First, the education system here is based on some industrial-conformity training system devised by industrialists in the 1800s, or therabouts.
It is not really natural or right for kids of a certain age to be sitting in a desk all day. Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
Uhm, Europe is not a single country, there are many different countries and the school system is different in almost all of them. I spent a semester at a french university, one of the more prestigous ones even, and that was the worst semester of university I've ever had. It felt like being back in fourth grade, do as the teachers say or get yelled at, and don't even consider hanging out in uni buildings between lectures...
Before we get to deeply into "No, your country sucks!" (mixed in with "My country sucks!"), let's pause for a little perspective:
The fact is that millions of irreproachably competent graduates, and quite a few phenomenal ones, are coming out of the US educational system. And the Japanese and the German and the Australian and the British and the South Korean and the Swedish and the...
The notion that the US educational system, or that of any other developed country, exists to destroy students is self-evidently moronic. Certainly, I can tell you places where the US system needs improvement and having taught in Japan, Lord knows I could tell you where they need improvement. But the hook on which this discussion is hung is asinine.
You won't even bother to read this book, so I'm not sure why I'm responding.
How is it self-evidently moronic? You can't think of reasons why some would see this as a profitable scenario (in a non enlightened self-interest sort of way) ? More to the point, you can't see how this would be gratifying to those that are rich beyond belief, and wish to control men as if they were puppets?
How is it self-evidently moronic? You can't think of reasons why some would see this as a profitable scenario...?
"Some" might well, but it absolutely is not profitable for more than a generation. It is impossible that any developed country's educational system could operate that way for more than a decade or two -- thus "self-evidently moronic". The US would be Mali if that scenario were true.
More to the point, you can't see how this would be gratifying to those that are rich beyond belief, and wish to co
It is impossible that any developed country's educational system could operate that way for more than a decade or two
Presumably, the topic is the country's public education system. The conspiracy theorists would presume that "the man" sends his children to private schools, which are supposedly not crippled in the same fashion.
This should work out just fine, for untold generations to come.
"It is impossible that any developed country's educational system could operate that way for more than a decade or two"
Perhaps true, but this assumes that people in positions of power actually care about what happens more than a decade or two from now. In an age where CEOs regularly sell their own companies short, are people thinking of long term profit any more? We'll all be dead......
It is a pecular world we live in, that such things are indeed possible. We tend to think of others as we do about ourselves. But the fact is that there are others, with the means and time, who think that some small oligarchy (including them, not you) has more intelligency than the masses. And that this is the ideal way, therefore, the masses must be attempted to be kept down.
And this is in their own writings. Not that one master conspiracy is extent, or even desirable for those without our best interests a
At least in terms of literacy, the US tends to fail on the lowest levels of competency, but excels [literacynet.org] at the highest level of competency. Only Sweden does better.
What this means is that we have a greater number of both low achievers (people who are functionally illiterate) and high achievers (people who can read highly technical and dense material). The US educational system has a much flatter distribution curve than the typical European country.
We also have a much more diverse population base than do most European countries (and Japan as well). We have a much higher "recent immigrant" population than Sweden or Japan do. Unsurprisingly, it tends to be these recent immiigrants who, understandably, fill the ranks of the lowest performers in literacy (and income as well).
Until these studies adjust for such large differences in population dynamics, we'll always tend to look like underachievers compared to the rest of the world. The surprising thing isn't how badly our schools educate our population, it's how well they do so given the amazingly diverse population they are serving.
None of the above should be construed to be a ringing endorsement of the US educational establishment. There are a lot of problems with US education. The education of gifted children in K-12 in most of the US is scandalous, and huge differences in per pupil spending is its own scandal. But nearly any school in the US will educate your child well enough to get into a good college as long as you show a modicum of interest in your child's education. Lack of parental involvement or interest is probably the biggest problem in US public education right now.
I really hate writing "me too" posts, but those last two sentences are spot on. Parents have to appreciate and encourage their childrens' education for their children to get one.
If the children don't care because their parents just see school as free day care, it won't matter how much money we throw at the schools or how lively and wonderful the teachers are. The kids won't learn if their parents don't care.
it won't matter how much money we throw at the schools or how lively and wonderful the teachers are
And in some cases its not the money we through at the school that is counter-productive. My mother is one of the best educators I ever hope to see. In her, in the heart of Georgia's poorest county, her students are an a "track system" where students are placed in classes ("tracks") according to ability.
