Public Education by TheHappyTrader

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
Anyhow, what are some of your thoughts on education, what's wrong, what's right, how can it be improved, etc...

Wow, where to start. I'm a homeschooler, an unschooler even, so I come from a vastly different philosophy than that used in public schools. I homeschool largely because I see more wrong than right with schools.

From a very primal and basic level, I would say the joy of learning is crushed out of most students in the current systems we have.

From a systemic standpoint, I would say there are serious problems with the entire education profession. 1) There are not enough teachers per classroom, 2) there are not enough GOOD teachers, 3) good teachers are not paid enough money, 4) training of teachers needs to emphasize content rather than method.

From a cultural perspective, I believe we don't give education sufficient priority. Teachers in other cultures are highly respected and admired, even venerated. Teachers in our country are glorified babysitters, get paid accordingly, and get the same amount of respect.

Maybe instead of pointing out problems, because there are so many, maybe we should talk about our ideal version of education and how we might be able to achieve it.

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 4:26 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

My ideal view of school would be a place where children can learn the basics of surviving in society while exploring their personal aptitudes and aspirations.

I can't speak very well on how schools are now, since I no longer attend one, and the experience of an observer is very different from the experience of a participant.

However, when I was a child, schools used to have two limitations that irked me. (I won't dwell on the integration policies of the time, which were misguided.)

One: Information was presented in layers of resolution and sometimes even layers of misinformation. Have you ever seen those pictures on the internet that start off by giving you a blurry image, then add a layer of detail, and then another layer of detail? I don't think those sorts of images are used much now that we have high-speed internet, but they were popular in simpler times when bandwidth was a problem. This was also the technique of educators.

A) The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock, made fast friends with the local natives, and enjoyed a merry Thanksgiving where all shared the table as respected equals.
B) The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock, and after some tension with the local natives, enjoyed a merry Thanksgiving where all shared the table as respected equals. Turkey may not have been served. How about that?
C) The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock, raided a vacant indian encampment, stole their food stores, and desecrated their dead. Eventually, they overcame the obvious social hurdles this created. They entered into a tense relationship with the natives, whom they believed were barbarians destined for hell. They shared a harvest feast with the natives in the hopes of securing good relations and averting a disastrous war. This was among the most positive relationships between European colonists and Native Americans for the next hundred years.

I had to learn this simple story three times, with three different contexts. Never mind Christopher Columbus and the roundness of the world, subjects where I was blatantly lied to. We need to tell our children the accurate truth from Day 1, and not reveal truth in blurry detail with misleading shadows, crisping the image at intervals until it is virtually the opposite of what they imagined.

Two: Information was presented in a largely standardized fashion, usually geared towards passing standardized tests. Very little leeway was provided to pursue individual areas of interest or aptitude. As an example: After Elementary School, and certainly by Middle School, most students have acquired the full extent of mathematics that they will use in their lifetime. Why, then, should they be forced to continue advancing mathematically in order to score well on a test, when their time would much better be spent learning about their aptitudes and interests of Classical English Literature and Artistic Expression?

If it were up to me, classes would be almost all-elective in Middle school, and absolutely all-elective in High School, with guidance counselors to help you learn what you wanted and needed to learn for the job you wanted to do. Teachers would be facilitators and not programmers. I can only imagine the earth-shattering joy to be had in a learning environment where you were allowed to pursue your interests wherever they took you.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 4:42 PM

I'm with ya on a lot of this but I have to say

Quote:
4) training of teachers needs to emphasize content rather than method.

is way off. Content changes every time they update standards and when new materials and knowledge are discovered or introduced. A teacher should first be trained to teach themselves, and then to teach others, allowing for them to adapt to changes in the curriculum.

As for

Quote:
From a cultural perspective, I believe we don't give education sufficient priority. Teachers in other cultures are highly respected and admired, even venerated. Teachers in our country are glorified babysitters, get paid accordingly, and get the same amount of respect.

I'd like to ammend that to Teachers are seen in our country as glorified bavysitters...

In truth, we have to be parents, social workers (required by law to report suspected child abuse/neglect), organize events/concerts, lead booster organizations, plan out your lessons for the entire year to submit them for approval (as if you could predict exactly how fast your students will learn these things...) and oh yeah, teach your students, sometimes with only 22 days to address the state approved standards relevant to your education when your school is on block scheduling and your classes change every quarter.

