Why Most Students Forget What They Learn: The Science Behind It - Essay Sample

Introduction

If a student performs and gets an A on a particular test it can be considered they know the material being taught, right? If I would ask what percentage would still remember the information after a week later? What percentage would still remember the information after a month, two or three months later? The biggest percentage of the student will not know the answer for long after the test. But the question is why is that so? They obviously learned the concepts, didn't they? Well, it could be because of the way student interpret "learning." "Learning" can be considered as gaining experience and knowledge which sticks in the long-term memory and must have important values to the recipient. Hence the most fundamental question is if our education system is really teaching our children? According to Waite in (2017), he analyzed that the education system in most countries is set in a very simple way. According to him, one teacher can teach a class of about 15 to about 30 students at a given time. The teacher's information is written on the board while children take down the information in the form of notes. There is still variation based on the type of teacher and school a student finds themselves at. Then students are tested on the taught materials and if the pass they are promoted to the next class to learn new and more advanced materials. The learning material is in most instant learn during exams or few days before and if the student passes the exam it's assumed that they have learned the information well regardless of whether they will forget the formation on a later date. Hence this essay will critically argue why the education systems are actually inhibiting learning instead of enhancing it.

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The current education system in the US treats the student like a bowl ready to be filled with information. What system doesn't pay attention to is the fact that bowl quickly fills and water easily bounce back out. This concept is the same for learning children. Students are fed with too much information over a short period of time. Students are constantly tested in topic learned and later they are tested on another topic they learn on a later date. This can be considered as one of the factors why children forget the previous information and replace it with the new information which is yet to be tested. This basically implies that the student might only end up with information that quite general. In general, most students' study at varied paces with few of them grasping information faster but the education system simply assume and treat all students equally and teach them at the same pace. This according to Waterman in (2014) causes them to give up learning and those who learn slowly fall behind and it becomes hard to catch up. Often, even fast learns also give up due to the overwhelming impact of the system. Hence many students find themselves connecting learning with frustration or boredom and then they start disliking and eventually they fight against learning.

Students learn in quite different ways. In most instances when the students are unable to learn the material presented by the system it's taken as their fault and hence, they fail. Usually, no one puts more effort into the reasons why the student is struggling or failing. The system mostly assumes that the student is not trying as expected. This quite unfair because this hinders students from discovering their full potential and their strength. This can in most instance cripple the child self-esteem (Genesee, 2014). Students generally have the potential to greatness but they can stop believing in the potential if they are made to believe they are not trying enough. This causes them to stop trying to learn and feel they can never achieve anything. Hence student never finds a way to correct or fix their problem. They only end up not finding the joy of "learning." Hence this is a total fail for the education system in developing learning to students.

The homework and the grading system can be considered as not conducive for learning. This system takes off students focus on learning and turns it to an aspect of pleasing teachers. Homework in most instants makes it very difficult for the students to focus on learning because they are always busy trying to keep up with the work and focus only on the specific material being assigned. The student eventually starts getting bored because they spend all their time trying to achieve A's. Teacher, in turn, creates a system where best-performing students are taken as good students because of their good grades (Fagerstam, 2014). Students are even punished if they get thing wrong. This quite bad and unnecessary because making mistakes should be considered as part of learning. Making mistakes is taken negatives and the students are poorly graded (Waterman, 2014). As part of learning, the student should never be discouraged from making mistakes because there are more lessons in making mistakes and hence identify themselves more rather than teaching the student to do the right thing all the time from the start.

The grading systems in the most instant makes students feel dumb when they end up making a mistake. There are quite a number of bright students who end up failing because they don't do all their homework. They sometimes baffle their teacher when such a child performs better in the main test and yet they don't do their homework. However, this could be due to the fact that these students might have learned better and more than other students in the class. Hence why do we have grades? If they are not particularly a measure of learning. What is the need for them? What all those grades do is given us a general surface view of who does the homework better and the students who get the teachers grace. The most student currently are basically turning away from learning due to the implementation of the grading system (Genesee, 2014). We should never confuse good grades with learning because they are two very different things.

In the current generation, it's always a common thought that school equips the student with the right knowledge that is needed in life. Is this particularly true? A more logical question is how many student gains in their life at school that cannot be learned in a better way? Would student gain more benefit if they were taught in such a way that the information is practically taught on how to use it in life? What if the education system actually shows students the interesting factor of information and to make maximum use of the information? What if the student was given a chance to figure out about the knowledge themselves? There are always better ways to present information to the student rather than using the school system. A way that doesn't discourage the most student from learning because that what learning should be. Schools have turned out to make learning more of a chore rather than a pleasure (Genesee, 2014). When human find things like a chore they tend to resist or fight against it which is not the goal of learning. Student and children should be shown the significance of learning and schooling is basically not the way to go (Fagerstam, 2014).

Conclusion

In conclusion, our education systems are not set up in the way they should be. The schooling system was set to enhance learning for students but it has strayed from the main purpose. The current system doesn't teach and encourage the student to turn away from learning. Our children and everyone deserve better than the schooling system. Students deserve to be guided on the benefits of learning because learning can give life value. The schooling system needs to be critical in analyzing this problem and eventually change for the better. The future of the world is more dependent on what is learned and it starts from the most fundamental level which is school.

References

Fagerstam, E. (2014). High school teachers' experience of the educational potential of outdoor teaching and learning. Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning, 14(1), 56-81. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14729679.2013.769887

Genesee, F. (2014). Second language learning in school settings: Lessons from immersion. In Bilingualism, multiculturalism, and second language learning (pp. 203-222). Psychology Press. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781317783657/chapters/10.4324/9781315807478-16

Waite, S. (Ed.). (2017). Children learning outside the classroom: From birth to eleven. Sage. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sPf-DQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Is+Schooling+Beneficial+To+Learning%3F&ots=XpxwaUI3a0&sig=g20iLyAG_usZtRu-qDtwm0oDBLc

Waterman, A. S. (Ed.). (2014). Service-learning: Applications from the research. Routledge. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_xgiAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Is+Schooling+Beneficial+To+Learning%3F&ots=FBoiwBvkRq&sig=IXCFUoZ2dhXHdqELzzkIISswryc