Danica Woo

Professor Christen Enos

3/16/17

Unit 3 Rough Draft

Context Note

This is an open letter to the educators and those on the school board.

It was written to persuade and to share my opinions and experiences with

the education system in the US. It explains only a few of its effects on

teenagers, myself and my friends included. I chose to make this an open

letter because I also want teenagers, parents or even teachers to read it and

relate to it, then maybe a few of them will feel passionate about the subject

and want to make a change. It is not a formal proposal as it doesnt lay out

the logistics to the solutions or even concrete psychological studies or

trends. My goal was not to write a proposal but rather had the intention and

hope that it starts a conversation that can eventually turn into concrete

solutions. It is a big problem to tackle and has many different factors that

make it the way it is and this open letter is just a general overview of the

issue at hand. I feel passionate about the subject because as a recent high

school graduate and freshman in college, I notice the things that high school

instilled in me for better and for worse but not many people take it seriously.
I see it in my friends and in the people around me and I hope that eventually

there will be a change in the education system and how education is seen to

administrators and the like.

An Open Letter to Educators and the School board:

In a rapidly changing society, younger generations, with a few

exceptions, struggle with finding a useful place in the working world.

Different professional fields overlap different skills, and new technologies and

trends open up doors for special jobs that you cant train for or learn in the

current established school system. This leaves a large population of high

school or college graduates without the skills and confidence needed to

pursue their passions and succeed after graduation and through adulthood.

Pre- college education systems and cultures, public and private, do not

provide the needed psychological support and education to produce a

successful 21st century high school graduate. The system is outdated and

modeled to produce workers for factory type jobs, which do exist, but limit an

individual from reaching their full potential. Reforms and the current

perceptions of intelligence arent keeping up with the times, creating a

misstep in the goal of schooling and the actual result of it. With the current

education system, high schoolers are set free upon graduation only to lack

the confidence, passion for learning and creative skills needed to succeed in

college and in the rest of their personal and professional lives.

 The current model of teaching trains teenagers and children to be

convergent thinkers, a quality that hinders their ability to be effective

problem solvers in an evolving workforce and economy. Convergent thinking

is the ability to produce a straight forward and single correct answer to a

problem. While this can be beneficial to succeed in high school as most tests

and homework are questions with right or wrong answers, its not helpful in

the real world. There is no way to prepare or learn how to think of correct

answers in a work place. When a problem arises in a project or deadline,

there is no answer at the back of the book or in the teachers manual. It is

expected that your brain has the ability to think of different solutions,

analyze them and choose the most effective one to complete the task.

However, that expectation cant be fulfilled with the way high school

students are taught to think and approach a problem. Educators and the

framers of the education system need to realize that generations and

generations of children are going through their primary education,

developing thinking styles that will not help them or the rest of society upon

graduating. INSERT JOB OR TASK COMPETENCE RESEARCH

Following high school, teenagers are expected to live on their own,

make their own decisions with confidence and passion and all the while be

happy with their abilities and themselves. Not only do high school models not

teach or foster this, they can actually damage the psychological well-being of

children, which they carry with them their whole lives. I like to look past high

school when thinking about the psychological development and into

elementary school years. Childhood years are the most impressionable in a

persons life and I believe it has the most impact on who a person grows up

to be and how they behave. Events and routines that are established during

childhood are carried throughout a persons lifetime and can affect their

outlook on themselves and on the world around them- FREUD. Most of a

child and teenagers life is spent at school. While home life is a big influence

on a young child, school is where they do most of their learning and growing

whether its in the classroom or during recess. This leads me to question

whether or not some educational practices lead to self-doubt, stress and

anxiety down the road.

I believe some factors to consider are the constraints that are often

placed on children during the elementary school years including the notion

that they must do and accept what they are told without question. I went to

a Montessori school from kindergarten to elementary school and feel that

has helped me become more confident and independent with a strong love

of learning. My Montessori experience cultivated my creativity and

encouraged me to follow my innate learning style, which allowed me to learn

at a pace far greater than children in traditional learning environments. For

example, when a child is learning how to add or subtract numbers, they are

told to write out formulas on specific lines on graph paper and to think about

it in a specific way in order to be correct. If the childs way of thinking

deviates from what the teaching manual says, it is automatically considered

wrong. Montessori schools have teachers that help in teaching but they
dont tell, they show and then follow the student while offering suggestions

and direction. Every child has a unique learning style and school systems can

inhibit children from recognizing and becoming comfortable with their innate

way of learning. The idea of learning a certain way goes beyond the

classroom and can root itself into everyday life. Children can grow up

depending on the ways of other people. They lose their sense of validity and

can grow up thinking they need the approval of others.

High school poses a whole other threat to a persons well-being with

the pressure of grades and report cards, parental worries and social anxieties

that come with the territory. In an article written by psychologist Dr. Kalman

Heller, it was reported that 1 in every 4 teenagers in high school will suffer

major depression, with the average age of onset being 14 years old. To me,

that is an alarming and shocking number. High school has become

increasingly more difficult and confining with students being required to sit

and study in silence, take difficult classes in order to get into college and

study for tests and exams that end up turning your ability to do and to learn

into a number that is compared to others. No wonder teenagers are

depressed and society is seeing an alarming increase in suicide or drug

related deaths. Teenagers spend eight plus hours in a building around both

students and teachers that constantly judge and rank them. It is a pressure

cooker for teenagers and it doesnt end after you graduate. Constant

judging and evaluation of your self-worth by another person, roots itself in a

persons sub-conscience. Teenagers describe high school as never being

good enough and always reaching for something that you cant attain. How

could a high school graduate apply for a job or even pursue their interests

after being constantly told what to do and that what you are doing isnt

enough?

Our education system is built for a different age; its designed around

the principle that you go to school, learn a routine, then go work in a factory

or are guaranteed a job, but thats not how it is anymore. The world has

evolved and the education system isnt giving kids the tools they need to be

successful. The idea of what is considered intelligent and not intelligent, like

knowing the classicshistory, math, and sciencenot the ability to be

creative or how to navigate through the world, how to understand yourself,

your thoughts, your strengths, your weaknesses, how you understand others,

how you interact and care for others. The world is a global community with

different cultures and influences. In order to be successful, an individual has

to know how to adapt, think creatively and be confident in their ability to be

a useful part of society.

Talk about elementary school first then high school then college and

connect back to thesis