BF2S Forums Now that I have a shred of credibility

I remember a kid who got an A* in physics who asked me if he should add up the volts or the amps to work out the total power on a circuit.....
He was unable to operate a washing machine.

The aim of education too often is to stifle creativity.

As a preface, I apologize for the many typos I know are present throughout this post. It is 4:00 am, I'm tired, and the post is too long to read through. If you see a 'the' where a 'than' or 'that' would be more appropriate, or a combination of mixups thereof, use which owurd makes the most sense in the context of the sense.


With that said, there is so much wrong with your proposed solution (although less with your identification of the systems inadequacies). As a general sense, you are saying that high school education is not applicable enough to the real world, and does little to prepare students for anything. Aside from the view that high school is a generalized education intended to provide a good foundation for a career path that people choose once they graduate (as opposed to the young age of 15), here is a selected response to your proposal. Consider, as you are reading, how fixing the educational value of high school to make classes teach general skills more effectively (general skills of critical thinking and basic memorization), and using colleges to provide the specialization, might be a bit more productive idea than radically overhauling our educational system while simultaneously threatening to ease the practice of essential civil liberties.

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

Unless you have such a crippling deficiency in one area that you cannot get by with extensive studying and memorization, you don't know what your strong points and your weak points are.

Except if you can get by one subject with significantly less studying and effort than another subject, and you can think with a modicum of logic, you will recognize what you are strong and what you are weak in. I know literary analysis is not my strongest area academically, even though I've passed English with As consistently, because I have to put more effort into understanding it. That definitely wasn't the case with calculus. Admittedly, there are confounding factors such as the difficulty of the teachers and their teaching ability using in class time, but still, over the years, its easy to get a sense of you skill set. You are portraying the situation as much more polar than it really is.

Students will change their attitudes to suit the requirements of the rewards dangled in front of them. In the case of education, the only immediate goal is that of class rank/gpa at the moment.

It sounds like you were in a typical highly competitive rich suburban school (although a quick Wikipedia search confirms that is true.) Consequently, I don't think the kids were as motivated to get their high GPA in order to be better for the sake of being better as much as they were in order to maximize their chances of admission to highly ranked colleges. Are you also suggesting that college admissions be altered to match your new vision of how schooling works? Unless you either abolish the notion of disparate college qualities (which isn't going to happen) or find some way to reduce the demand for top college educations (which has an exceedingly low chance of happening), you aren't going to be able to prevent kids from trying to differentiate themselves through objective measures. As I alluded to above, the colleges could change the basis of their admissions decisions to better correlate with the high school system, but then how do they ensure they get the students they want? Or are colleges abolished completely considering the new level of specialization, or perhaps made available in the traditional sense solely to those identified at 15 of being intellectual enough to need the further education?

Really, your proposed solution contradicts a lot of our constitutional principles regarding freedom of choice. Getting steered by the government into what has been identified as your specialization (I'm not sure how this is determined, as you seemingly glossed it over) at an age when your brain is still developing seems like a step towards authoritarianism. Ayn Rand was against governmental control in peoples' lives (if I read the boredom* that was Anthem correctly); I find it interesting you are quoting her when your system seems to be enabling the opposite of what she so strongly advocated for.

And, as I hinted at above, human brains are not fully developed at 15; they aren't until 25. You can't pretend to know what a person's long term interests are at 15, especially in an academic or career setting. Rather than allowing people to specialize in something they enjoy and could do for the rest of their lives, you would force them to study one field they like at that moment in time, but hardly could like decades down the road. Even people who are educated well and ostensibly have a career selected change their mind. I read a story the other day about a banker who decided after five years of banking that she wanted to sell antiques instead, as banking was no longer something palatable or something she could do effectively. Under your system, of course, she would have had to remain a banker, or perhaps would have been a nurse instead (who knows what she thought her interests were back in the early 1980s). People aren't machines; they can't be expected to remain constant or be immutable.

*Not completely boring, as the book was thought-provoking.

The fact is the desirable traits are being repressed in favor of other traits that are more profitable in the short term. As it is set up now, creativity, intuition, the desire for understanding, and the ability to struggle with problems independently are being systematically crushed out of students.

