About
PATHWAY
Bridging Gaps: Individual and Societal Aspects of Education
My catch-phrase is “If you think you fully understand something, it shows that you don’t. Nothing is that simple” and education is no different. I plan to use my education in Organizational Studies, Psychology, and Sociology to critically and holistically analyze education from multiple perspectives and levels ranging from the individual to societal. I would like to research and develop methods that allow for greater individualization of the learning process which better accounts for personal interests and cognitive differences as well as fosters intrinsic motivation. I also hope to follow with multi-disciplinary analysis of systemic changes from implementation as I see many changes that hope to improve education, but instead, make it worse. The problem with educational systems is that they are a societal level approach to foster a fundamentally individual process, learning. This has led to a batch style system in which all students are pushed forward in the same direction at the same pace. This system favors one minority, strongly disadvantages the other, and tolerates the rest. A system that is supposed to promote curiosity and desire to explore instead leads to extrinsically motivated yes-men. These students are stripped of personal agency and detained in a system that can easily lead them to a life of comfort or life in prison. While many don’t consciously understand the mechanisms behind it, they perceive the power of the educational system which may explain the nervous breakdowns of top performers and the full rejection of those who the system does not favor. I propose we switch from a societal approach to an individual process to an individual approach to a societal process.