Disregarding notions of fairness, this places the poorest performing (and poorest students) in here clas
Lack of parental involvement or interest is probably the biggest problem in US public education right now.
Hmmm... I wonder if tax incentives to the parents of children who perform in the top X percentile of their class would motivate parents to become better involved.
tax incentives to the parents of children who perform in the top X percentile of their class would motivate parents to become better involved.
I recognize the good intentions behind your idea, but I shudder when I think about what that would mean.
Think about the children who would then feel that they were responsible, not just for getting good grades, but for whether or not the family could afford a vacation in the summer, or (at the extreme) to buy new clothes or food.
At least in terms of literacy, the US tends to fail on the lowest levels of competency, but excels [literacynet.org] at the highest level of competency. Only Sweden does better.
Actually, according to your own quote it is Canada that bests the United States at the highest level of competency:
Of the 11 other countries that participated in the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), only Sweden exceeded the United States in the percentage of adults scoring at the highest levels of literacy in any of t
I don't think canada has the same degree of non-english speaking immigrants though.
There are very large immigrant populations in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. As the grandparent pointed out they're mostly from Asia & Africa. Though the actual number is probably much smaller than the US, remember Canada is only about 1/10th its size. I'm not sure what the proportions are, but having spent the last few years in Toronto, I wouldn't be so quick to make your conclusion.
Actually, according to your own quote it is Canada that bests the United States at the highest level of competency:
Of the 11 other countries that participated in the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS),
only Sweden exceeded the United States in the percentage of adults scoring at the highest levels of literacy in any of the three domains; the only exception was Canada, which had a greater proportion of adults scoring at or above level 4 on the document scale than did the United States.
That doesn't really say much. I mean, theoretically all 52% of Torontoans from outside Canada could have come from one place. I didn't find Toronto especially diverse compared to say NYC when I visited it.
At least in terms of literacy, the US tends to fail on the lowest levels of competency, but excels at the highest level of competency. Only Sweden does better.
Though I don't know that I'd trust a test for high levels of literacy presented by an organization who would write something like:
"Of the 11 other countries that participated in the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), only Sweden exceeded the United States in the percentage of adults scoring at the highest levels of literacy in any of the
If you continue down to page 89 of that PDF [ed.gov], it has an interesting breakdown of education levels based on ethnicity and recency of migration to the US.
In the most recent survey (1996), foreign-born Hispanics (who comprise the majority of recent US immigrants) have a less than high school level of education approaching 50% (and for Mexicans, over 60%). In contrast, foreign-born blacks (presumably African and Caribbean immigrants) have around 14% at that low level, while Asian/Pacific Island immigrants are
Actually, the US foreign-born population is just under 12 percent [state.gov], with about half that number from Latin America.
Though I couldn't find any breakouts purely for foreign-born, Sweden's foreign-born and first generation immigrant mix is 20 percent [state.gov]. The majority of immigrants appear to be from other Nordic countries, with large numbers of refugess from the former Yugoslavia and a sizeable Iranian/Iraqi population.
Canada currently has the second largest percentage of foreign-born at 18.4 percent [wsws.org]. The major
Parental involvement has a huge impact, yup. But not only do parents need to refuse to take any crap from the school system, they need to teach their children that ultimately the course of the child's education is the responsibility of the child. If the child is bored in certain classes, they should not be content to just coast through the class for an easy pass. If I'd have realized this while I was still in school, I'd probably have graduated high school two years earlier.
What this means is that we have a greater number of both low achievers (people who are functionally illiterate) and high achievers (people who can read highly technical and dense material). The US educational system has a much flatter distribution curve than the typical European country.
The reason for this is simple: there's no such thing as an American school system. Public schools are one of those things that are regulated at the state and municipal levels so that while Mr. Gatto's conclusions may in
The notion that the US educational system, or that of any other developed country, exists to destroy students is self-evidently moronic.
It does not exist to destroy students. Please attempt to understand what's being communicated, even though you are a teacher. We are saying it exists to teach children to be useful tools, not people. Nobody said they weren't being taught, just taht th.
