Education Between Generations

Jesica Shipley
Akien English 1101
Compare and Contrast
Education Between Generations
11/6/09






My education and that of my parents have been very different. Both my mother and my father graduated high school in 1987, over 20 years ago, now that I am about to graduate high school and move onto college, I have really come to recognize the differences on the education system between generations: the way research is done and the pace of the subjects being taught.

My education seems to revolve, almost completely, around new and improved technologies. Teachers now have an abundant amount of resources available to them, significantly more than they did during my parent’s time. Computers are daily tools used for teaching and can be found in just about every classroom. Teachers now have lap top computers available to them so that students are able to use a computer to write or research most of their assignments. As the years roll by, the amount of work we do on computers, and the number of other electronic gadgets that reside in the classroom increases. Even in math almost every student owns a graphing calculator rather than a standard basic calculator; in fact many teenagers haven’t seen a basic calculator in years.

My parents never could have imagined such things. There wasn't much too their high school education, a lot of lecturing, bookwork, tests and research papers. Most of what they learned came from teacher lectures, their issued school books and hours at the library doing research. They actually had to pull books from the shelves, read from numerous articles and encyclopedias just to gather the information they needed to do a research paper. Then rather than having the ability to type their papers on the computer, it invariably always had to be written in pen and double spaced on notebook paper. We also have an advantage in research with other technological advances, such as scanners and the Internet. Scanners allow us to photo copy pages of a book we are reading and cannot take home, and the internet provides a fast and efficient way to gain any kind of information one can imagine. They didn’t even know what e-mail was; instead of emailing their papers when they thought they may be absent, the paper had to be brought in that day, otherwise it would be a zero.
Another main difference is the class structure or pace. Today teenagers enjoy class structures based on competency levels. For example, we have basic studies, advanced studies, accelerated studies and advanced placement studies. My brother and I have always been in the advanced placement studies program. This means that if we maintain our GPA and stay on the course outlined for our college preparatory diploma, we could be dual enrolled, earning high school and college credits at the same time; by doing this we could potentially receive an Associated Degree quicker than other students. The pace of these classes may seem intimidating to some, but it becomes habit after a few months in the program. These classes will often cover twice as much material as a basic level class in the same amount of time. My parents attended classes, such as basic math, English, reading, and science. They were not introduced to high level math classes such as, Algebra, until high school. Now Algebra concepts are introduced in middle school, both my brother and I took Algebra in seventh grade. There are many different classes available to students today. In fact, if the school doesn't offer the desired classes, students can often take them online.

When my parents were in school, they had all competency levels in one class. Although teachers did try to make classes stimulating for those more advanced students, they still worked with those that tended to lag behind in class. Unfortunately, this was a disadvantage for my mom, as well as many other students. She made great grades, but she easily got bored with her classes. As a result, once she graduated high school, she did not foresee herself going to college, feeling that it would be a waste of time and a bore.

I think that the education difference between my parents and me will also be just as different from that of me and my future children, but in other ways. Who knows, maybe children won’t even be required to leave home to attend class, it could all be done on the Internet. And I am sure that the computers we know today won’t exist; they will probably all look like a laptop, or smaller and lighter and their connections will be faster. Maybe their teachers will be robots. (; I can not quite imagine an education system that would be anymore technologically advanced than the ones in our country today, however I am sure it remains the dream of a select few. They say that as the years go by the generations get “dumber” because they don’t have to work as hard to obtain information, but I disagree. The more technological knowledge one has the better prepared they will be for the future, I only wish I would still be around to see a class room 100 years from now.