Then again, I'm a newbie and I'm trying my best to do everything right. Maybe I could get by on simple 'babysitting' but I'd rather not risk what income I am managing on that assumption.

I hope I don't sound too rude or dismissive, I'm very interested in what you and others think. I'm just sharing my experience.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 4:46 PM

Quote:
If it were up to me, classes would be almost all-elective in Middle school, and absolutely all-elective in High School, with guidance counselors to help you learn what you wanted and needed to learn for the job you wanted to do. Teachers would be facilitators and not programmers. I can only imagine the earth-shattering joy to be had in a learning environment where you were allowed to pursue your interests wherever they took you.

That would be awesome! I would love to have learned, and would love to teach in an environment like that.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 5:32 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
If it were up to me, classes would be almost all-elective in Middle school, and absolutely all-elective in High School, with guidance counselors to help you learn what you wanted and needed to learn for the job you wanted to do. Teachers would be facilitators and not programmers. I can only imagine the earth-shattering joy to be had in a learning environment where you were allowed to pursue your interests wherever they took you.

If everyone would choose a course of study that ended up with a career that filled a niche in the total economic and social fabric without too much disruption, this would be great. But say everyone wanted to study English Literature. Not a lot of refrigerators or solar panels get build by happy English Lit majors. Not a lot of food gets grown.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 5:44 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

That is the argument for a planned economy: Job niches must be anticipated, people must be shunted into them, balance must be created.

However, I think you will find that most students of English literature can learn the vast majority of jobs in short order. In fact, I think you will find that most students of anything can learn most jobs in short order. Most jobs are narrow, repetitive, and dull. Most jobs require very few basic skills, and any special skills involved are able to be taught with on the job training.

As a point of interest, I am an English Major who could not pass rudimentary mathematics courses and dropped out of college.

I have worked in a bank since 2004, and have an excellent Quality Assurance record.

Basic skills are Basic. The joy of learning is forever. Teaching people to love knowledge is the best possible lesson, and you can't teach that lesson by hammering square pegs into round holes.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 5:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I'm with ya on a lot of this but I have to say
Quote:
4) training of teachers needs to emphasize content rather than method.

is way off. Content changes every time they update standards and when new materials and knowledge are discovered or introduced. A teacher should first be trained to teach themselves, and then to teach others, allowing for them to adapt to changes in the curriculum.

I agree teachers should be trained to teach themselves. But that's not what I hear is happening.

I say "I hear," because my husband used to be a university professor who came home and griped a lot about education majors. The gist is, they spend a lot of time learning methods, curricula, assessment, etc; and not a lot of time learning math, English, history, science, or whatever they are supposed to be teaching. When I say, emphasize content rather than method, I mean they should major in whatever they are teaching, and supplement that major with a few classes on method. A math teacher should major in math and minor in education, as it were. An elementary school teacher should major in Liberal Arts and minor in primary education. And so forth.

Yes, content gets updated. But if you were a math major, you would know how to keep up with the math updates better and teach themselves math better than if you were an education major.

That's what I mean by content over method. Just one opinion. Doesn't mean I KNOW.

Quote:
I'd like to ammend that to Teachers are seen in our country as glorified bavysitters...

Fair enough. You guys have a hard, hard job. I would love to see teachers get more support and more money. It really isn't fair what people expect from teachers with what they give them to work with.

Quote:
I hope I don't sound too rude or dismissive, I'm very interested in what you and others think. I'm just sharing my experience.

You, rude? I've never seen you even approaching rude. You're like Anthony.

Rather, I hope *I* am not rude. I tend to be kind of abrasive, hence my signature. :)

I agree completely with Anthony, but I would add one more thing. Why start electives in Middle School? Why not from Day 1? Let the kids learn what they want to learn. Writing, reading, and arithmetic are such fundamental skills that they have to learn those along the way anyway in order to learn what they are really interested in. There are certain things kids simply absorb and pick up on their way to something very exciting.

I actually attended an elementary school that was structured very much like high school. We had a homeroom for the first period, where we warmed up and learned English or some such. Then for math, we'd go to the math teacher's class; for science, the science guy; and so forth. For social studies, we had a choice of several electives, including archaeology. We had a foreign language elective period. Our art class was a huge room with several stations: a leather working station, a weaving station with a loom, a pottery station with a wheel and a real kiln, a painting station, etc. (That was so awesome.) Our music dept was pathetic, but that would be the only thing that could be improved.

