Journal Entry 2

Shahadat Rahman

English 21003

Professor Matyakubova

7 September, 2017

Journal Entry #2 Response

The Flaws in the American Education System

In his article, “Why We Need To Understand Science,” Carl Sagan outlines the importance of science and how students in the United States are far behind students in other countries. Sagan indentifies a number of factors he believes contributes to this ineptitude: underpaid and untrained teachers, underfunded schools, and silenced students, to name a few. Many of these are valid points, and there are other reasons Sagan does not mention as well. For example, Amsterdam and the United Kingdom — whose education systems are deemed some of the best in the world according to several reputable sources such as Forbes and US News and World Report — have completely different structures when planning out the school day. The most noticeable difference is the times school starts and ends. In the United Kingdom and Amsterdam schools typically begin around 9 am and end around 3 pm. Not only that, but along with the shorter school days, the school year is about 4 weeks longer than American schools for both systems. This method ensures that when students are in school, they’re awake and responsive and not bombarded with information. Not only that, the longer school year helps more information be taught within the same year and less information is lost over breaks. 

            In order for Americans to improve in their studies, especially science, the structure of the American education system needs to be overhauled, perhaps mimicking the styles of foreign countries that perform better. Science helps people understand the world around them, and is crucial for making advancements in society and technology. In order for students to understand the complexities of the various subsets of science, they need to be responsive and consistently entertained by the wonders of science. This could be done by also providing more out of school and hands on experiences for students, to show them that science is not a series of facts they learn in a classroom. To ignore the necessities of science would be equivalent to ignoring the need for medicine or technology, or understanding logic. Science is not just memorizing facts; it is a form of thinking and processing information. Sagan was correct when he claimed Americans were inadequate in science, and it is a problem that needs to be fixed immediately.