Time to make some changes to education system

Dear Editor,

It’s that time of the year again when the school year is in full swing and I can’t help but notice so easy changes that must be made.  

MESC and the Samoan school system need to start focusing on what’s important, teaching the kids. 

I ask is it possible to change this education system? Having taught in Samoa’s schools and now having children in Samoa’s school system it is easy to see where we are failing the kids.  

Teachers care more about what students notebooks look like than they do about what’s inside of them.  Notebooks, pens, pencils, rulers and everything else are tools to help the students learn.  But one pencil would be just fine and a notebook with scratched out writing is fine too. 

 I ask, Why do teachers still teach cursive or calligraphy hand writing.  Does anybody use it in the real world? Especially in the digital age. Why are we teaching a writing system that nobody uses? Why are students discouraged or forbidden to show their work on how they achieved an answer on a maths assignment?  

 

 

Why is there so much emphasis on neatness, straight lines and using different colour pens and so little focus on what all those pretty pages contain? I plea to teachers. 

Stop worry about the neatness of the page, stop forcing the kids to write in a style that hasn’t been common in 100 years and start caring about what matters most. Seeing the kids understand what you are teaching and re-teaching things they don’t understand.  

A wise teacher once said, “everyone has the capacity to learn anything, so if the students don’t learn from you its your teaching style not their learning style.  If they aren’t learning from your teaching style then its you that needs to change, not them”.  Besides that on behalf of all parents in Samoa we thank you for all you efforts and all the work you do.  Malo le onosa’i.  

 

D.C.

A concerned parent

Samoa Observer

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