Learning how to Learn

This isn't necessarily common knowledge, but the school system as it is setup now in America is based on what that was dedicated to making good factory workers out of children.  Mass education in large classrooms, getting assigned repetitive tasks and learning to follow authority figures without question.  This form of education is quite outdated and needs some serious reform.

Many kids today don't learn how to study and explore new things on their own.  They simply memorize facts and figures out of books and do busywork all week at school until they finally get a diploma and are told to go out into a job that makes them miserable (at least that is the common story).  We need to focus more on teaching kids how to help themselves, how to argue for and against their opinions coherently, and how to research professionally and learn about anything that they might want to learn about.  Currently we are stuck in a rut with our education system, it doesn't matter how much money you pour into a broken system if it is still broken, the funds will simply slip through the cracks and amount to very little positive change.

In higher education, people are taught more effectively, and often are taught how to think for themselves and how to think critically, but this something that can always be improved upon, especially in somewhere as far behind as America.  We need to stop assuming that our way is the best and look to other countries who have great results and emulate their style of learning.  Many schools have significantly less hours than American ones, for example in Germany, yet they perform higher on tests and their children have a high rate of graduation.  The Arts and Education Foundation does not lobby or get involved in politics, but we can steer individual schools in the right direction.  The key for changing the system on a large scale is to get your community involved in demanding that schools teach our children more efficiently.  Hopefully the change will come someday soon, but it won't happen without some serious effort.