Expectations and Education :: Learning Education Essays

Expectations and Education One of the most sought-after goals in the world of marketing is a high degree of consumer satisfaction. But in the world of education, satisfaction by itself should not be the criterion for success. If both satisfaction and performance are high, we have cause for celebration. If satisfaction is high and performance is low, as is currently the case in the United States, we have cause for serious alarm. According to Stevenson and Stigler in "The Learning Gap", American parents whose children generally score below Asian children on tests of academic achievement, gave the most positive evaluations when asked about their children's schools and how their children were performing. If the children are doing well, such high levels of satisfaction would be justified. But maintaining high levels of satisfaction with poor performance creates a huge obstacle to the improvement of education. Before you can solve a problem, you have to admit that you have a problem. Why should children study hard i f their parents already express high levels of satisfaction? Why should schools pursue reform with enthusiasm and resolve when they already meet generally high levels of public approval? Americans want a good life for their children. They want their children to be happy and well adjusted. But Americans have not realized that access to the good life and happiness in the future will be blocked if we fail to prepare our children for the competition they will face in an ever more competitive world. As Americans, we have historically had a high opinion of ourselves. In only a few centuries we have opened up a continent, established an effective political and economic system, and brought the nation to prosperity. Americans have been thought of as courageous, industrious, and creative. Early in the American history, people believed they could achieve almost anything with enough effort. Nevertheless, many Americans assume that positive self-esteem is a necessary precursor of competence and place a higher priority on life adjustment and the enhancement of self-esteem than on academic learning. They forget that one of the most important sources of children's self-esteem is realizing that they have mastered a challenging task. We have gradually come to emphasize the limits of what can be accomplished imposed by innate differences among individuals. There are individual differences among human beings in whatever characteristics are measured. But this variability should not be interpret ed to mean that the general level of accomplishment cannot be raised.