To Kill A Mockingbird Education System

The Education System Against Learning
The school system in America is flawed to the point in which it is now killing creativity, individuality, and ultimately the future of the students that the educational system has failed to teach. This crude system has been suppressing the great things that could be done through education and learning. This is because education and learning have become two different things. Even Mark Twain once said,”I never let my schooling get in the way of my learning” (qtd. in Prince Ea n. pag.). Although these words of the great American author are rash, they ring with a crushing truth, bringing to light the serious issues that the educational system in America is faced with, the educational system has failed.
Prince ea, an internet and now worldwide famous YouTube said in his famous YouTube video I Just Sued the School System that “20% of America’s population is made up of students, but 100% of students are our future” (Prince Ea n. pag.). This statement is so significant because schooling today in America is not preparing it’s students for the future. Since schooling first became mandatory in the States in 1910 we have seen cars change drastically, phones change drastically, the way we are able to communicate with the world has changed drastically. However, schooling has remained the same in the U.S., while the rest of the world has passed it by while we continue in our old ways. Students still remain in the same straight desks getting the same time filling homework problems that they have received since the beginning of this cluttered system. This was a good way of teaching, perhaps back then when schools were preparing the students for factory jobs, but today there is a much bigger need than that. Today we need problem solvers and people who can think for themselves, people who aren’t brainwashed, people who aren’t programmed for doing work for their supervisors. The world needs visionaries to drive the future and create it with their own hands, molding it like a potter. Potters get to decide what they create, they get to decide how they want their masterpiece to look. Should that not be the same way with our futures? Finland's schools are doing incredible things in their schools without homework or standardized testing because they are focusing on preparing their students for their futures, “By 2006, Finland was first out of 57 countries (and a few cities) in science. In the 2009 PISA scores released last year, the nation came in second in science, third in reading and sixth in math among nearly half a million students worldwide”(Hancock n. pag.). The same problems have existed since the beginning of schooling. For example, in To Kill a Mockingbird the young girl Scout whom the story is told through is very smart, much beyond her years, however she struggles to enjoy her schooling or even do well in school. She became easily frustrated by school begging her father, Atticus to not make her return after just the first day.(Lee n. pag.). The issue, however is not the child nor the teacher, it is the curriculum that the state forces on both.

Our teachers are being over restricted on what they are allowed to teach and it is hurting the amount of learning that actually goes on in the classroom.
Now The state has a certain curriculum that they require for schools, and most of these restricting rules or curriculum is created by people who have never taught a day in their life. This issue was brought up in Prince ea’s I'm suing the School System video, however the issue has been around even before the publishing of the book To Kill a Mockingbird: Young Scout whom the story was told through was discouraged and basically yelled at by her teacher for knowing how to read even before Scout’s first day of school. Being taught by her father, Atticus how to read from a young age, she was already a good reader. But because her teacher had learned new techniques of teaching from the state, Scout’s way of learning was wrong, simply because it was not taught to Scout by the teacher using the state’s methods.(Lee n. pag.). This curriculum is very flawed and outdated, even during the time To Kill a Mockingbird was written, and is restricting the potential for learning in the classroom and here’s why: according to teach.com there are four main types of learning Visual, Auditory, Reading and Writing, and Kinesthetic. Most students will fall into one of these categories. The significance of this is that only 10% of students learn the best through reading, writing and lectures, the most common teaching method used in the American classroom today. This leaves the other 90% of learners like “fish trying to climb trees”. Albert Einstein once said this about the common education system:”Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree, it will live it’s whole life believing that it is stupid”(qtd. in Prince Ea n. pag.). Most students today feel like the poor fish trying to climb a tree. Furthermore, there is another large reason why people feel stupid or are just turned off by school in general
and that is the lack of specialization allowed for students in terms of classes they are allowed to take. Students are not allowed to focus on areas that they are good at or even interested in while still being expected to get good grades at the same time. All these different classes can add unneeded stress for students. Adding on to the fact that not all students learn the same way turns climbing a tree into climbing a mountain.

Class rank supposed to be a motivational tool for students, however it has an adverse effect on the student body. Many students get turned off of learning by the class rank because it makes them feel inferior to their peers. Other students, however try to scratch and claw their way with their regard for academic integrity thrown out of the window. So instead of trying to make students compete with each other to try to get a good grade, students should be focusing on collaboration. Schools in Finland are doing just that, and it’s students are excelling because of it. When a group is able to work together it’s rewards are much greater than those of competition and divide such as the one that class rank has created. Apart from academic success group work prepares students for future job opportunities. According to PEW Research Center data jobs are now requiring more group work and social skills than ever and the demand will only continue to grow in years to come.(DeSilver n. pag.) For these reasons the educational system in the U.S. should focus their efforts on teaching communication, leadership, and problem solving, all skills that can be gained through group work. Because if the system continues to continue in the direction of competition and division, students will not be prepared for their futures. However the present may be just as important as well. In the film Prom Night in Mississippi tensions rose over who would be crowned Valedictorian. The competition went from bad to worse when it seemed to become a matter of race. Perhaps the competition was rigged in favor of the caucasian, but the controversy could have easily been prevented had schools been more focused on bringing the student body together.

With teachers being underpaid and students being pinned against each other to compete for grades it is no wonder why the school system in America is falling behind. The only real hope in this system is that it will be changed. This change may not come easily, but if this much needed change is going to be made, the change will be made by the people affected, the students and teachers caught up in the clutter of this dusty, old, non functional system. Because now the school system in America is flawed to the point in which it is now killing creativity, individuality, and ultimately the future of the students that the educational system has failed to teach.