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.
Once again, Europe has us beat in this area. Just do what the most advanced countries in Europe do, and it will undoubtedly be twice as good as what we do.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Tuesday September 07, 2004 @02:23PM (#10179698)
Once again, Europe has us beat in this area. Just do what the most advanced countries in Europe do, and it will undoubtedly be twice as good as what we do.
If you'd read the book, you'd see we first started getting into this mess by "educators" going over to Prussia and bringing their system back over to the U.S. "Doing what the Europeans do" is what got us into this!
Note the phrase "most advanced". I don't know if Prussia qualified.
There's also the issue of then and now. Holding onto a century-plus system with no regard of advances elsewhere is bound to have a huge number of flaws.
The books author points out that Ben Franklin used arguing as one of the very best educational methods. The two above are arguing intelligently, apparently with facts, and calmly pointing out their views. The rest of us, listening in, are free to be educated (or not) as much as we desire.
I might point out further that the above posts, made verbally in school, would be met with a teacher (pedagoge) saying "SHUT UP!"
I hadn't heard about problems with over-revving the Renesis, but I do know that the 13B in my 1986 RX-7 was reved to the limiter (8000 RPM) almost everyday for the six years I had it and was still running strong at 160,000 miles when I sold it.
I know that rotary engines naturally don't tend to be as fuel efficient as piston engines but I think that at least some of the difference between the S2000 and RX-8 is due to the 194lb weight dif
Yes, and so is the concept of the atom. And yet, we still learn new things about them every day.
Any practical science is going to have improvements as time goes by, to an almost unlimited degree. Until we have a complete understanding of the theoretical sciences, and for a while after that, this won't stop. The wheel has surely been around longer than any formal schools, and yet we still see advances. Do you think teaching/learning methods are somehow immune to technological advancement?
That may be the case here, but not elsewhere. There's a lady in Canada who has made some real advances in learning. Of course, she had a great test subject - herself. And then she started a school [arrowsmithschool.org] using her newfound knowledge. The school is for people with mental disabilities, but there should be little reason that the trend couldn't be advanced beyond whatever passes for normal. Her work clearly shows that the baseline isn't necessarily the maximum.
Also, you're assuming that the state of things in th
The original poster made the assertion that Europe has fixed the problems. The immediate reply (great grandparent?) came back with 'but Europe had problems a hundred years ago'. That's not a counter-example, and the original poster didn't have a logical fallacy that I can see.
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
I guess I was one of those kids that didn't need that. What kids do need is to go to college AWAY from home... When I mean AWAY I mean outside of a single day's drive. No going home on the weekends for laundry, food, family time. These people need to stay the fuck at school and experience the "half-way house" experience that College helps to create.
Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
You learn a lot, grow a lot, and change a lot in those years but you are still under the light security blanket that the college envrionment creates.
I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all solution. Some people need a more structured environment to grow, and become self diciplined. Others who are more free thinkers would just be aliented by that sort of environment. College isn't for everybody, the military isn't for everybody, travelling the world isn't for everybody. I've seen each of these experiences help friends figure their way through life, I also can see how being forced into the wrong situation could do more harm. It's really an individual
However, doing it in the early teens gets the kids being more self-reliant for things earlier in their lives.
Which, to me, is a good thing.
Get them dealing with problems themselves, instead of running to mommy and daddy. A boarding school environment may not, exactly, be the wrong place. It would depend a LOT on how the school was ran.
And if they feel they need to talk to their parents, modern communications make this utterly cake-walk.
Make the kids start to deal with teachers and their parents as if
It would appear that 100 years ago, one could apprentice themselves into a trade, and become a journeyman at it in thier teens, and a journeyman was considered an "adult" and could open their own shop. However, this thought is completely held as wrong in the current social environment, as 16-18yos aren't "mature" enough to be allowed to do such things.
