Team Project

As a team, we formed our project around comparing the two school systems of Nigeria and United States. For the United States we used a general idea of the school systems since there are a variety of schools there. We mainly looked at the structure of the school, how it was formed, and what curriculum they chose.

For my part I was sort of put into the role of a secretary. By that I mean I was organizing the times to meet, making some decisions on material to use, checking over the PowerPoint. I also helped come up with the general outline of our project and took the notes while we were discussing the project. I also researched some of the information for the United States school systems.

I found the information on the Nigeria schools really fascinating. The way their school system is structured is so different from the United States. They focus more on the individual’s talent and passion rather than wanting to make well rounded students, which seems to be the goal for the United States. I also found it really interesting how the Nigerians value education. They won’t even get married until they finish their education. This makes me really ashamed for taking my education for granted. There are so many opportunities in America. In Nigeria there are a lot of people who want to succeed and get good jobs doing something they love, but there are so few opportunities. It is like the Americans have all the resources but not the drive. And the Nigerians have the drive but not the resources.

It makes for a good discussion to see which school system works. Should America start focusing its education on developing students who are well equipped in certain fields and have the passion to pursue those fields? Or should we continue to educate students on a variety of subjects that do not need to know for their career? Which one holds the most opportunities? It’s a tough thing to think about. In today’s society a person may have several jobs or career in their life time. Therefore it would make sense to give them a broad base of knowledge to be able to do multiple things. But does this make them unstable or unsure? Is this creating students that question purpose in life because they have not found something they excel at? I don’t know. I wonder if it would benefit society to have future workers that do multiple jobs verses people that can only do one type of job.

I think that becoming well rounded has the most benefits, but it also has some downfalls. Such as, a student may take education for granted. A student may not see the value in education when they experience every subject, since they are not honing in on certain skills. College should be the environment to define you skill and talent in certain fields. But it has become a place for you to try different areas of education. It is just a repercussion of high school. When students leave school, unlike students in Nigeria, most of them have no idea what they want to do. That is a downfall.

All in all, learning about Nigeria is what I found to be the most interesting. I had no idea how it worked or how complicated the system is. I think that they are forced by a society with limited opportunities to create their education system the way they do. They cannot produce well rounded citizens because they would not have all the skills necessary for a job. Their society needs workers that are good at what they do. They don’t need a lot of people who jump around from job to job because they want to try everything. Maybe the United States could use some of Nigeria’s stability.