Diversity In Public Schools

Making Anaheim Great Again

Public schools are constantly being scrutinized for being a broken and non-efficient system. Granted, the U.S educational system is structured after a model made for the Industrial Revolution. Students are crammed into single-row classrooms and expected to adhere to a set of outdated standards with no room for individuality or creativity. A modernized system in public education is needed, and the place to start is schools in Anaheim, California. Changes that must be implemented in Anaheim in order to increase student success is for schools to emphasize the importance of critical thinking and provide a supportive, caring academic environment for their students. Schools should also shorten summer break so that students

A school’s environment is an important factor in student’s success because it gives students a sense of purpose, therefore making them more likely to care about the integrity of their education and less likely to slip into bad academic and social habits. According to the research article, “When students find their school environment to be supportive and caring, they are less likely to become involved in substance abuse, violence, and other problem behaviors” (Hawkins, Catalano, Kosterman, Abbott, & Hill 1999; Battistich & Hom 1997; Resnick et al. 1997). A sense of community in schools satisfies a student 's’ basic need for safety and belonging. Conversely, schools without a strong sense of community result in students who don 't value their education and students overall performance begin to

Ideally, students should develop a growth mindset, which means to fixate on effort and critical thinking instead of gifted intelligence. Contrarily, a fixation on innate intelligence is a fixed mindset, stemming from the belief that intelligence is congenital, and therefore cannot be changed. Students with a fixed mindset are less likely to succeed than students with a growth mindset because they are setback by their mistakes and are unwilling to try to improve. Consequently, students with fixed mindsets fall behind in school the moment they are faced with difficulty because they are not equipped with the proper cognitive skills to take on challenges. Psychologists from Columbia University assessed students transitioning from elementary to junior high and asked them to agree or disagree with statements pertaining to their beliefs about learning. The results showed that “students with a growth mindset felt that learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades” and “students who held a fixed mindset, however, were concerned about looking smart with little regard for learning” (Dweck 23). Schools can instill a growth mindset in its students by commending their hard work and effort rather than intelligence. For instance, praising a student for working hard will encourage them to take on more challenging