The fact that people are coming out of this smoking crater of an institution alive doesn't fool them into thinking they
I'm half tempted to attach every piece of peer student writing I come across for the next week to prove how ridiculous your assertation is.
WHILE MANY PEOPLE FIND PEDANTS WHO CORRECT POSTZ LIK THIS R LIK OMG WUT I AM JUST RITING QUICKLY I RIT GOODER FOR REALZ N R ANNOYING... it is one thing to occaisonally use "there," in place of "their," and to be lax with sentence structure (for example, I am always guilty of the horrible run-on sentence), and it is something altogether different the *active* ignorance,
"The fact is that millions of irreproachably competent graduates, and quite a few phenomenal ones, are coming out of the US educational system. And the Japanese and the German and the Australian and the British and the South Korean and the Swedish and the..."
This is exactly the authors point - we get millions of "competent" graduates out of how many millions that are being educated? What's the final percentage? Are we really producing the throngs of Ein
I believe that, what the book is trying to say isn't that the system, as it exists today, doesn't work in its entirity. (ie: Maybe 99.9999999% is broken but that fractional part is still managing to churn out people who are useful. This is because there will always be those who manage to go through horrendous experiences and yet rise above them. Our problem, though, is that the number of people who can do anything is in decline.)
I believe what the book is trying to say is that the current system is not
I'm sorry, but RTFA! this is one of the most no-sequitor posts I have seen on/., and I cannot believe that you took so little time to investigate before condemning those who read the artcle, and are discussing in within a specified context.
Simply put, the book never claims that no-one comes out of the US (or any other) educational system unprepared, or incompotent, it simply says that the compentencies that are encouraged are polar opposites of the "values" that we espouse: thinking, independance, and fre
I haven't seen the (serious) claim that teachers are willing accomplices in dumbing down children, merely that schools have this effect and it might be a result of "training for the work force" that was pushed for by those who had a lot to gain for consistently trained, if unimaginative, workers who were used to rote work.
All the truly effective higher education I've been in, either in accredited schools or otherwise, has had open book tests for all "final" exams. None of the public K-12 schools had open b
Sorry, that's a load of complete crap. The model of training kids to be good little apparatchiks started in europe, and I can tell you from the hellish year that I spent in a German school, that shools over there are, if anything, more regimented than in the USA.
And obviously all German schools are the same.
You have to be a bit more specific on what made that school hellish and what works better in every single comparable US school.
Otherwise it's "a complete load of crap" right back at ya.
No, actually, I don't. I was refuting a blanket statement in the post I was replying to, which was that all we have to do is emulate Europe, and everything will be "twice as good".
That obviously was a provocation, and you can't refute it by merely saying "it ain't so". That's simply disagreeing. But your anecdotal claim of a supposedly hellish school system which seems to prevail in Germany does nothing but raise questions. If you don't want to answer them, fine. I just don't like the German school system
Actually, you can (meaningfully) refute a blanket statement with a single piece of proof. The existance of a single white raven shows the statement that all ravens are black to be incorrect.
The question about whether unspecified anecdotes count as proof is left as an exercise to the reader.
That's not a good point to try to argue. The schools themselves are already segregated, in the German system. You can get a minimum education, learn a trade, or prepare for university. There's no in-between, though you can improve your degree later on. That is one way in which they are "more regimented" than in the USA. One thing which I do think is preferable to the typical USA system is scheduling - instead of six to eight periods of the same classes every day, the schedule is actually different on differ
That's not a good point to try to argue. The schools themselves are already segregated, in the German system. You can get a minimum education, learn a trade, or prepare for university. There's no in-between, though you can improve your degree later on.
There is the Gesamtschule, which is the in-between you're looking for. However, I think that teaching children according to their skills is a good idea. If the breadth of capabilities is too large, some students will get bored while others are totally swampe
The model of training kids to be good little apparatchiks
Its interesting that in you try and use Mccarthyism in order to re-direct blame. If you note, the central point by the author is that Industrialists are interested in organizing a subordinate workforce.