100 years ago the majority of people didn't have education past 8th grade (nevermind past 12th grade) and they didn't have an average life expectancy of nea
You can put my grandfather into that category (actually, stopped at the 7th grade). That in no way hampered is ability to be very intelligent, read any book he could get his hands on, become a sucessful businessman, and instill a strong work-ethic into both his kids and his grand-kids.
Why? because while he hadn't gone on to school (dirt poor and needed money growing up), he still valued learning (no cares about education, but learning was key).
Always quick to teach small lessons about things, the way th
Lies. 18 yr olds were shopowners, and parents. They seemed to do just fine then, you need to read Gatto's book.
Most people, even the young ones, didn't work the factories and sweatshops that you're probably imagining. It's even said that asking someone "who they worked for" was an insult... most were proud to work for themselves, doing whatever it was that they did.
My own grandfather became a father at age 18. He likes to play the hick, the dufus... but you'd never meet a more capable man. Hard to imagine
Just because you have the physical attributes of an adult doesn't mean that you have the mental ones.
According to who? Evolution keeps the characteristics that work; and in this case it seems to have worked out very, very well, given that their are more than six billion of us on the planet. The idea that teenagers are somehow mentally incompetent is a bogus one; if it were true then the species would have either adapted for earlier maturation or died out, especially in light of the fact that for more th
The point, however, is that they somehow managed to, two hundred plus years ago, defeat the british and write a masterpiece of constitutional though, at an age that most of us here on/. were still getting made fun of my the senior class at our colleges...
Intellectual maturity. What a pseudo-intellectual, lame excuse for saying that you hit 21, and still haven't accomplished anything with you life except receive papers saying that one day you will.
Get them dealing with problems themselves, instead of running to mommy and daddy.
Unfortunately, you need to start earlier than the teens to make those lessons stick. It seems like once kids have reached their teens, barring any life-altering experiences, their basic attitudes about life & society have solidified and they will resist any attempts to "retrain" them.
I've read some interesting case studies dealing with sibling rivalries (disclaimer: IANAParent). The kids of those parents who basically ign
My parents intervened more than that, and it really showed with my youngest brother, however when he hit his teens, he had to become the "oldest", as I was in college, and it was him and our middle brother, who has Down's Syndrome. That pretty radically changed his temperament, having to pick up that responsibility.
A lot the friction between us was erased about then, when HE was now the one in the position of responsibility, and the one that would get in trouble when the parents came home and found things
What kids do need is to go to college AWAY from home... [snip] Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
You are absolutely correct.
I went to a private high school that had both boarding students and day students. In the school's 100-year history, the boarders have never performed as well as the day students.
Yet, on the flip side, commuter-dominated colleges us
"You learn a lot, grow a lot, and change a lot in those years but you are still under the light security blanket that the college envrionment creates."
Huh you must have gone to a vastly different college than I did... My college was horrible in the 'light security blanket' area, in fact they were involved in screwing me over more times than I want to think about...
If I'd gone farther away from home for college I would have eneded up a bum living on the street when the college tossed me out of my apartment
I went to a really good, Canadian, public high school with a lot of really good teachers and a pretty good "advanced" track for gifted students - honours Math, and honours English.
And as your typical Slashdot gifted geek-type, kicked ass even at the higher levels from the advanced track.
(I also took a lot of shop electives, which really paid off in a BIG way later in life... but that's a digression)
Because school was so easy, I got to having a pretty high opinion of myself - which is a nice way of saying
When I mean AWAY I mean outside of a single day's drive. No going home on the weekends for laundry, food, family time.
I come from a country where that's barely possible without studying abroad. In fact, I don't think there's a country in Western Europe you can't drive across in a day. We seem to cope.
In Australia its not uncommon for 18 year olds to move out, even if their going to a university in the same town. Furthermore a lot of students move in with their significant others right off the bat, there are no "half-way" settings generally and you do mature fast.
Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
I went to a boarding school for a year and liked it. (Tur
The reason that the European system would not work in the USA is because people in the USA get all touchy when you try to say that "kid A is more capable than kid B". There is currently a witch hunt against such practices in the USA when it so happens that kid A is a suburbanite and kid B is a minority from the inner city regardless of any other circumstances.
