I the People
EDU150
Jared T. Byrd
March 25 2010
Probably in a large part due to my long-standing interest in the culture, the Japanese school model most approaches my ideal. Here, the teacher has the very students as a resource, these students take pride in their class, school, and schoolhouse because it is theirs to maintain. This responsibility creates a sense of ownership that will follow the student into the workplace. This sense of responsibility is, by and large, missing from American society. This missing element is why businesses have to put so much effort into convincing their employees to care about the company they work for. The lack of a sense of ownership, or belonging, divorces them from a sense of mutual benefit and shared fate with the company. This issue is also very present in the other direction, where companies try every fad method to create some sort of culture of loyalty within their employees, failing to try the simple and effective method of showing that loyalty in their business practices.
And so the flaw I've been decrying for the last few years in the workforce has its origins within the school system, or so it would seem. The truth is that this issue stems from the focus of individual accomplishment that is central to the American Way. What was meant to be a focus on individual success has instead become a focus on individual benefit. The common culture tells us that we should look out for ourselves first. This magnified self-interest, to the exclusion of mutual benefit, is not the glorious American Way that the heartland so fondly invokes. It is a perversion brought about by generations of laziness and sedintary comfort in our position at the top of the world. The founding fathers took steps as individuals, they excelled as individuals, the industrializers of the nation ventured forth as individuals, many for individual glory, but always, in the end for mutual benefit. We need to recapture this sense of community and instill it in our students if we want to be able to compete as a whole nation together. Otherwise our brightest and best will drain what they can out of the country and retire to more pleasant climes to enjoy the proceeds.