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Abigail Moeggenberg
James VanderMey
English 111
11 October 2015
Global Power
For many decades there has been an enormous problem in the educational system. In
recent years, government has tried to help eliminate the problem but instead it is becoming even
larger. Education in schools is becoming something far from teaching and more about
transforming groups of children into a factory of robots. The United States of America is losing
the meaning of a good education and throwing away the importance of real learning in
classrooms and is using ludicrous methods to become the smartest country.
In the U.S., specifically Michigan, the government is proceeding to make laws and
regulations in schools which are quite frankly diminishing the imagination and intelligence in
children. With global power being something so important and wanted by all countries, many
argue over the topic of which country has the smartest amount of people and how many citizens
are graduating school and going to a college after. At first, in a high school a student would take
the ACT or SAT to see if college is the right decision for him or her and what school would he or
she be able to attend successfully at. Now, the ACT and SAT greatly impact a students
placement in the Top 10 of his or her school. Grade point average (GPA) is becoming less
valued and not as much of a big deal in the educational systems. A student could have an
excellent work ethic and finish high school with a 4.0 GPA and have the highest in his or her
class but if another student earned a higher ACT or SAT score, the 4.0 student can be taken out of
being number one in the Top 10. A student named Zach in my graduating class had a 4.0 and a

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25 on his ACT but since three people had the score of 27 on their ACT and a lower GPAs than
Zach they still made top 10 and booted him out of the race. The situation is absurd and indirectly
signifying to students GPA does not mean anything and being able to slack and show very little
dedication to completing school work in high school is acceptable if he or she tests an average or
above score on the ACT or SAT. Now, students have lost the importance of dedication and work
ethic and will continue to have a lazy lifestyle because the education systems in the U.S. have
showed acceptance of it in their schooling systems. The only reason the government cares more
about the ACT and SAT scores are because when all scores are averaged and higher than other
countries, the United States believes this means its citizens have more knowledge and are going
to be more successful when testing is different in all countries. This is different from GPA
because some schools have different grading scales and can have higher GPA scores than the
usual 4.0 as the highest. I know a school near mine called Freeland High can give students higher
than a 4.0 by taking certain courses which botches the statistics. The government no longer cares
about anything but global power in education.
Therefore, schools are using methods to help transform students into robotic figures
instead of teaching vital information to children before they graduate high school. Having
children who work like machines and are faster than usual. A writer name Paolo Freire once
stated in his chapter called The Banking Concept of Education that others say it is more
important for a child to learn how to memorize and regurgitate information onto a piece of paper
than to actually learn how to use critical thinking and produce ideas, and be able to problem
solve. In two of his sentences, it transforms students into receiving objects, and it attempts to
control thinking and actions, leading men to adjust to the world, and inhibiting their creative
power, it is clear the banking concept of education is destroying the creativity and imagination

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in children (Freire 78). If the test scores are showing how smart the U.S. is and the system is
not actually teaching students the future of society headed into a horrific downfall in the
workforce without work ethic and creativeness in new employees for future improvements,
inventions, and creations.
Theodore Sizer of What High School Is also says high school is made to become a
daily routine of being at a desk from eight in the morning till three in the afternoon like a future
business man or woman. It is less about what the child learns in the classroom but more about
creating this lifestyle and being able to discipline children and conduct them into workers while
their parents or guardians are away at work. It is not about the subjects the student is learning in
school but how fast he or she can put the knowledge from his or her memory onto a sheet of
paper that is later graded. According to the reading, in 1979 a school in California had general
goals in the education: (1) human and social relations, (2) moral and ethical values, (3) selfrealization and mental/physical health (Sizer 263). Ironically, these goals are not at all used in the
banking concept of education after the children's creativity and beliefs are stripped from them. If
the goals were being used in schools today children would become smarter and more imaginative
than before. The possibilities of new inventions and ideas would be booming in education if the
banking system were to be abolished and the importance of being the smartest country.
The problem in todays education is the competition between countries dealing with
power of who is the smartest group of people and with this problem creates issues in society and
the future of U.S. citizens. The U.S. needs to throw out the banking concept of education and
remake many of the regulations in the educational system. For starters, a students grade point
average and ACT and/or SAT score need to be equally as important. Once GPA and standardized
testing are equal students will care more about work ethic and learning in the classroom. Also,

