Is it Really the Teacher's Fault?

The assignment for March 28th of 2010 was to write an essay in regards to the post by Morgan Bayda. Here is said essay:



The blog post "An Open letter to Educators" by Morgan Bayda was enlightening as to how education should be like today, and how students of America are being cheated out of an education. I agree with the author in some ways, however, in some I do not.

The author begins the post with an introduction to a video by Dan Brown---a student that recently dropped out of the University of Nebraska because "His schooling was interfering with his education"---meaning I guess he didn't agree with how he was being educated. The video was smart and he raised many good points, especially the last one: "...the world is changing and if you don't change with it, the world will decide it doesn't need you anymore. Validating the whole point of teaching this class.

The author then states how she agrees with Brown: she believes that she too was cheated out of a valuable education, and that the institutionalized education that she received was obviously boring and not relevant to her interests. Both Brown and Bayda agree that teachers are afraid of change and this is why nothing has been done about it. This is where I disagree with the post.

As a future educator, I have to take many education courses, one of which is telling me that I have a state regulated curriculum that I will have to teach my kids. And if we do not obey what the state says schools could lose funding. Secondly, after observing for most of the semester in an actual school I've come to realize that the teachers are not afraid of using the technology that is in front of them, but do not have access to them...funding for schools are not exactly great, especially in this day and age. Thirdly, we as a country are broke, and this form education is not cheap.

So to conclude, Brown and Bayda raised valid points. The post was intriguing. But I do not believe that we should blame the teachers for this. In my honest opinion, they are just trying to what they are told and do it with the best means that they have. You should blame the government for this...not the teachers.