This is something that could be alleviated by improving the teachers. See below for details. It only works for kids who genuinely have these traits, though; some are anti-intellectual, and would be regardless of their teaching situation. I learned to suppress it temporarily in classes which didn't require work, used them in classes which did (see below), and recognize that in college, I will again get to use them. The system certainly hasn't had this ruinous, indelible effect on me.

Or maybe, this change should really occur at the elementary school level, since during these formative years many kids who would otherwise be intellectuals with the desirable traits enumerated above are being crushed by schooling? I certainly wasn't. Maybe it really has something to do with the parents. Or maybe with genetics. It might be a bit more complex than initially addressed in either of our posts.

As an aside, where is your salutatorian going to college?

konfusion wrote:

SATs...reward mindless repetition of text

They don't. Yes, APs are a bit easy (although I've found problems much easier when I actually had understanding of the concepts, though, especially in a larger sense) and general high school classes are mostly memorization, but the SAT does not reward mindless repetition of text. I took three practice tests to get acquainted with it, studied no tricks, and did rather well. It requires reasoning more than repetition.

I prefer it that way, because with the IB and systems like it, you do not study for tests, but you actually try to comprehend what you're learning. Instead of being worried about remembering dates, however important they may be, you make sure you can understand a political subject, and future similar ones. There's always Google for dates, but thus far, Google cannot explain why things happen, and how the world works.

This happens in a regular pubic school system, as well - my AP US History class is a good example. Our teacher was our school's best teacher, and he was the best educated and most intelligent (definitely working in a job below his earning potential). Perhaps you are showing, implicitly, that spending more money and effort in luring good teachers would go a long way towards improving the school system. I would agree with that.

RAMIUS wrote:

The learned ability to comprehend and critically analyze information is critical, but there are many "straight facts" that people should know.  It is only those who can analyze AND have the information that really stand out.

Exactly. As an analogy, the critical reasoning/articulation skills (for a discussion) are a weapon, while the facts pertinent to such a discussion are the ammunition for the weapon. Just as a regular artillery piece is ineffective without shells, critical reasoning is useless (especially in a discussion setting) without objective knowledge. The schooling system should stress critical thinking, but it shouldn't eschew memorization in doing so. It is merely over-emphasized in modern schools, rather than incorrectly emphasized.

I have to go to public school next year. I had a couple of classes that I need summer school for from breaking my arm last year, and the Counselor just told me: "Don't bother, we'll just count them anyway". I was like: "Seriously, wtf?". They really don't give a shit about actually educating you.

I was in gifted classes through middle school, and we were encouraged by the teacher to solve problems in our own way: cut to junior high, and teachers are marking my work wrong in math class if I reach the correct solution through a manner that wasn't specifically taught in class.  As someone aptly put, it would seem as though they wanted to stifle creativity.

As one of 12 valedictorians, and I can honestly attest that, of all 12, I was most likely the least "studious", but the others fit the aforementioned stereotypes of not being able to wash their own damn clothes or fix an actual meal for themselves, whereas I could perform routine car maintenance, cook basis things, etc.  I remember in my freshmen year of college, when I would go to my dorm's laundry room there would nearly always be someone calling home to ask their mom how to operate the goddamn washing machine.  A washing machine!!!

I feel like students are now taught in such a way that rote memorization serves them well in school, but in the process they lose the capacity to "think outside the box".  And it is true, this seems to be exactly what is wanted of them....

Teachers are the integral parts of a flawed system that are given the charge of conveying knowledge to students, but now with so much emphasis placed on achieving a certain level of "performance" on standardized tests that will ultimately determine school funding, one can quickly see the predicament they face:  any teacher who doesn't cater to the specific aspects of their course subject matter that the state deems most important, will most likely have pupils who don't score as highly on the standardized tests, which may then cause a teacher to lose their job or the school to lose funding (or both...).  And this isn't even going into the argument of whether or not teachers earn enough to actually expect them to do a good job... ( I can tell you, teachers who push memorization of subject matter tied directly to a specific test, are probably overpaid...those who still attempt to cover everything, while still trying to emphasize key points, are probably underpaid because it just makes their job that much harder).