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once the idea of creating children into robotic, memorizing, thoughtless objects is erased from
the government children will begin to have creative ideas and able to have intellectual
conversations with others. Children will become individuals with inventions and high critical
thinking skills which will come to great help in the future workforce. Besides how fun the social
life of high school was, I dreaded the actual classes and school work I had to do and no student
should ever think that about their experience in any education system when the main purpose is
to help us learn and grow.
Although I loved being taught by most of my teachers and got along with them all very
well I despised sitting in each class for seventy two minutes five days straight. The education
system in Michigan is disgusting. As Freire states in The Banking Concept of Education,
teachers who follow the banking concept do nothing but narrate and stress the importance of
memorization of knowledge for passing grades on tests. Some of my teachers at a less extreme
teaching style of this still stood in front of the classroom reading word for word from a textbook
or PowerPoint. As a student in the classroom, I would look at my cellular device or draw in a
notebook rather than do something as boring and non-educative as that was. I was given study
guides with similar questions or definitions that would be placed on tests for the subjects to help
me figure out what I need to memorize for the test the next day. I do not remember learning half
of the subjects in high school like I should have and as I do in my college courses.
The best solution to finding the right education to lead America to be the smartest country
is to look at Freires problem-posing concept and mixing it with some aspects of the banking
concept. Although Freire believes these concepts cannot be conjoined, if they are picked apart
and combined into one concept it will answer all the problems in education. The problem-posing
concept is defined as the practice of freedom only if it can overcome the above contradiction; the

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teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist (Freire 80). Both the
teacher and the students are responsible for the growth of the children. Unlike the banking
concept, there is never the idea of the teacher being a narrator to the students, it is always
cognitive between both. The problem-posing educator constantly re-forms his reflections in the
reflection of the students (Freire 80). With the knowledge of both concepts, making sure there is
more communication and understanding between the teacher and the students will help them
learn more and relate to the current information in the classroom. Since the teachers will not be
narrating the subjects they can find ways to relate the course to the students lives and give them
valuable lessons that can be used later in life. With some memorization and testing while having
the teacher being cognitive with the students they will grow more and become more successful
for the U.S. The writer of Hidden Intellectualism, Graff, says he learned more about debating
and having arguments through his street smarts talking about baseball and dealing baseball
cards as a child. He was able to learn the rudiments of the intellectual life: how to make an
argument, weigh different kinds of evidence, move between particulars and generalizations,
summarize the views of others, and enter a conversation about ideas (Graff 247). America would
have the smartest humans on the planet with the mix of both concepts and the idea of projects
and hands-on work in the classroom.
After the United States of America realizes how terrifying the educational system is
becoming and how unimportant it is to try to pretend to be the smartest country rather than
actually teaching citizens and becoming the smartest country truthfully schools will be able to
go back to the concepts of teaching students lessons that will be relatable to their lives and how
to place an argument or debate, and how to produce ideas and beliefs. Once education is taken
seriously and there will be nothing but success for the United States of America.

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Works Cited
Freire, Paolo. "The Banking Concept of Education." Readings about Uses of Learning. N.p.:
n.p., n.d. 74-84. Print.
Graff, Gerald. "Hidden Intellectualism." They Say / I Say. By Cathy Birkenstein. 3rd Ed. New
York: W.W. Norton, 2010. 244-251. Print.
Office of Education Improvement and Innovation Curriculum and Instruction. "Michigan
Department of Education Report to the Legislature." 2015 Michigan Merit Curriculum
Report (2015): 1-17. 2015. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
Sizer, Theodore. "What High School Is." Exploring Relationships: Globalization and Learning
In the 21st Century. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013. 259-68. Print.