It was like this all through Middle School and High School. And all the teachers majored in the subjects they taught.

My ideal school system would probably be the Sudbury Model. Unschooling is very similar, just on a much smaller scale.

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 6:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
In fact, I think you will find that most students of anything can learn most jobs in short order. Most jobs are narrow, repetitive, and dull.

....

Basic skills are Basic. The joy of learning is forever. Teaching people to love knowledge is the best possible lesson, and you can't teach that lesson by hammering square pegs into round holes.

Exactly. Thank you for articulating that so well.

Education is not the same thing as vocational training. Education should be about learning how to love learning, learning how to find information you need, learning how to think critically. It is about lighting a flame and not filling a bucket, so the quotation goes.

Once you have learned how to learn, THEN you get vocational training to fill the niche job market. Math majors become engineers, English Lit majors become journalists.

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 6:04 PM

WISHIMAY

I have an extended family member who has a very smart child who has "failed" kindergarten once already. Her mother believes it is the school systems' job to completely educate her child and so she does not help in any way... And she has two children... And she and her husband think that anyone who gets good grades is a stuck up snob.
She will not let anyone help... Any suggestions???

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 6:06 PM

Quote:
I am an English Major... I have worked in a bank since 2004...

My dad and stepmother were both English Majors and have held banking jobs for most of their careers. I know a few other English Majors, but they're waitresses, bartenders or work at a truck stop. What exactly are English Majors supposed to do as a career? The most successful ones I've seen have all worked at banks lol.

This is no offense to English Majors of course, if I did not have the 'Ed' in my Music Ed degree I'd probably be even worse off.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 6:28 PM

Quote:
I have an extended family member who has a very smart child who has "failed" kindergarten once already. Her mother believes it is the school systems' job to completely educate her child and so she does not help in any way... And she has two children... And she and her husband think that anyone who gets good grades is a stuck up snob.
She will not let anyone help... Any suggestions???

Oh my, I have never encountered a parent like that before. I've seen many who seem to expect the school to raise their children for them, but they don't outright refuse to assist in that manner, they are just lazy.

However, this person does have somewhat of a point. Now this doesn't really apply in practice, but in theory, I student should be capable of earning a 'C' by class room work and experience alone. A 'B' should take a little extra outside effort from the student, in the form of homework or extra study. An 'A' should be very rare and signify truly going above and beyond on the students part. So, the child should be able to earn a C if the show up to class and do their assignments and pay attention.

Of course, in practice, everyone's supposed to make A's and B's and if your making C's you're doing something wrong. Making an F probably means you aren't turning things in or are doing very poorly on test.

You say the child is very intelligent. Does the child have any learning disabilities like dyslexia? (I like to think I'm fairly intelligent but I struggled k-3rd grade because of dyslexia). Or perhaps ADD, ADHD, mild autism? Without details on what and how the child is failing, all I can guess is there may be some kind of issue interfering with the child's ability to focus or retain information.

As for the parents... you can't change parents minds. It doesn't work, but if you're really sly, you can 'agree' with them, repeat their argument in slightly different words that change the meaning just a little,(taking care not to let anything look like the parents fault) and give them a solution that steers them in a more productive direction.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 6:44 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,
As a point of interest, I am an English Major who could not pass rudimentary mathematics courses and dropped out of college.

I have worked in a bank since 2004, and have an excellent Quality Assurance record.

Not saying that you shouldn't study what you want to, or attempt to follow your muse where it takes you. I do have to ask if working in a bank is what you figured would fulfill you when you decided to be an English major.

Unfortunately, someone has to grow the food, and stock the shelves, and flip the burgers, and design the light switches, etc. If folks want to study Greek architecture because that makes them happy, more power to them, but there's just not that many jobs out there for that particular skill set.

It could be that many folks have to work at stuff they don't particularly care for to survive, and spend their off time pursuing the things that actually stir their souls. Sometimes there just aren't positions available for all the folks who love poetry, and sometimes folks who love dance just aren't that great as dancers.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 7:00 PM

WISHIMAY

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
You say the child is very intelligent. Does the child have any learning disabilities like dyslexia?

