User blog:Princess Callie/The Lacking Educational System.

As many of you know, I'm a senior in high school, taking a college English class. Well, now I'm on rant about it.

The people in it, mainly. Our education system is severely lacking, particularly on these people whom I've no idea how they managed to get into it. They type fairly literally like they don't give a shit. Uncapitalized sentences, no spacing, wall of text, etc. All of this from a discussion board; and the sad part being that those discussions are assignments.

But I don't fully blame them, to be honest, nor am I going to name names. I actually blame the system.

Why? Because of the fact that it's lacking severely; Kids aren't made to write or read properly, it's graded more on effort rather than both effort and readability. The educational is telling this kids that it's okay not to learn or care about learning.

I've even spoken to teachers about it in the past, and a few have stated they would like to grade both the effort and the quality, but they are told they should only grade on effort, because somehow high effort work equals high quality. This isn't true if the student isn't made to pay attention to the teacher's teachings. If a student doesn't listen, how can they expect to produce a quality work that fits those standards.

But, those teachers are few. Many of them are teachers who would rather hold your hand and say "Good, you know something!" rather than teach properly. Many of them are even turn-coats; as in, they used to teach properly, but apparently gave up because "The kids didn't give a shit." These teachers seem to lack the understanding that this is harmful to aspiring writers, because as they begin to write they encounter people like me, and others here, who will fairly literally pick apart their writing piece by piece and grade solely by quality, not effort. And even when they're helped along, they don't pay attention because they either give up or don't want to take the effort to get better.

The schools I'm talking about is Elementary, Junior High, and High School. It seems like they're lowering their standards for some form of rank or to make our lazier people look smarter and harder-working.

Obviously, kids would pay more attention and give a shit if their interests were appealed to, but for heaven's sake, if that isn't possible ( Even if it is), teachers need to be a little more brutal. When a piece of writing is shit, tell the student it's shit and give the deserved grade. Don't hold his hand and say "It was good because you put effort into it." This doesn't encourage the student to get better. It encourages them that just trying, regardless of how well they learned about it or studied it beforehand, is what will get them through the world.

But it's not. Like I said, people like me, and others, who will pick apart every piece of work you do regardless of your effort, exist, and we are most certainly not going to act like those teachers - we don't have regulations that for some God awful reason, say we have to hold your hand and "help" you in the nicest way possible. Will we? Sure, if you listen and know how to take criticism.

Students should be encouraged to get better, but not just through soft-talk; it doesn't hit the right spot. You become soft to them; not something standing in the way of their goal until they either improve or get butthurt. They should be encouraged to read, encouraged to write properly, and they should be encouraged properly. Some soft-talk is fine. If it works. But if it doesn't (which it won't), then you need to be able to say it point-blank. They should actually be criticized and made to learn what their level requires them to learn, rather than letting them walk right through everything in the world.