School and educational morals shift; schools are now about grades rather than learning the actual material. Students and parents are not satisfied with the teaching style being used in schools. Students need a more modern, adaptable learning environment to be prepared for their futures.
News.gallup.com reports that 35 percent of the U.S. population is satisfied with the quality of K-12 education. This is the lowest percentage ever recorded. K-12 schools need to focus on subjects that benefit students for the future. These schools also need to be flexible enough to give students an actual interest in learning the concepts.
Students have many responsibilities, including homework, jobs, sports, chores, eight hours of school, and planning their futures. There are other situations in which students have to provide for their families, work while in school, or lack support at home. A lot of the time, these situations are overlooked; teachers do not take into consideration the stress students may experience in these hardships, and just end up piling more on. Often, students do not communicate their needs to their educators. It can be hard to ask for help, and the teachers do not provide the help needed.
In recent years, there has been a shortage of teachers. Because of this, we have older teachers and old teaching methods. The majority of teaching is a lecture, where students sit and stare, not learning anything, or everything is online. There is no adaptation to students’ learning. Students currently in high school have experienced the dreadful COVID outbreak in 2019. Because of this, these students already had a disadvantage and were behind where they needed to be. An entire school year was online without proper guidance and preparation from our instructors.
Personally, in my three years of high school, my junior year has been the hardest. Teachers expect so much from upperclassmen; we are young adults preparing for our futures, while balancing school’s high expectations. From my experience, I have seen students express their needs or concerns, and teachers turn a blind eye, maintain high expectations, and fail to give students what they need.
The old learning styles have led me, on several occasions, to teach myself how to do my own work; I still do this to this day. Everything is online nowadays, with little examples and explanations. They [teachers] do not even create many of the assignments and videos they use. Most of the time, the videos are on YouTube, created by other teachers. Most students, including myself, can not learn like this.
Almost every day this year, I have gone home with homework in most of my classes. Because of the constant homework, I do not get much free time. I spent around one to two hours doing homework after being in school for eight hours, when in-season practice for two hours, personal responsibilities, and necessities.
Students need downtime to decompress. If I had more free time, I could focus on the more important aspects of my life. I would have time for a job, chores, and college work. I would leave my work at school, and have time for my other responsibilities and some free time.
Although homework can be time-consuming, it allows me to understand what I am learning more, and it has helped me on many tests. I go home and do my homework so I can be successful in school and get good grades. I want to graduate with a GPA of 3.8. So far, the work is paying off, although it is so frustrating and time-consuming.
When it comes to solutions, teachers need to be more flexible with their classes. If the class does not understand the subject, there needs to be a different, effective way for students to learn. Teachers need to adapt to each student’s learning. Students do not all learn from lecture; some need hands-on or different methods.
If there were younger teachers or more open understanding teachers, there could be new ways for students to learn. Also, it may help if students did not have all their assignments online; there would be less AI usage and more student understanding. Teachers can learn about students’ learning styles through surveys. From the surveys, teachers will know what types of teaching students need. The students’ understanding in their education would be the teacher’s main priority.