Just a parental disability...Her mom has an attitude a mile wide, never ever tells her kids no, sits on the computer(husband too) most of the time while the kids are home... the girl at 6 decided she didn't want to participate in gym so mom says OK. Kid makes up sicknesses all the time and mom lets her come home whenever. We think she makes up being sick because she feels soo bad about looking dumb!

Kid will also only eat like 5 different foods, cause mommy lets her...

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 9:18 PM

As someone who only went to 1st thru 5th grade, ironically, I've also been a highschool teacher.

My rails against the system would be very long. I agree that it programs perfect little worker bots like it was designed to do, and that is obsolete, but the intellectual self defense videos make a strong point about how critical thinking was intentionally removed from the curriculum, so you can try to inject a little back in.

Here's what you can really do to help improve your results:

Studies I've read say that students can only take in new information for 2 hours at a time, and then their brains are essentially full. If you're the first class, many of your students may be sleepy or late, but second is probably a pretty good slot. Also, directly after lunch would work well, or last in the day. Sure, they're worn out at the end, but there's a relaxed feeling about last class. If you get varied slots, check out the relative retention rates, or look it up online, and see if this is correct. It made sense to me when I read the theory which was in some MSM source like Time about 15 years ago or so, but I never researched it.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 9:27 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"It could be that many folks have to work at stuff they don't particularly care for to survive, and spend their off time pursuing the things that actually stir their souls. Sometimes there just aren't positions available for all the folks who love poetry, and sometimes folks who love dance just aren't that great as dancers."

Hello,

Quite right, Geezer, and quite my point. There's no guarantee that when you choose an area of study, that you will get a job in that field. That's true all the way up through college. I need look no farther than my home towns of Hialeah or Miami to see a history of Doctors doing Dishes or Lawyers driving Taxis.

But the freedom to pursue your interests and study areas that fascinate you... well, if you will forgive me a bit of drama, it enriches the soul. It makes a better person out of you.

And the Doctor who does Dishes can still sit in the den with a good medical journal while looking for opportunities to become a medical professional.

The alternative is to push children into generic boxes of standardized ideals. And for what? Will they be better dishwashers or solar panel assemblymen or even farmers... if we deny them the ability to study Contemporary Art and Native American Basketweaving because it's more important for them (and the school's standardized test scores and revenue streams) if they learn Calculus?

No, they may not become professional basketweavers or Artists, but if they were destined to become mathematicians, then they'd have requested the Calculus as a subject of interest to them. And how many unemployed Engineers and Accountants are circulating the country now, or perhaps grasping for employment at Walmart?

So if their time is going to be 'wasted' in trivial pursuits, let them choose the pursuits. Let's not crush their desire to learn by forcing them into a shape that we prefer. And who knows? Maybe they will actually find a way to prosper at the things that interest them. That's between them and fate. I'm not interested in standing between the two.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 2:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
But the freedom to pursue your interests and study areas that fascinate you... well, if you will forgive me a bit of drama, it enriches the soul. It makes a better person out of you.

...

Maybe they will actually find a way to prosper at the things that interest them. That's between them and fate. I'm not interested in standing between the two.

At the risk of sounding like a gushing groupie, this is beautiful. You and HK, you both have an amazing way with words and ideas and insights.

You may work in a bank, but you also make RWED a better place because of your interest in poetry and writing. You're a richer person because of it, and others are enriched as well.

Like, THT, I am a full time educator as well. (I just have much fewer students.) I love this perspective, that "The purpose of education is to allow the student to be the best person he/she can be." It will shape the way I teach a little bit more.

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 2:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Studies I've read say that students can only take in new information for 2 hours at a time,..

Interesting. I teach my kids in 2 hour slots. Two hours in the morning, a big lunch break, and two hours in the afternoon.

Another nice thing about homeschooling, I can tailor the schedule to whatever they want. If they say they are tired after 15 minutes, we stop. It is nice that we CAN stop.

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 2:32 AM

I'm going to go with "Obsolete" but for a different reason: The internet.

I was fortunate enough to have a brilliant mentor for my history program. While I loved listening to him tell stories of stuff he'd read in various letters by roman officials, etc. I was still listening to him talk. Not all classes and work was like this, but that which was was inefficient.

