Does school's structure help us as adults?

Does school actually help students as adults? This is a question many students ask themselves, whether it be practicing vocabulary hundreds of times, or being the only one who doesn't understand the topic being taught. Is the way school is structured that helps or doesn’t help students? What about unstructured schools?

The Way School is Structured

The way school is structured, or traditional learning, may not be the best for students to learn how to live as adults. According to edweek.org, doing less structured activities correlates with doing better in academic activities. In school, students have planned ways to do everything, such as tests, seating, and classwork. While in college and adulthood, you work in a less structured way. Working in this way may be difficult when like said before, the whole point of school is to follow directions.

Unstructured Schools

Freeplay, or unstructured schools, are the schools of the future, which is talked more about on wabisabilearning.com. Kindergartens with Freeplay have proven to help students when in traditional learning. Being in an unstructured environment can allow students to value different options and to have a sense of democracy. Unstructured schools for higher grades can also help students. Like unstructured kindergartens, students learn to learn. But, as shown in this article, students in traditional schools learn more to memorize the material instead. Learning to learn is very useful for students when they might not have the guidance of a teacher always around them in adulthood.

Progressive Education

Progressive Education is a type of education created by John Dewey in the early 1900s. Instead of the traditional kids staying in classrooms and listening to teachers for hours on end, they have hands-on activities and learning. This type of unstructured learning is not only more fun for the students but according to voyagers-community school, “Oftentimes, experiential learning is considered to be the best way for children to handle real-life situations.” Since school is about learning how to live in “the real world” this way of learning is more helpful than the traditional way.

(Some more insight about progressive schools can be found here.)

As shown above, while traditional/heavily structured schools have been used for hundreds of years, types of education like Freeplay, unstructured schools, or progressive schools, have shown to be more helpful for children to learn how to live in “the real world.” In my opinion, they are better than traditional schools.