.com, another clearly conservative site, this article attempts to justify its point that America's education isn't failing by continuing to blame the students, but adds cutting America into little race based demographics to the mix, which makes America look much more favorable, considering the Average White or Asian student generally has access to much better education than the average African American or Hispanic student. Fortunately for them, the 2009 PISA results, which they refer to extensively, doesn't include that little fact. In fact, the whole article relies on statistics, not upon the reality of the situation. In fact, they say that IQ screening immigrants would help our education, how about making better schools so the Immigrants that enter get the education that they as living sentient beings deserve?
Overall, I am unmoved by the counter arguments, while they make good points that stand on a statistical basis, they don't touch upon reality very well, they don't acknowledge the educational differences, the focus on getting good grades over learning, nor do they treat the students who suffer from our broken system with respect. I agree that a strong support system is essential for a child to become motivated to learn, but that isn't saying a school can't provide that as well. We have too few teachers, and a system that favors numbers over critical thinking. That isn't to say a better system isn't in the works, the success behind Finland's schools and the experimental school in Colorado as well as its predecessor in Alaska were successful because they custom tailored the lessons to each and every child, they advanced at their own pace, and it shows. The problem isn't laziness, its the lack of motivation to learn in a system that doesn't value learning.
I-Search Paper Draft #2
After reading a comment from a fellow student in class, I've made a revision to my draft to make it more passionate, I've taken away a more neutral side of professionalism, as deep down inside, that isn't what I feel. I've also tried to better explain what exactly I was doing.
Section 1:Proposal
In this assignment, I attempt to write an I-Search paper in an argumentative response to a question of my own choice, and after a great deal of procrastination and stress, I've driven myself to focus upon our public education system. Unfortunately, my current opinions of the system are heavily biased upon my past experiences with the system, and how I've dealt with it, however I will try to keep an open mind on the issue to allow the most productive solution to be found. In short, I believe that our system has not only failed me, but also a great deal of American children, and continues to fail them until a better system is procured. This is not only due to the fact that it teaches very little practical life skills (like how to cook, grow their own food, or how to file tax returns), negatively enforces children to value some arbitrary good grade in a class over actually learning something that will remain for them for the rest of their life, but it also kills the desire for people to actually want to learn or to even try to develop their own skills through good old human ingenuity. Let's face it, how many of you have actually taken the time to learn how to build an AM radio, a garden, a shed, an air conditioner, night vision goggles, or develop something entirely new from good old imagination and human ingenuity, like a new (at least to yourself) mathematical formula or banana slicer. I know I haven't, and I consider myself painfully average in that respect. Of course, I could go take a look into one of the many components of this issue, such as how this ties into capitalism, or the cultural disregard to the acquirement of knowledge or skill. However, I will stick with looking at alternatives to our education system, as the issues I have mentioned earlier are completely irrelevant, unless action is taken.
Sections 2 & 3: Process & Paper
As you may have noticed, I have Sections 2 & 3 combined into one. This is due to the fact that I prefer a more organic and natural flow towards an each argument, and I feel that It would be a slap in the face of my passion for education to treat this as just some boring old research paperThe signature aspect of an I-Search Paper is involving one's process in the presentation. I've taken a different approach to the I-search Paper by combining both process and argument in order to create a more natural, individual and passionate flow to my work as opposed to blindly following the point for a grade at the cost of my effectiveness. Unfortunately for me, that requires something a bit more than shrugging my shoulders and blurting out "I googled it and clicked on a few random links.", which is my general tactic to be honest. I've decided to begin finding my arguments towards revamping the education system at a place called "Room for Debate" on the NYTimes' website that I found whilst doing an earlier blog post (blog post #12 to be exact). I made it a point to go there first due to the success in finding a plethora of different views on an issue, however they didn't have any article that covered this question, this can mean that the question has simply never been bought up, or it alternatively is not good grounds for debate, which would imply that everyone, to a certain degree, would agree that the system of education is flawed in its current state. So, as a result, I resorted to the status quo of surfing Google for alternatives for our current system, it was easy to find a plethora of articles as proponents to reform, however it was nearly impossible to find articles supporting our current state of education. I was eventually forced to use key phrases such as: "Our education system isn't failing"
After taking some time to surf Google to find alternatives, I eventually stumbled upon an Article on CNN titled "School Teaches by ability, not grade level", while I am not a fan of the title, it brings up a very interesting alternative to our current system of education in the works. The system proposed is a level based system focusing on ability rather than grades, in which students would advance from level to level as they became ready, many times students would advance level multiple times a year. The system already proved to be extremely effective, as it was implemented by a non-profit organization known as the Re-inventing Schools Coalition in the past to great results to a small struggling school district in Alaska, which jumped from basically none of the students advancing to secondary education, to an astounding 90%! This system, while still experimental, shows great promise in educating our children effectively, as it is highly flexible and individualized, I hope as time goes on the true success of this design will come to show. Already, a school in Colorado mentioned in the Article recently adopted this system, and while the long term results have yet to show, they have already seen a massive 76% decrease in Discipline issues around the school, which the school's principle Sarah Gould states is attributable to the fact that students are challenged exactly where they need to be. I believe it, if work that looks like mere child's play or work that made me feel like a hairless but handsome chimpanzee was a thing of the past, I would probably take my classes more seriously too.
