The Seeds of a New System of Education Chapter 5

There were quite a few topics brought up in chapter five that could influence the educational system.  The first topic mentioned was homeschooling.  Although this is gaining ground, I feel that it isn’t going to have as big as an influence as some think.  I feel that a lot of parents, for one, won’t be able to home school their children because they have to work and secondly, I feel that some parents wouldn’t care enough to teach their kids in our complex society.  I did find it interesting, however, that children who were home schooled did better on standardized test than most publicly educated students.  This information made me think about my role as a teacher and how I should be more of a coach.  Some teachers will give answers right away as if they want to show their students that they are smart, but I think kids do need to struggle on problems to learn how to think through them.  One other topic I found interesting, was the idea that children who are home schooled will become naïve to other cultures and personalities.  Their parents are going to instill in them values that they like and without the social interaction they would get at school, they won’t be able to understand others as well and maybe even disrespect them.  Learning centers was another big topic that I think will help the educational system for the better.  Some students need more one on one time and learning centers are a means of achieving this.  Not only will students develop academically, it is a great opportunity for them to heighten their self-esteem, become motivated, or simply a means of developing a friendship.  Another topic that was presented in this chapter was internet cafes.  My mind wandered about what the future may hold in this aspect, specifically the role libraries will have in the future.  Our society is beginning to rely less and less on text and more on the internet.  I believe that students will never need to learn about how libraries work and how to check out books because they will realize how much easier it is to just look information up online. 

                As a future teacher, it will be important to learn ways of gaining students’ attention.  This will be more difficult considering how much time they put into playing video games and internet activities.  Students would be thrilled if a teacher incorporated some type of video game into a lesson.  Although there are some benefits to this, such as immediate feedback, I feel that I will stray away from this and incorporate exercise with my lessons so it is more hands on.   I think that it would be beneficial, however, to create some games so that when kids go home they can play these educational games versus non-educational ones.  This will prevent the problem of kids learning unhealthy habits from television or video games.  The other topic brought up was lifelong learning.  I will encourage students to continually read and look up information and teach them proper strategies so they can carry on their thinking throughout their whole life.