Advancement of the Education System

Put into simplest terms, educational psychology a branch of psychology which studies humans in a school setting which includes effective teaching methods (and what makes them so), how people differ in terms of learning and the emotional process involved in learning, just to name a few. Many other types branches of psychology which we do cover in class tie into educational psychology such as: developmental psychology, behavioral psychology and cognitive psychology.

I find this area of psychology particularly interesting for it’s relevance. It’s bizarre to think that one can be in the education system for 13 consecutive years without really knowing the psychology behind it. This leads me to consider questions such as: How does the education system cater to individuals with learning disabilities? Have I been graded fairly? What learning techniques have proven to be successful and have my teachers and professors incorporated them into our classes? I have been fortunate enough to not have the struggle of a learning disability, however we all know at least one person with ADD, ADHD, or another strain of learning disability. This leads one to think, how has the education system adjusted to these disabilities, seeing as acceptance of these setbacks are a relatively new idea. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – A famous quote from Albert Einstein, whom although he was considered one of the brilliant minds of history, had many difficulties in the early years of school. Now it goes without saying that our education system has significantly improved since Einstein was a pupil, which was roughly 130 years ago, however many people will argue that this quotation still has weight to it. I remember being in highschool and while my parents insisted I was meant to go into mathematics, I was clearly not. After just barely scraping from one term to the next I decided it was time to switch my math courses for english ones, where I saw a GPA increase of over 30%.

So how has our educational system developed since the days of Einstein? Are teachers really giving the extra attention that students with learning disabilities need in order to be receiving the same education as those who don’t have the same affliction? Of course, there is special needs classrooms for students with all types of disabilities, including severe learning disabilities, however what about the students that are in the proper bracket to be in classes with those students without the learning disability? After some research it has become evident that the resources for teaching children and youth with a learning disability are certainly there (http://www.integra.on.ca/WAM%20LD%20handbook.pdf, http://www.ldworldwide.org/educators/educators-articles/259, http://www.helpguide.org/articles/add-adhd/teaching-students-with-adhd-attention-deficit-disorder.htm)

There may be as many resources as one can count, what really makes an impact is whether the teacher (as well as the parents) make these resources known and available. Many students with learning disabilities are undiagnosed and simply believed to be lacking of intelligence or motivation, when we tell children that they’re not “trying hard enough” when meanwhile they’re trying their best with a learning disability that isn’t being tended to we may as well tell the child that they aren’t good enough, which is where we see many at-risk teens coming from. I believe it’s fair to say that if some teachers took ADHD more seriously (of course there are teachers who take this disability very seriously) than we would see more students excelling in fields where their intelligence comes from instead of being judged on their ability to climb a tree.

A good read: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/child-development-central/201205/adhd-goes-school