The end result is that every kid is equally babysat, whether the they are destined to go to Harvard or to the local penitentiary until they graduate
The elephant in the room is that we Americans cannot state in any way that one child is "better" or smarter than another without making every effort to include the excluded.
The US has this problem because of the legacy of slavery and the wounds from it that have not healed.
It won't be fixed until the "majority", that is, white people, apologize collectively and sincerely, and blacks admit that harping on it isn't going to get them that apology. The healing must begin somewhere.
It won't be fixed until the "majority", that is, white people, apologize collectively and sincerely...
This is such rubbish. I'm white, but I first came to this country fifteen years ago and I've never had an easy life.
I'm just glad that the "majority" in California will no longer be white, because I'm so tired of being blamed for everything. At least, with an Asian population that is being discriminated against and an Hispanic population that is becoming the majority, the racist practice of Affirmative A
The European system is even more overtly designed to train good little workers. In many countries, you have to pick a career by the time you're 16, and rather than receiving any sort of further general education, you at the age of 16 start receiving specialized education to train you for that job.
Same with higher education: whereas in the US people who want to be doctors get a general undergraduate degree, and then go to med school, in Europe they go straight to med school.
"Once again, Europe has us beat in this area. Just do what the most advanced countries in Europe do, and it will undoubtedly be twice as good as what we do."
That must be why 6 out of the top 10 graduates of my high school were Asians! It's that fine European education system....oh wait...that's right, they don't use the European system. My bad. The only thing I learned about Asia in school was that we kicked Japan's @ss in the war and that they deserved it for bombing Pearl Harbor. It took travelling
It took travelling abroad and educating myself to learn that we pulled into Yokohama Harbor 100 years earlier and shelled the hell out of it until they agreed to open trade with us.
As I was going to observe in the "Lies My Teacher Told Me" thread -- the inaccuracies and omissions of typical education pale beside the nonsense of their critics. You weren't taught that Perry "shelled the hell out of" Yokohama because it isn't true.
You are partially correct. I was not taught about the event in general because of my points above. I confused Perry's 20+ days of sitting in the Harbor with all guns pointed at the shore and threatening to shell the hell out of the harbor if they didn't open trade because I'm still hung over from the weekend. My point remains valid. We F***ed with them first.
100 Years before doesn't really count. If you believe that, you should be worried that I might be combing through my extensive family tree to see if one of your ancestors fucked with one of my ancestors. "kryonD" murdered Friday, left note saying it was justified, film at 11.
usually about 13-15 yo, when they should be sent away from home to some sort of boarding school/military school/vocational school
But weren't we concerned about not teaching them to be corporate slaves? Now you're proposing that we send them to military school so they can learn how to be obedient soldiers/hamburger.
Maybe instead, we need a period of time where kids decide on a group of topics they want to study in depth. Or perhaps we ask students to select a project of interest which will involve many
First off, I think we should cut the military budget dramatically, and use that money for healthcare, medical research and education.
Now, when as for military school, perhaps quasimilitary would be more appropriate. THe point is that young men at that general ago are hardwired to NEED some sort of rigorous disciplinary training. For hundreds of years, corporations and governments in collusion have have taken advantge of this and have cooked up nationalism and patriotism through fear in order to profit off
See, the problem is that everybody always says, "Hey, let's cut XXXXX and give the money we spent on it to YYYYYYY", where XXXX is something they feel is not necessary, and YYYYYY is something they wish there was more money for.
It doesn't work out so well in practice and often causes weird problems. If they were to halve the military budget tomorrow, cancel the F-22, etc. all of the sudden, you'd have a bunch of GIs, who made the military their career, out of a job, and you'd end up shutting down a lot of
THe point is that young men at that general ago are hardwired to NEED some sort of rigorous disciplinary training.... they are basically hardwired to need this type of experience.
