Nguyen Hien Anh – 16E7SP

English 4B

Topic: To what extent do you agree with the statement: ‘School is bad for children?’
Support your claims with appropriate grounds and warrants.

ESSAY (DRAFT 1)

Introduction:
Education is unequivocally indispensable. Schools used to be the only path from which
people can get education, however, over the last few decades, there are more and more
parents who have the tendency to lay their trust on home teaching instead of sending
their descendants to educational facilities.
Thesis statement: From my own subjective point of view, despite being considered the
best environment to enhance students’ skills with teachers who are of the utmost
importance in one’s life, schooling no longer functions that it is supposed to do anymore
and other educational methods should be considered and taken seriously.

Body paragraph 1:
Meeting a wide range of peers at school has had the tendency to become a inevitable
part of each person’s early stage of life. According to Neubert (2016), associating with
peers is believed to be very beneficial. It helps them gain social, interpersonal and
emotional skill. They will learn how to build connection and relationship. Also, by
comparing to their friends, they can even learn from their friends whose performances
are better. Nevertheless, this can only be applied to a number of students, not all of them.
Firstly, those attending the same school’s family social status can be massively varied,
which is likely to cause power imbalan that may gradually lead to the weak ones’ stress,
pressure and sufferation from bullying and humiliation. (Steele, n.d.). Besides, children’s
comparing themselves to others under certain circumstances causes discouragement and
negative self-concept, as claim by Professor Thomas Götz’s recent study (University of
Konstanz, 2019). He claimed that ones’ self-concept and emotion is possitively enhanced
in a less competitive environment. On the other hand, a student would better compare
their current performances to their old ones rather than to others’. We can see that,
meeting uncategorised peers, which is happening in most schools, does not benefit as it
may seem.

Body paragraph 2
 Supporters of schooling claims that going to school give children the chance to acquire
knowledge from qualified teachers who are believed to lead their way to wisdom, help
them successful in their future career and create good characteristics in students. (Kumar,
2016). They affirm that the teacher’s role in a person’s life is believed to be crucial and
indispensable. However, children eventually think their studying is to satisfy the
expectation of the teachers instead of benefiting themselves, therefore, they might be
obssessed with being perfect without the chance to make and learn from their mistakes
and later underestimate their capability. According to Holt, 1969, teachers cannot always
be available when children have questions to ask, therefore, their unfulfilled
inquisitiveness gradually turns into lack of self-esteem. This may result in adults’
judgement on children overweight their own on themselves, which is supposed to take
priority over any other matter. He also put forward an unassailable example: A child
learning to talk does not learn by being corrected all the time - if corrected too much, he
will stop talking. At school, the good marks do not always come from hard work and seft
study; they come from cheating and faking as they are always expected to be better than
others, and this is not what education should bring . Additionally, children might gradually
become passive learners who rely too much on teachers’ leading their way and doing
things for them. The first thing the school do when a children comes to school is to tell
them what to do and gradually this forms in his mind a perception that he does not have
the right to do anything without the teachers’ approval or acceptance (Holt, 1969).

Conclusion:
Despite the benefits which seem to be substantial of schooling, to speak subjectively, other
teaching methods should be taken into account as more effective and comprehensive ways
to enhance every single individual’s own strength and major. School is only one common
option to educate a person, yet from my own perspective education needs to reach
everyone efficiently in their own suitable ways, not commonly.
REFERENCES LIST:

For other side’s arguments:

Kumar, V. (2016). Why teachers are important in our life - KLIENT SOLUTECH. Retrieved from
http://www.klientsolutech.com/why-teachers-are-important-in-our-life/

Neubert, J. (2016). 10 Ways Competitions Enhance Learning | Institute of Competition Sciences. Retrieved
from https://www.competitionsciences.org/2016/07/04/10-ways-competitions-enhance-learning/

For reputations:
Holt, J. (1969). School is Bad for Children - The Natural Child Project. Retrieved from
https://www.naturalchild.org/articles/john_holt/school_is_bad.html

University of Konstanz. (2019). Surrounded by low achievers: High on positive emotions?. ScienceDaily.
Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190211114154.htm

Steele, A. (n.d.). The Psychological Effects of Bullying on Kids & Teens | Masters In Psychology Guide.
Retrieved from https://mastersinpsychologyguide.com/articles/psychological-effects-bullying-kids-teens/