1 Alexis McCloud Professor Megan Keaton February 23rd, 2013 ENGL.

1103 Schooling over the years has become a misguided system teachers a simply information feeder to the students who soak it all in and spit it out on standardized test that are limiting the true potential and abilities of all students equally. Some educators and journalist have seemed to seek out solution to the problem of poorly developed schools around its effect of the world. Some have made observations and documented their findings in efforts to address these issues in hopes of evolving today education style in more productive setting for all students. The articles that will be used to show how these ideas our addressed are the statements from the Montessori and Liberal education definitons, the Freire Qoutes, Social class and the hidden curriculum, No child left behind act of 2001, and Does schools kill creativity? Ted Talks video. Sir Ken Robinson believes that the subjects of mathematics and language should have the same importance in the school system as the arts. He expresses in his speech that students are only being taught to use their body from the waist up as in writing and using their brain. He says all kids have tremendous talents and we squandered them. In the Montessori education system students are exposed to a learning environment like the one Robinsons suggest we should have. They focus on the human spirit and the development of the whole child through physical, social, emotional, and cognitive. This schools focus differs from a regular public school because of the format and structure between student and teacher.

2 Freires Qoute states the issue that Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teachers are the depositor. The students ultimately become filed away through the lack of creativity, transformation and knowledge. Montessori schools attempt to fix this issue by using teachers as more of a middle man between the child and the education. The teacher doesnt directly introduce the information to the students yet they supply them with materials and guidance in efforts to create independence and freedom within the student. The No Child Let Behind Act is associated with the efforts to promote an increase primarily on reading and math in all schools across America. The law aids schooling programs to close the gap between poorly educated classrooms and ineffective teachers. The law doesnt address any key points in other aspects of school like physical education or music which Robinson does think needs attention just as much as math and language arts. He said if you were to ask someone what is the point of public education, you can ultimately say that it is to produce university professors. He expresses that only focusing on the mind in school greatly limits the potential of all students. The body should be utilized just as much as the brain. Students should be able to express themselves other than through standardized testing. Jean Anyon visited several elementary schools of different districts and saw the variety of teaching methods and styles and how it related to the students ability to grasp the information and create an effective learning atmosphere for all students. Her findings correlate directly with The NCLB solutions to creating more efficiently well run classrooms by putting in highly-qualified teachers in them of districts that need help. Between the working and middle class schools a repeated point was that teachers and students lack effective communication with one another and lessons are strictly being taught with no purpose behind them. Just to get the information in and meet the criteria that the school demands. In the lower class schools that she observed the aid from the NCLB could really be to enhance

3 the overall performance of the schools. An executive elite school teacher could be used put into one of the lower class school and use their learning styles such as giving the children the ability to voice their opinion, challenging the students to arrive at an answer to a difficult problem solving equation on their own, and creating an environment where the students and teacher feel a sense of equality and partnership other than a strict classroom with little freedom other than doing their work. The 21st century Liberal Education approach is to prepare students for the real world providing students with a broad knowledge of the wider world like culture and society. But how can you teach students for real-world settings when typically not all of the students are interested in the same type of carrier and what sets the bias for what the real world is? Will there be hands on learning or first-hand experience lessons to help facilitate these ideas to the students? However the techniques of liberal education was successful in the experiment when a teacher took people of different ages and different backgrounds that made excelling in school a struggle. Along with other teachers that helped with the semester long program they introduced a set of standard set of skills that helped assist the students in everyday life. His thought was that if you want real power, legitimate power the kind that comes from the people and belongs to the people you must understand politics He focused their learning with things that will prompt them to live the lives of how the rich do. How to work the system the right way and get to where they want to be with knowing the right things. Is this how all students should be treated in all school systems?

WORKS CITED "Philosophy of Education -- Chapter 2: Pedagogy of the Oppressed." Philosophy of Education -- Chapter 2: Pedagogy of the Oppressed. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2013. "Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the Learning Revolution!" YouTube. YouTube, 24 May 2010. Web. 03 Mar. 2013. "What Is a 21st Century Liberal Education?" LEAP. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2013. "No Child Left Behind Act." Http://www.ocvts.org. N.p., n.d. Web.