The fact is that what he had to say there wasn't a text for, and no publisher wanted to print it. It was anecdote heavy history designed to give us a feel for what it was like to be an egyptian, greek, roman or medieval european. It included lots of stuff that happened outside the golden road of history* and it was interesting. He should have written a book, a blog, and then he could have elaborated with answers to questions and even run a forum. But every year twice a year he would tell the same story, for 50 years, rather than write it once and have the students read it. That's 1% efficiency. Sure, he would undoubtedly add stories and change stories, but still the efficiency of this oral tradition is very low.

* golden road or follow the gold history is traveling the line of wealthy societies from Egypt to Greece to Rome to Spain to England, which would probably then go US to China?

Since it was not a forum, there was little option for knowledge flow other than top down, should any student happen to know something. I remember one section on medieval music. If this has been an online community, someone would have been a musician, and posted more information. If all the students were not 18-21 then there would have been more input.

It's simply an obsolete form of communication, because those who are in it, hour for hour, are learning less than those who are not.

And that's the crux of where the global marketplace really fits in. American workers are put into direct competition with workers in other countries, and whoever has the most efficient learning system will have a distinct advantage.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 3:06 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
If it were up to me, classes would be almost all-elective in Middle school, and absolutely all-elective in High School, with guidance counselors to help you learn what you wanted and needed to learn for the job you wanted to do. Teachers would be facilitators and not programmers. I can only imagine the earth-shattering joy to be had in a learning environment where you were allowed to pursue your interests wherever they took you.

If everyone would choose a course of study that ended up with a career that filled a niche in the total economic and social fabric without too much disruption, this would be great. But say everyone wanted to study English Literature. Not a lot of refrigerators or solar panels get build by happy English Lit majors. Not a lot of food gets grown.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

I can see what you're saying, but just the last bit called to mind in a vivid fashion my 6th grade "English" class. I went to school in 5th and 6th grade in California, on a military base. My English teacher on that base was a hippie. An actual hippie, probably the first I'd ever interacted with on any kind of regular basis. His name was Mr. Silverman. Our big project for the year? An organic garden. For English class.

And the thing is, it worked. We learned how to grow food, we learned to care about the environment and ecology, we learned about recycling, composting, etc. - and we learned by READING, and by DOING; we were putting what we learned in our books (NOT our textbooks, but gardening and environmental books the Mr. Silverman provided) into action in real life.

It was a unique experience, and it was so out of the ordinary that, even as it was happening, I knew it was amazingly fresh and untried. That it still sticks with me so strongly now is a testament to how effective a teacher Mr. Silverman was. I'd be hard-pressed to name another of my teachers from back then.

The most valuable lesson I learned from that experiment wasn't just how to read and comprehend more effectively, or how to grow strawberries, lettuce, and spinach; it was how a good teacher can teach you without you even realizing you're learning. Had it seemed like "work", I might have pushed back or rebelled; but it was FUN, so I couldn't wait to get to class every day.

Good, effective teachers should be treated like rock stars.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 3:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
But say everyone wanted to study English Literature. Not a lot of refrigerators or solar panels get build by happy English Lit majors. Not a lot of food gets grown.

This would only be true if happy English Lit majors have no ability to learn to build refrigerators and solar panels. Once they learned their ONE field, they've filled their quota and can no longer learn anything else.

If they can learn English Lit, they can learn how to build refrigerators and solar panels as well. Why limit them to only ONE thing they can learn?

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 5:08 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
This would only be true if happy English Lit majors have no ability to learn to build refrigerators and solar panels. Once they learned their ONE field, they've filled their quota and can no longer learn anything else.

If they can learn English Lit, they can learn how to build refrigerators and solar panels as well. Why limit them to only ONE thing they can learn?

I have no intention of limiting anyone.

I think we're all pretty much saying that it's good to follow what stirs your soul, floats you boat, whatever.

I just think that when you do so, you should also be aware that your passion may not provide you a living wage, and that you should prepare to have some sort of skill you can employ to earn enough to allow you to do what you love. If you can't afford food and shelter, it's difficult to enjoy stuff.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, November 19, 2010 5:39 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Yes, Geezer.

Once you can read, write, add, subtract, multiply, divide, and understand fractions...

You are ready to join 90% of the work force.