Huh? You make a very sweeping generalization here. I personally don't think I was 'hardwired' for a military-school type experience when I was 13-17 years old. I think in many cases you'll kill something in a lot of boys that age if you send them off to military school (you'll kill creativity, imagination, curiosity, etc.).
As I said in my first post in this subthread, it depends on the kid. OBVIOUSLY, some kids do not need this sort of schooling/training. As for myself, I needed it, or something like it, as high school was just not my cup of tea.
It depends on the school. I found that rural schools tend to produce more thinking students than subarban and inner city schools. surburban schools, espically schoosl that have the highest teacher wages and money tend to have the worst teachers.
Give me young teachers trying to make a difference in kids lives, not the old fart that has been teaching for 25 years and is retireing next year so he no longer gives a rat's ass.
when I lived in a rural area, I had calls from teachers when my kids m
As for the "old fart" teachers... I found that a lot of the best teachers in my old high school were the ones that weren't worrying about whether their contract would be renewed. The single best teacher I had had been teaching for around 40 years at the same school, and the year he taught me chemistry was the last year he was allowed to teach (because of his age). He was the best goddamned teacher I've ever had, too.
Rating teachers by "gpa" is a bad thing though. It encourages teachers to artificially
"Teaching the Test" is a huge injustice, it narrows the students' experience to the test's subject matter.
On the other hand, if the test is a reasonable test of "Can this person understand basic math? Can this person understand basic english well?" then the skills they learn "for the test", should serve them equally well on real life "tests" like,
"Can I fill out this job application properly?"
"Can I add up where all my montly paycheck money is going to?"
the education system here is based on some industrial-conformity training system
Of course a public education is designed to make you a productive member of society! What else would it be for? To generate a bunch of arrogant pratts that sit arround all day postulating on how to not help others or do anthing else useful? No! That's the job of law school! Public education's goal is not make the most of every student but to make them productive members of a society. In the lower grades, this almost alway
Of course a public education is designed to make you a productive member of society! What else would it be for? To generate a bunch of arrogant pratts that sit around all day postulating on how to not help others or do anything else useful? No! That's the job of law school! Public education's goal is not make the most of every student but to make them productive members of a society. In the lower grades, this almost always coincides with making the most of every child which is why education in the lower gra
The U.S. was a fine country to live in, even before this century of domination came about. Our education system then was still fine and capable enough to make it so that even these hick farmers unconcerned with world domination read (and Gatto suggests understoof much better) classic literature that most modern readers can't force their way through.
Maybe Dubya gets off on being a world power, but I'm not sure that serves most of the rest of us.
Read the book. Gatto says himself the school system works perf
Our education system then was still fine and capable enough to make it so that even these hick farmers unconcerned with world domination read
Why do you think we ended up as a world power? You gain economic strength from having an overeducated populous that seeks to better themselves. That's exactly the state you are describing existed as our dramatic rise in power started.
Also, reading and understanding classic literature isn't nearly as important as most people think it is. Lots of people pine for t
Comparing it to Moore's bullshit? I suppose that's as good an excuse as any to not read the book, or if you do, to dismiss it without learning anything.
I don't want to be bullying the world around for diminishing resources 30 years from now, and if that's what you want, I don't want to live in the same country as you. Just no place else to go.
I don't want to be bullying the world around for diminishing resources 30 years from now, and if that's what you want, I don't want to live in the same country as you. Just no place else to go.
Nor do I. We should keep our education system running well so we can compete legitimately in the world economy. We just need to focus more on it now because we won't be the only ones doing it from here on in. Other, more populous countries know how important good public education is to good economic strength so w
I feel that you are mostly right, but you miss the point that individualist types, those not conditioned to sit quietly in a desk and do what they're told, can be just as productive. There are many job opportunities for an independent contractor, in jobs ranging from construction to computer programming, to surgeon.
We need to make children do things they might not want to do, in order to assure that they have the tools to make something of themselves, but it's
A voucher system that demands accountability for results from the voucher school, that forbids funds being used for sectarian religious education, and has enforcement mecnanisms to back this up will make it possible for us to exchange tax dollars for schools that might actually educate people.