Communism was noted for its egalitarianism. Look at Cuba, right now, in Cuba, Post-secondary level education is taught via television and correspondence. Every citizen -- regardless of economic function -- is encouraged to avail himself of knowle
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
-- Ernest Rutherford
As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2, Interesting)
It is not really natural or right for kids of a certain age to be sitting in a desk all day. Boys especially need to have a break at certain stages of their growth, usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school arrangement, at least for a time. It all depends on the kid.
Once again, E
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2, Interesting)
/Mikael
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is that millions of irreproachably competent graduates, and quite a few phenomenal ones, are coming out of the US educational system. And the Japanese and the German and the Australian and the British and the South Korean and the Swedish and the...
The notion that the US educational system, or that of any other developed country, exists to destroy students is self-evidently moronic. Certainly, I can tell you places where the US system needs improvement and having taught in Japan, Lord knows I could tell you where they need improvement. But the hook on which this discussion is hung is asinine.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
How is it self-evidently moronic? You can't think of reasons why some would see this as a profitable scenario (in a non enlightened self-interest sort of way) ? More to the point, you can't see how this would be gratifying to those that are rich beyond belief, and wish to control men as if they were puppets?
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
"Some" might well, but it absolutely is not profitable for more than a generation. It is impossible that any developed country's educational system could operate that way for more than a decade or two -- thus "self-evidently moronic". The US would be Mali if that scenario were true.
More to the point, you can't see how this would be gratifying to those that are rich beyond belief, and wish to co
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Presumably, the topic is the country's public education system. The conspiracy theorists would presume that "the man" sends his children to private schools, which are supposedly not crippled in the same fashion. This should work out just fine, for untold generations to come.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
You've never lived in a ghetto, have you?
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Perhaps true, but this assumes that people in positions of power actually care about what happens more than a decade or two from now. In an age where CEOs regularly sell their own companies short, are people thinking of long term profit any more? We'll all be dead......
self-evidently moronic != false (Score:1)
And this is in their own writings. Not that one master conspiracy is extent, or even desirable for those without our best interests a
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:5, Interesting)
What this means is that we have a greater number of both low achievers (people who are functionally illiterate) and high achievers (people who can read highly technical and dense material). The US educational system has a much flatter distribution curve than the typical European country.
We also have a much more diverse population base than do most European countries (and Japan as well). We have a much higher "recent immigrant" population than Sweden or Japan do. Unsurprisingly, it tends to be these recent immiigrants who, understandably, fill the ranks of the lowest performers in literacy (and income as well).
Until these studies adjust for such large differences in population dynamics, we'll always tend to look like underachievers compared to the rest of the world. The surprising thing isn't how badly our schools educate our population, it's how well they do so given the amazingly diverse population they are serving.
None of the above should be construed to be a ringing endorsement of the US educational establishment. There are a lot of problems with US education. The education of gifted children in K-12 in most of the US is scandalous, and huge differences in per pupil spending is its own scandal. But nearly any school in the US will educate your child well enough to get into a good college as long as you show a modicum of interest in your child's education. Lack of parental involvement or interest is probably the biggest problem in US public education right now.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
If the children don't care because their parents just see school as free day care, it won't matter how much money we throw at the schools or how lively and wonderful the teachers are. The kids won't learn if their parents don't care.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
And in some cases its not the money we through at the school that is counter-productive. My mother is one of the best educators I ever hope to see. In her, in the heart of Georgia's poorest county, her students are an a "track system" where students are placed in classes ("tracks") according to ability.
Disregarding notions of fairness, this places the poorest performing (and poorest students) in here clas
A possible solution? (Score:2)
Hmmm... I wonder if tax incentives to the parents of children who perform in the top X percentile of their class would motivate parents to become better involved.
Re:A possible solution? (Score:1)
I recognize the good intentions behind your idea, but I shudder when I think about what that would mean.
Think about the children who would then feel that they were responsible, not just for getting good grades, but for whether or not the family could afford a vacation in the summer, or (at the extreme) to buy new clothes or food.
