A problem more specific to schools themselves is
pervasive student passivity—a lack of active participation in learning. This
problem is commonly found in both public and private schools and all grade
levels.
Many students do not perceive the opportunities
provided by schooling as a privilege, but rather as a series of hurdles that are
mechanically cleared in pursuit of credentials (文凭) that may open doors later in
life. Students are bored and much of the pervasive passivity of American
students is caused by the educational system.
During this
century, expanding state and federal governments favored large regional schools
as more efficient means of supervising educational curricula and ensuring
uniformity. Schools today, therefore, reflect the high level of bureaucratic
organization found throughout American society. Such rigid and impersonal
organization can negatively affect administrators, teachers, and students, and
this bureaucratic educational system fosters five serious problems.
First, bureaucratic uniformity ignores the cultural variation within
count less local communities. It takes schools out of the local community and
places them under the control of outside "specialists" who may have little under
standing of the everyday lives of students.
Second,
bureaucratic schools define success by numerical ratings of performance. School
officials focus on attendance rates, dropout rates, and achievement scores. They
overlook dimensions of schooling that are difficult to quantify, such as the
creativity of students and energy and enthusiasm of teachers. Such bureaucratic
school systems tend to define an adequate education in terms of the number of
days per year that students are inside a school building rather than the
school’s contribution to students’ personal development.
Third,
bureaucratic schools have rigid expectations of all students. For example,
fifteen-year-olds are expected to be in the tenth grade, eleven-grade students
are expected to score at a certain level on a standardized verbal achievement
test. The high school diploma thus rewards a student for going through the
proper sequence of educational activities in the proper amount of time. Rarely
are exceptionally bright and motivated students allowed to graduate early.
Likewise, the system demands that students who have learned little in school
graduate with their class.
Fourth, the school’s bureaucratic
division of labor requires specialized personnel. High-school students learn
English from one teacher, receive guidance from another, and are coached in
sports by others. No school official comes to know the "full" student as a
complex human being. Students experience this division of labor as a continual
shuffling among rigidly divided fifty-minute period throughout the school
day.
Fifth, the highly bureaucratic school system gives
students little responsibility for their own learning. Similarly, teachers have
little latitude in what and how they teach their classes; they dare not
accelerate learning for fear of disrupting "the system." Standardized policies
dictating what is to be taught and how long the teaching should be taken render
teachers as passive and un- imaginative as their students.Which of the following statements best expresses the main idea of this
passage