Note that there is no reason why a public school that chooses to comply with the new rules that can get parents to send kids there can not survive.
Here's a draft of a voucher initiative [ecis.com] designed to do just that. Need
Read the book. Gatto goes over this too, and makes a case why it wouldn't work, even if the teachers' unions, corporate-funded think tanks, and lying politicians allowed it... which they won't. He even explains why they won't.
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, Europe has us beat in this area. Just do what the most advanced countries in Europe do, and it will undoubtedly be twice as good as what we do.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:5, Interesting)
If you'd read the book, you'd see we first started getting into this mess by "educators" going over to Prussia and bringing their system back over to the U.S. "Doing what the Europeans do" is what got us into this!
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:2)
There's also the issue of then and now. Holding onto a century-plus system with no regard of advances elsewhere is bound to have a huge number of flaws.
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)
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:2)
The books author points out that Ben Franklin used arguing as one of the very best educational methods. The two above are arguing intelligently, apparently with facts, and calmly pointing out their views. The rest of us, listening in, are free to be educated (or not) as much as we desire.
I might point out further that the above posts, made verbally in school, would be met with a teacher (pedagoge) saying "SHUT UP!"
Which only servs to further illustrate th
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
I hadn't heard about problems with over-revving the Renesis, but I do know that the 13B in my 1986 RX-7 was reved to the limiter (8000 RPM) almost everyday for the six years I had it and was still running strong at 160,000 miles when I sold it.
I know that rotary engines naturally don't tend to be as fuel efficient as piston engines but I think that at least some of the difference between the S2000 and RX-8 is due to the 194lb weight dif
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
I agree we need more data. I'm glad you've enjoyed it as much as I have.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
You are correct. The whole teacher-lecture style of learning is thousands of years obselete!
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Any practical science is going to have improvements as time goes by, to an almost unlimited degree. Until we have a complete understanding of the theoretical sciences, and for a while after that, this won't stop. The wheel has surely been around longer than any formal schools, and yet we still see advances. Do you think teaching/learning methods are somehow immune to technological advancement?
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Also, you're assuming that the state of things in th
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)
The original poster made the assertion that Europe has fixed the problems. The immediate reply (great grandparent?) came back with 'but Europe had problems a hundred years ago'. That's not a counter-example, and the original poster didn't have a logical fallacy that I can see.
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)
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: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: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: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
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I was one of those kids that didn't need that. What kids do need is to go to college AWAY from home... When I mean AWAY I mean outside of a single day's drive. No going home on the weekends for laundry, food, family time. These people need to stay the fuck at school and experience the "half-way house" experience that College helps to create.
Sending someone off to boarding/military/vocational schools when they are in their mid-teens will do nothing but help to alienate the child in a time when they might be alienated enough.
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
You learn a lot, grow a lot, and change a lot in those years but you are still under the light security blanket that the college envrionment creates.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
College isn't for everybody, the military isn't for everybody, travelling the world isn't for everybody. I've seen each of these experiences help friends figure their way through life, I also can see how being forced into the wrong situation could do more harm.
It's really an individual
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Which, to me, is a good thing.
Get them dealing with problems themselves, instead of running to mommy and daddy. A boarding school environment may not, exactly, be the wrong place. It would depend a LOT on how the school was ran.
And if they feel they need to talk to their parents, modern communications make this utterly cake-walk.
Make the kids start to deal with teachers and their parents as if
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
100 years ago the majority of people didn't have education past 8th grade (nevermind past 12th grade) and they didn't have an average life expectancy of nea
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Why? because while he hadn't gone on to school (dirt poor and needed money growing up), he still valued learning (no cares about education, but learning was key).
Always quick to teach small lessons about things, the way th
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Most people, even the young ones, didn't work the factories and sweatshops that you're probably imagining. It's even said that asking someone "who they worked for" was an insult... most were proud to work for themselves, doing whatever it was that they did.