My next query was related to other countries around the world that surpassed our position in the world in terms of overall average educational progress. Finland was notable as one of the best education systems available, but is notable for a very different approach on the education system. "Why are Finland's schools successful" from the Smithsonian Magazine talks about this issue extensively, it's a good read, and I suggest you read it on your own time, however in a summarized form; Finland's schools are very much different from ours as they seem to stress a human aspect to the learning system, as opposed to a statistical approach to the learning system. Teachers are used to doing whatever it takes to ensure each and every student is prepared for life, not just passing the next math test, meaning that your teacher isn't just some random person that gives you work and tells you how to do it, he is there to be your friend and mentor. Starting the article was a story focused on one foreign student who barely spoke a lick of Finnish and simply could not handle learning, and the school was eventually forced to hold him back, apparently that's a big deal in Finland, I only wish we had that same privilege, however I digress. The child then spent the following year being personally taught by the Principle, who was also a veteran teacher, who refused to believe it was the same mere laziness that we apply to our failing students. By the end of the year, the child not only mastered the Finnish language, he also learned to love learning, and grew up to open his own car repair shop and cleaning company at age 20, and happily thanked his principles diligence for saving him. However, to the Finnish Teacher and Principle, he was merely doing his job. With Hollywood level success stories like this it's no surprise Finland pushes a massive lead in Education worldwide. An added bonus that the article states, is that Finland spends 30% less on each student than the US, which means if we were to adapt this system, we would have better schools AND save money for us to spend on even better schools with up-to-date textbooks, provided cutting our overinflated defense budget isn't going to happen.
After finding a couple of superior alternatives to our current education system, I went looking article that were people content with our education system, in order to see why little progress has been made to enforce change. As stated earlier, it was much harder to find these. "America's Education system isn't broken", by Daniel Greenfield was from a conservative news site known as Frontpagemag.com, proudly proclaiming "Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to get out!", which speaks greatly of the site's obviously open minded approach to delicate matters such as the education of children, however I digress. The article claims, and I quote; "it’s not the schools that are failing. It’s the students." as well as "Any student who makes it through twelve grades without achieving basic math and literacy skills hasn’t been failed by the school. He has made a choice not to learn." Which basically puts all the blame of a failed education system, underfunded schools, and possibly even a poor support system at home, all on the child. I don't believe you can blame students for failing themselves, while as sentient beings to not do one's own work *is* a choice, they are products of the world they live in, and if they aren't taught to value learning, they will probably to choose not to learn, because it is seen as a waste of time. To many of these poor souls, the challenge of thriving in our education system can be like trying to build a 3152 piece Lego Super Star Destroyer, and with no support or care to help guide them to independence, its like throwing away the instructions to do so. Very few people would take the time to find a picture and try to build it from there, obviously, its a bit of a far fetched comparison, but to a student who has high expectations placed upon him but with only a sense of practically inhuman defiance, persistence, and will to guide him to success, it is a perfect comparison. Remember the story about the foreign child in Finland I mentioned earlier? My point has already been proven, a child given the right environment, will want to do good in school and want to learn. Interestingly, the writer immediately contradicts himself by stating "More often the choice has been made for him.", however I will leave that for you to decide what exactly that means, as I'm just as dumbfounded by the contradiction. Overall, the message of this article is cloudy and the actual text hard to read, I found myself rereading it several times because I couldn't understand what the person was trying to argue. It could be simply because I disagree with his point, however I am legitimately trying to understand his argument, because, as a researcher, it is my job to search for solutions everywhere.