And then you should learn what interests you, and take it as far as you can.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 5:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
I just think that when you do so, you should also be aware that your passion may not provide you a living wage, and that you should prepare to have some sort of skill you can employ to earn enough to allow you to do what you love.

Someone whose skill is to assemble solar panels in a place where there are no solar panel jobs might need to learn to write because there is an opening for a reporter at the local paper. I think it goes without saying that you may not always get a living wage in the field in which you are skilled. It is good to learn more than one skill set--in fact, the more the better.

I think your concern applies only when an individual has limited ability or opportunity for learning skills. If they had to choose only one or two, it would not make sense for them to waste one of two precious slots with basket-weaving or coin-collecting. Rather, they would be better off learning a skill set that is marketable in their community FIRST, and then adding other skill slots LATER, if they can.

I see four steps in education towards job performance:

1. Primary and secondary education.
BASIC skills, skills that are required in ALL jobs: reading, writing, arithmetic, typing on the computer, basic history, basic science, critical thinking, etc.

2. College education or vocational training.
BASIC vocational skills in the field that you hope to work in: how to learn new specialized information, how to find out new specialized information, how to speak the language/lingo of your field.

3. Graduate education.
Mostly, this part is to learn to speak complicated, specialized lingo fluently and understand the fundamental assumptions and values in your field so well it becomes second nature.
PhD: How to do new original research in a specialized field.
MD, JD, MBA, etc: Or direct vocational training in a complicated, specialized field.

4. On the job training.
Once you get to your job from steps 1, 2, or 3, you still need specialized training to do your particular job. Most of the time, everything you need to know to do the job is learned on the job. So for practical purposes in many jobs, you could have skipped straight from #1 to #4. You can also learn something completely irrelevant in #2 and #3, and still learn everything there is to learn in #4.

That is why you can have a professor in Economics who got his PhD in physics. Or an English Lit major working in a bank. Or a Phys Ed major doing landscaping and interior design. Or a high school graduate can become a stock broker.

If you can learn how to do your job AT your job, why not use education to learn what you love? The difficulty is not in your skill sets, but in getting hired. But if you can convince your future boss that you are a hard worker and learn on-the-job quickly, the boss should not care what you got your education in. In fact, that is how all those people mentioned above got jobs. They might start a little lower on the totem pole until they can prove they are a quick learner, but the credentials become secondary once there are results.

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 6:42 AM

Another flaw in the education system: It should be a complete preparation for self learning, not a preparation for college. The average total cost of the college experience is now around 250,000, and the average graduate escapes with 100,000 in debt, figuring in all graduate and special degrees. This will take them 10 years if they work towards nothing else, and more often 20. This is the initial source of indentured servitude in this country. Actual indenture servitude is a mortgage, because that's what the original contracts promised in return, which IIRC, is the source of 40 acres and a mule, not a bad deal for 7 years labor by todays standards. Reality is, you work for life, and you get nothing.

This system is steering people towards a situation of crushing debt, which is geared to keep them as a perpetual labor force.

Specifically, a lot of music students will not want to do that. I've known many musicians who end up having to work non-musical jobs to deal with their debt, because music is like writing: You either hit it big or there's no money in it at all. Even if this is why you're teaching, bear in mind that if the students *don't* end up with a lot of debt, they will have much more time to devote towards their music.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 7:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Another flaw in the education system: It should be a complete preparation for self learning, not a preparation for college.

Nicely said.

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 8:11 AM

John Taylor Gatto has some of the harshest criticisms of public education. Whether he is entirely right or not, I think he makes some good points.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm

----
Arrogant and proud of it.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 8:47 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
This would only be true if happy English Lit majors have no ability to learn to build refrigerators and solar panels. Once they learned their ONE field, they've filled their quota and can no longer learn anything else.

If they can learn English Lit, they can learn how to build refrigerators and solar panels as well. Why limit them to only ONE thing they can learn?

I have no intention of limiting anyone.

I think we're all pretty much saying that it's good to follow what stirs your soul, floats you boat, whatever.

I just think that when you do so, you should also be aware that your passion may not provide you a living wage, and that you should prepare to have some sort of skill you can employ to earn enough to allow you to do what you love. If you can't afford food and shelter, it's difficult to enjoy stuff.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

I'm pretty much with Geezer on this one. Yes, you should be able to follow your muse, but you should also at least be exposed to some other higher learning as well. As a middle-schooler, I *hated* math, and would take only as little as I absolutely had to to advance to the next grade. Later, I developed a minor fascination with it, since it basically DOES run, well... EVERYTHING.