My own grandfather became a father at age 18. He likes to play the hick, the dufus... but you'd never meet a more capable man. Hard to imagine
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
According to who? Evolution keeps the characteristics that work; and in this case it seems to have worked out very, very well, given that their are more than six billion of us on the planet. The idea that teenagers are somehow mentally incompetent is a bogus one; if it were true then the species would have either adapted for earlier maturation or died out, especially in light of the fact that for more th
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Intellectual maturity. What a pseudo-intellectual, lame excuse for saying that you hit 21, and still haven't accomplished anything with you life except receive papers saying that one day you will.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Unfortunately, you need to start earlier than the teens to make those lessons stick. It seems like once kids have reached their teens, barring any life-altering experiences, their basic attitudes about life & society have solidified and they will resist any attempts to "retrain" them.
I've read some interesting case studies dealing with sibling rivalries (disclaimer: IANAParent). The kids of those parents who basically ign
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
A lot the friction between us was erased about then, when HE was now the one in the position of responsibility, and the one that would get in trouble when the parents came home and found things
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
You are absolutely correct.
I went to a private high school that had both boarding students and day students. In the school's 100-year history, the boarders have never performed as well as the day students.
Yet, on the flip side, commuter-dominated colleges us
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Huh you must have gone to a vastly different college than I did... My college was horrible in the 'light security blanket' area, in fact they were involved in screwing me over more times than I want to think about...
If I'd gone farther away from home for college I would have eneded up a bum living on the street when the college tossed me out of my apartment
Don't knock military school.... (Score:3, Interesting)
And as your typical Slashdot gifted geek-type, kicked ass even at the higher levels from the advanced track.
(I also took a lot of shop electives, which really paid off in a BIG way later in life... but that's a digression)
Because school was so easy, I got to having a pretty high opinion of myself - which is a nice way of saying
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)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Kids need time to be apart *AND* they need time to grow but seperating them from their family at this point of their lives is hardly the way to do it. Wait for them to be of a mature enough age 18+ here in the States and don't let the little bastards come back.
I went to a boarding school for a year and liked it. (Tur
The problem is with the civil rights loons (Score:1, Interesting)
The end result is that every kid is equally babysat, whether the they are destined to go to Harvard or to the local penitentiary until they graduate
Re:The problem is with the civil rights loons (Score:2)
The AC hit one of the biggest problems right on the nose.
Re:The problem is with the civil rights loons (Score:1)
The US has this problem because of the legacy of slavery and the wounds from it that have not healed.
It won't be fixed until the "majority", that is, white people, apologize collectively and sincerely, and blacks admit that harping on it isn't going to get them that apology. The healing must begin somewhere.
I know it sounds off topic
Re:The problem is with the civil rights loons (Score:2)
This is such rubbish. I'm white, but I first came to this country fifteen years ago and I've never had an easy life. I'm just glad that the "majority" in California will no longer be white, because I'm so tired of being blamed for everything. At least, with an Asian population that is being discriminated against and an Hispanic population that is becoming the majority, the racist practice of Affirmative A
the European system is even worse (Score:4, Insightful)
Same with higher education: whereas in the US people who want to be doctors get a general undergraduate degree, and then go to med school, in Europe they go straight to med school.
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2, Interesting)
That must be why 6 out of the top 10 graduates of my high school were Asians! It's that fine European education system....oh wait...that's right, they don't use the European system. My bad. The only thing I learned about Asia in school was that we kicked Japan's @ss in the war and that they deserved it for bombing Pearl Harbor. It took travelling
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
As I was going to observe in the "Lies My Teacher Told Me" thread -- the inaccuracies and omissions of typical education pale beside the nonsense of their critics. You weren't taught that Perry "shelled the hell out of" Yokohama because it isn't true.
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)
C//
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
But weren't we concerned about not teaching them to be corporate slaves? Now you're proposing that we send them to military school so they can learn how to be obedient soldiers/hamburger.
