Confusing Harder with Better_Alfie Kohn

Education is important to everyone no matter who people are, and a good education can help people live better, or make a country get rich and strong. On the other hand, a bad or even poor education can push down people’s lives and slow down the development of a nation. Furthermore, the article, “Confusing Harder with Better” written by Alfie Kohn, states there exist an emergency education in the United State. In addition, Kohn’s viewpoints make good points about the education system including: a higher standard is not helpful, poor textbooks are not useful, and unnecessary homework is not appropriate.
First of all, making an unreasonable higher standard in order to fail the most of testers that is not helpful for learners to get real skills. As people read from the article, Kohn states that “The tests that result for students and sometimes for teachers are not just ridiculously difficult but simply ridiculous”, and he tells us a statement of an unreasonable higher standard for high school students has been supported by the governor of education in Colorado. Moreover, Kohn believes a college requirement test should not assign to the students in high school, and it is irrelevant for them with such a higher standard. At the same time, the author’s argument that test is not a man’s goal, his goal is to gain the knowledge he learned. As a result of the higher standard, students get failed grade, and this will make them feel frustrated and lose interests in their further study. In short, the teacher should make a little bit lower standard in their examination to students, and it will lead them to the right approach.
Secondly, the instructor use the poor textbook and just go by the worksheets to teacher will have a bad returns in their teaching. According to Kohn’s description, “a textbook does not become a more appropriate teaching tool just because it is intended for a higher grade level”. That is to say that many students work with the poor textbooks and just learn how to get good grade to pass the text, and nothing to do with the real skills practice. What’s more, Kohn suggests that the instructions should be reformed and the textbooks must be refreshed. Additionally, the writer’s points are effective when he says a good textbook can be a wonderful teaching tool that teachers could double returns from the students. For example, a science major student needs a lot of guidelines to work on experiment. If the textbooks give people a clear and understandable instruction, it will help the students to finish task easily. Anyway, a good textbook can give a lot of benefits to students.
Last, too much unnecessary homework and assignments will waste student’s energy and time to accomplish their study work. Specifically, According to the author opinions that get a lot of busy work without thinking is not a wise way to help students to learn the knowledge. Moreover, Kohn writes “It’s more exhausting to memorize a list of scientific vocabulary words than it is to learn scientific concepts…”(123). In addition, the students have to complete the homework which
contains many easy questions and it will makes them feel bored. The author’s point is correct because people who spend most of their time and energy on busy work will get less or little returns from the work. Hence, the teacher should assign students a real practice with skills or it will make the students get nothing at all.
In conclusion, many people feel the same way with Kohn, and they think the government should pay attention to those main problems in education: raising the standard in the test, using poor and dated textbooks to teach, giving a lot of busy work without thinking to the students. As long as the educators change their styles, it will influence a positive to the society. As long as people get good education, their lives will be more comfortable and beautiful.