Consider the parents who would mer
Re:A possible solution? (Score:1)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Actually, according to your own quote it is Canada that bests the United States at the highest level of competency:
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
There are very large immigrant populations in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. As the grandparent pointed out they're mostly from Asia & Africa. Though the actual number is probably much smaller than the US, remember Canada is only about 1/10th its size. I'm not sure what the proportions are, but having spent the last few years in Toronto, I wouldn't be so quick to make your conclusion.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Do you have anything to back this up? I've seen it claimed elsewhere, but nobody seems to have proof.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Though I don't know that I'd trust a test for high levels of literacy presented by an organization who would write something like:
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
In the most recent survey (1996), foreign-born Hispanics (who comprise the majority of recent US immigrants) have a less than high school level of education approaching 50% (and for Mexicans, over 60%). In contrast, foreign-born blacks (presumably African and Caribbean immigrants) have around 14% at that low level, while Asian/Pacific Island immigrants are
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2, Informative)
Though I couldn't find any breakouts purely for foreign-born, Sweden's foreign-born and first generation immigrant mix is 20 percent [state.gov]. The majority of immigrants appear to be from other Nordic countries, with large numbers of refugess from the former Yugoslavia and a sizeable Iranian/Iraqi population.
Canada currently has the second largest percentage of foreign-born at 18.4 percent [wsws.org]. The major
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
The article has some statements that the real amount paid (money spent per pupil) has increased over time. Is money spent necessarily the best metric?
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
What this means is that we have a greater number of both low achievers (people who are functionally illiterate) and high achievers (people who can read highly technical and dense material). The US educational system has a much flatter distribution curve than the typical European country.
The reason for this is simple: there's no such thing as an American school system. Public schools are one of those things that are regulated at the state and municipal levels so that while Mr. Gatto's conclusions may in
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
It does not exist to destroy students. Please attempt to understand what's being communicated, even though you are a teacher. We are saying it exists to teach children to be useful tools, not people. Nobody said they weren't being taught, just taht th.
The fact that people are coming out of this smoking crater of an institution alive doesn't fool them into thinking they
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
WHILE MANY PEOPLE FIND PEDANTS WHO CORRECT POSTZ LIK THIS R LIK OMG WUT I AM JUST RITING QUICKLY I RIT GOODER FOR REALZ N R ANNOYING... it is one thing to occaisonally use "there," in place of "their," and to be lax with sentence structure (for example, I am always guilty of the horrible run-on sentence), and it is something altogether different the *active* ignorance,
Re:As a former teacher, (Score:1)
IMHO, I think you're missing the authors point.
"The fact is that millions of irreproachably competent graduates, and quite a few phenomenal ones, are coming out of the US educational system. And the Japanese and the German and the Australian and the British and the South Korean and the Swedish and the..."
This is exactly the authors point - we get millions of "competent" graduates out of how many millions that are being educated? What's the final percentage? Are we really producing the throngs of Ein
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Damn. I had to look that up.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
I believe what the book is trying to say is that the current system is not
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Simply put, the book never claims that no-one comes out of the US (or any other) educational system unprepared, or incompotent, it simply says that the compentencies that are encouraged are polar opposites of the "values" that we espouse: thinking, independance, and fre
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
All the truly effective higher education I've been in, either in accredited schools or otherwise, has had open book tests for all "final" exams. None of the public K-12 schools had open b
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
And obviously all German schools are the same.
You have to be a bit more specific on what made that school hellish and what works better in every single comparable US school.
Otherwise it's "a complete load of crap" right back at ya.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
That obviously was a provocation, and you can't refute it by merely saying "it ain't so". That's simply disagreeing. But your anecdotal claim of a supposedly hellish school system which seems to prevail in Germany does nothing but raise questions. If you don't want to answer them, fine. I just don't like the German school system
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
The question about whether unspecified anecdotes count as proof is left as an exercise to the reader.
Re:German schools (Score:1, Informative)
Re:German schools (Score:2)
There is the Gesamtschule, which is the in-between you're looking for. However, I think that teaching children according to their skills is a good idea. If the breadth of capabilities is too large, some students will get bored while others are totally swampe
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Its interesting that in you try and use Mccarthyism in order to re-direct blame. If you note, the central point by the author is that Industrialists are interested in organizing a subordinate workforce.
Communism was noted for its egalitarianism. Look at Cuba, right now, in Cuba, Post-secondary level education is taught via television and correspondence. Every citizen -- regardless of economic function -- is encouraged to avail himself of knowle