Maybe instead, we need a period of time where kids decide on a group of topics they want to study in depth. Or perhaps we ask students to select a project of interest which will involve many
As a general reply to this and other responses (Score:2)
First off, I think we should cut the military budget dramatically, and use that money for healthcare, medical research and education.
Now, when as for military school, perhaps quasimilitary would be more appropriate. THe point is that young men at that general ago are hardwired to NEED some sort of rigorous disciplinary training. For hundreds of years, corporations and governments in collusion have have taken advantge of this and have cooked up nationalism and patriotism through fear in order to profit off
Re:As a general reply to this and other responses (Score:2)
It doesn't work out so well in practice and often causes weird problems. If they were to halve the military budget tomorrow, cancel the F-22, etc. all of the sudden, you'd have a bunch of GIs, who made the military their career, out of a job, and you'd end up shutting down a lot of
Re:As a general reply to this and other responses (Score:2)
Huh? You make a very sweeping generalization here. I personally don't think I was 'hardwired' for a military-school type experience when I was 13-17 years old. I think in many cases you'll kill something in a lot of boys that age if you send them off to military school (you'll kill creativity, imagination, curiosity, etc.).
Th
re: generalizations (Score:2)
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1, Interesting)
It depends on the school. I found that rural schools tend to produce more thinking students than subarban and inner city schools. surburban schools, espically schoosl that have the highest teacher wages and money tend to have the worst teachers.
Give me young teachers trying to make a difference in kids lives, not the old fart that has been teaching for 25 years and is retireing next year so he no longer gives a rat's ass.
when I lived in a rural area, I had calls from teachers when my kids m
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
Rating teachers by "gpa" is a bad thing though. It encourages teachers to artificially
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
On the other hand, if the test is a reasonable test of "Can this person understand basic math? Can this person understand basic english well?" then the skills they learn "for the test", should serve them equally well on real life "tests" like,
"Can I fill out this job application properly?"
"Can I add up where all my montly paycheck money is going to?"
All that broadminded pie-in-the-sky thing ab
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:2)
Of course it is! (Score:2)
Of course a public education is designed to make you a productive member of society! What else would it be for? To generate a bunch of arrogant pratts that sit arround all day postulating on how to not help others or do anthing else useful? No! That's the job of law school! Public education's goal is not make the most of every student but to make them productive members of a society. In the lower grades, this almost alway
Of course it is! (Score:2)
Re:Of course it is! (Score:2)
Maybe Dubya gets off on being a world power, but I'm not sure that serves most of the rest of us.
Read the book. Gatto says himself the school system works perf
Re:Of course it is! (Score:2)
Why do you think we ended up as a world power? You gain economic strength from having an overeducated populous that seeks to better themselves. That's exactly the state you are describing existed as our dramatic rise in power started.
Also, reading and understanding classic literature isn't nearly as important as most people think it is. Lots of people pine for t
Re:Of course it is! (Score:2)
I don't want to be bullying the world around for diminishing resources 30 years from now, and if that's what you want, I don't want to live in the same country as you. Just no place else to go.
Re:Of course it is! (Score:2)
Nor do I. We should keep our education system running well so we can compete legitimately in the world economy. We just need to focus more on it now because we won't be the only ones doing it from here on in. Other, more populous countries know how important good public education is to good economic strength so w
Re:Of course it is! (Score:2)
I feel that you are mostly right, but you miss the point that individualist types, those not conditioned to sit quietly in a desk and do what they're told, can be just as productive. There are many job opportunities for an independent contractor, in jobs ranging from construction to computer programming, to surgeon.
We need to make children do things they might not want to do, in order to assure that they have the tools to make something of themselves, but it's
Re:As a former teacher, I agree--it's not fixable (Score:1)
IMHO, this is the fix. (Score:2)
Note that there is no reason why a public school that chooses to comply with the new rules that can get parents to send kids there can not survive.
Here's a draft of a voucher initiative [ecis.com] designed to do just that. Need
Re:IMHO, this is the fix. (Score:2)
Re:IMHO, this is the fix. (Score:2)