If you want to jump up to a collegiate level, there are still plenty of professors who stress critical thinking.  The problem here is the presence of so many bullshit degree programs that don't actually require students to ever learn anything that truly stresses the ability to think.  All degrees are not created equal:  I am applying to dental school, and have met people with near-perfect GPAs with degrees in Business or Philosophy that get accepted, whereas I have a 3.1 GPA overall, but a 3.8 GPA in "science" classes (Calc., Physics I and II, Biochemistry, Organic Chem. I and II, Physical Chemistry, Molecular Genetics, etc....) that were quite difficult, but on paper I am not considered as strong a candidate based solely on my overall GPA.   

The disparity in my overall GPA, and GPA in science classes, stems from the fact that colleges push all of these requisite classes on students to make them "well-rounded", when all it is is an attempt to milk more credit-hours out of them.  I can honestly say I never learned a damn thing in any of the required English or art classes I took: I may have read books or looked at art that I had not previously seen, but as far as actually learning something new, or suddenly viewing an issue in some new light, they were complete wastes of my time and money.  The majority of classes that fit this bill were classes that I didn't care in the least about, and often would wind up getting a C simply based on poor attendance and not because I didn't write excellent papers or raise good points about the work studied. 

(Please note that I love art and literature, and am not saying they aren't worthwhile...I just feel that the required classes that teach to the lowest common denominator A) shouldn't even be pushed at a college level because our high schools should produce students capable of writing a paper, and B) such minimal exposure to a broad subject only scratches the surface and doesn't really prove all that useful to begin with)


Basically, from my experiences it's not hard to see that there are flaws in our educational system from top to bottom.

But how do you fix it?  It's like trying to mend a sinking ship without docking at port or evacuating everyone on board...

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

There is no focus on the ability to troubleshoot a situation.

Exactly.

konfusion wrote:

Now that is something I very much disagree with. I think the system in Germany, and incidentally in Switzerland as well, is flawed in that it separates people starting in 5th or 6th grade. Do you guys remember what grades you got back then? Already at that point it is decided if you go into a better, mediocre or worse school, which ends up deciding whether or not you can attend universities at all, or whether you will be forced, later on, to do an apprenticeship. Granted, in Switzerland, apprenticeships are treated with much more respect than in most places, and degrees aren't just handed out to everyone like in the USA. However, I think a separation at the age of 10-11 benefits only the chronically lazy.

Good counterpoint, but I was talking about separating people at the age of 14 or 15, not 10 or 11.

I didn't realize they started that early in Germany, so yeah, I also disagree with that.

Turquoise wrote:

In a way, I agree with Flaming that we should specialize earlier.  In Germany, they have a 2-tier system, where the academic kids go through traditional classes in the equivalent of high school while the technical kids go through more vocation oriented classes.  This seems to work pretty well in accommodating human variance.

That's why, like I said, what NY state has is the best. It's kinda limited (as of now) with options but there's still plenty available. Plumbing, electrics, dental, animal care, etc. Stuff like that.

http://www.esboces.org/

Flaming_Maniac wrote:

First I would like to thank so many of you for putting time and effort into your posts, it has been an enjoyable read.

lol dear god get over yourself.

Last edited by Poseidon (2009-06-13 14:02:52)

Macbeth wrote:

IMHO Public schools don't teach enough ethics and management. I would love it, if high schools would add classes on teaching people things like responsibility, proper conduct, ethics, life management and planning, and finance. But we must support the arts.

...please tell me you're joking about the 'fuck the arts statement'.

EDIT: At least elaborate upon it so I don't have to spend time to entirely disprove you..

Last edited by xBlackPantherx (2009-06-14 01:58:25)

Now adays you hand you work in and the teacher puts notes on it pointing out your mistakes, then gives it back to the pupil to edit the work. In effect, telling them whats wrong with their work and how to fix it.

Wow. Wish I'd been able to do that. OK I don't, I'm glad I had it relatively hard.

I work with recently qualified 'professionals' in the private and public sector and it is bogged down with idiots with degrees who don't have the brains to flip burgers.

I've worked with people, given them a task and they've simply not done it. "I didn't know how to do it, so I left it" Great...