It's Just a Marker

As part of my American Education class this semester, I tutor International students at the local high school. It is known as a fairly good school. Today, most of the class I work with was on a field trip, so I sat in on a Literature class with another teacher, and I found some appalling things.

First, much of this high school literature class did not know what personification is. I brushed that one off because their current unit is literary devices, so I assumed they were still learning. However, the next one was a shocker: one of the students did not know how to open the marker he was given. For a long time, I did not even know what to do with that information. How did a teenage survive without knowing how to open a marker. And no, he was not just joking about not knowing how to open it.

Next, the class had to go over what the five senses are. The teacher mentioned that this was something the students should have learned in elementary school, but she still had to go over it with them (they were talking about imagery or something). And last, when being quizzed on the word "hyperbole," some of the students did not know what the word exaggeration means, and that is not a terribly advanced word.

I was about to lose faith in education, but a few minutes later, I found out I was in a literature class with all international students. At least that accounts for their not knowing "personification" and "exaggeration." Also, identifying the five senses could be a cultural thing. However, every student in every country - at least in my opinion - should see a marker and be able to open it. The student was from Kenya, I believe. This is a major reflection on education in other countries, and this needs to be fixed.