I felt that the first paper didn't represent a very compelling vision to support our current system, so I decided to look for another, hopefully one that uses empirical evidence or stories to support the claim, fortunately Daniel's article had a link that led to another the type of article titled "Academic Success and the mix of students" by Robert Weissberg on another site known as AmericanThinker.com. This article justifies its point that America's education isn't failing in a more statistical manner, using The 72 page 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) Highlights extensively, however the link they provide for the PISA scores they use are not from the official source, instead it leads to a now dead link on another political news site, fortunately the numbers they use to defend their point are verified by my independent research. However, the article continues to blame the children for failing American schools at several points throughout the article, something I, yet again, already shown can be defeated by improvements. One interesting thing this article does is downplay the issue entirely by using the PISA scores. However, while America is #17 on the list, at a score of 500 on the combined reading literacy scale, which is slightly above the world average of 493, its position appears much more favorable when the article separates America's overall average, into much smaller race based criteria which was found on page 29 of the aforementioned highlights, however one interesting note is that the scores (at least from what I can tell) do not distinguish between private and public schools. This means that white (score of 525, and isn't stated in the article) and Asian (score of 541) students have a much bolstered score because, according to an article titled "Private School Racial Enrollments and Segregation" by Sean F. Reardon, they're enrolled in much better funded private schools at twice the rate of Hispanics (score of 466) and African Americans (score of 441), and generally live in better conditions. This means that the statistics presented are ultimately arbitrary, as the scores do not distinguish between scores from an Underfunded intercity public school with 15 year old textbooks, and scores from a world famous private academy which (due to it's privately owned nature) doesn't to abide by the same curriculum or learning system that the state prescribes in our failing public school system, and thus the children that benefit from unorthodox and much more individualized learning systems are being used to bolster the scores to "prove" that our public state run education system that the African American and Hispanic students (due to their lower attendance in said Private schools) more accurately represent, isn't failing. Because of this, the statistics are completely Arbitrary and fail to touch upon reality. The article ends with an audacious message telling us American's that we should "congratulate ourselves" for our education system, because even our lowest scoring demographic, the African American demographic, whilst significantly lower than the world Average I might add, is still better than Trinidad and Tobongo (Score of 416). Taking out the ultimately arbitrary statistical jargon, I am left with the same article as before. Just angry incoherent rambling, that does little to support its own cause. The only course of action that is suggested to "improve" our scores, is to IQ screen immigrants in the hope of stopping the less educated from lowering our scores, instead of attempting to improve our education system, because lets face it, you can't stop intellectually inferior people from entering the country, or even *gasp* from being made inside of this country due to a failing education system, but if you educate said people, both natural and foreign, then there will be significantly less of that demographic, and we don't look like eugenic supporting elitists at the same time!
Section 4: Conclusion
Overall, I still believe our system of education is flawed and requires immediate attention, the articles that showed alternatives to our current system seemed very positive, and only furthered my belief in better alternatives. Whereas, the articles that supported keeping our education system where it is, only threw statistical jargon that required individual research in order to even understand how they came to the conclusion in a bullheaded package saying that our system of learning doesn't have to change. Unfortunately for them, learning is about change. Learning isn't just about meeting a status quo, it isn't just about learning to scrape by in a heartless and competitive world, that has the audacity to claim it's civility and transcendence from mere animals, but holds the Darwinist ideals of survival of the fittest so dearly. Learning is transcending all known boundaries, breaking the mold for the better, we shouldn't ever stop trying to improve our way of teaching the next generation, and I have shared two molds for us to either use or be inspired from to make the foundations for a better future. Our children are not a joke, and we must work to begin a new era free of arbitrary grades that don't represent our children's abilities, and children that don't want to learn because they have developed a poisonous misconception that the act of going to school comes with expectations that will damn them if they don't achieve them in the small and arbitrary time allotted.