In high school, I hated government class, and paid scant attention to history. Oddly, I ended up going to college and changing my major (from math, no less!) to a dual major with Government and History, and a side of Constitutional Law.

Point being, you kinda have to expose schoolkids to ALL fields, even the ones they don't like, because they might find a different path later in life. And if they don't, they'll at least be able to add and subtract, hopefully. :)

This Space For Rent!

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Friday, November 19, 2010 8:48 AM

RIGHTEOUS9

I'm with dreamtrove on preparation for self-learning. This is directly antithetical to standardized testing. Self-learning seems to be the most significant tool that we can offer children, along with instilling a passion in doing so, which is more likely if we put some energy into possibility...opening some doors to kids who see no doors. If kids really believe they can get somewhere, they are more likely to try to get there, but for a lot of children, there are a lot of things that are so far removed from their experience that they don't seem real(of course these days they aren't so real...but that might at least partially go hand in hand with education)

point taken about school and debt...and that sort of education that is superficial and possibly non-sustaining.

I am also pretty frustrated that we think it's okay to lie to our children from the very get-go. I don't think we need to start early with gory details(though I'm not entirely sure how much coddling kids need), but if we need positives, we can talk about national ideals and how we have made strides to get there without pretending we have always had some inherent divinity that made us better people.

Those ideals bring me to my next point though. I think we need more emphasis on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. All Americans should know this backwards and forwards, frankly better than I do presently.

More time, more in-depth discussion and debate should be spent on its interpretations throughout high-school, and middle-school should give it more attention. In a democracy that is dependent upon its voters to understand the basic principles of this nation, most voters are way too scetchy on it. It's one of those subjects, along with english, history, and math that I don't think should be elective...though english and history could certainly offer different focuses for different interests.

..............

I think good teachers have more impact on kids than bad teachers do(though I might be wrong about this). In this way, if money were spent right, I really do believe that throwing more money at education is exactly what we should do, making classes smaller by hiring more teachers per district. Looking at Kwicko's story about that one teacher that made an impact on him, I just think that rather than cutting teaching staff and keeping on only the safest, most unoffensive vanilla teachers, the influences on our children should be more diverse. There should be more opportunity to get an interesting, more impactful teacher in the mix, even if it's just for one year, or one class.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 4:15 PM

The self learners I have known understand far more about govt. than the educated. I think this is because any course in govt. from a govt. run school is going to give you a rosy propagandistic psychologically manipulative view of govt and history. You'll do much better just trying to sus it out for yourself.

If you set up a situation where students need to have a certain level of knowledge in order to complete a task, they will get it by themselves.

As a kid, I played D&D, even before leaving school. By the time I left school, I'd left D&D for better role playing games. I was already doing pretty intensive research into how medieval economies and govts. ran so that I could make more realistic play scenarios for the game. The game ended up being a better driver for selecting self-educating behavior than school assignments.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 4:23 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I also did a lot of Role Playing in school, and it was the primary driver for personal research.

So I echo your experience.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 3:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
I also did a lot of Role Playing in school, and it was the primary driver for personal research.

That's the whole point of unschooling. When you pursue your interests, you pick up a lot of basic skills and knowledge along the way. All knowledge is interconnected and nested within each other.

I know a lady whose 2 unschooled boys played a lot of video games. A LOT of video games. When they weren't playing, they were learning about games. They grew up to be successful game programmers.

It's funny because if a kid spends 5 hours a day practicing the violin, no one assumes the kid is not learning anything else. But if a kid plays video games 5 hours a day, they tend to think he's an airhead.

The difference between unschooling and neglect is that the unschooling parent supervises the self-directed learning as part of a larger learning experience. Neglect is when the parent ignores the kid altogether.

The funny thing is, a lot of kids in school are educationally neglected--despite the appearance of supervision. It's not always easy to tell the difference.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 3:32 AM

KANEMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I was having a chat with a teacher friend, much older and more experienced than me, who made a very interesting comment concerning what's wrong with our public schools. The Answer...

Nothing.

There is nothing wrong with our public schools, they are doing exactly what they have been designed for, training children to behave themselves, follow directions and become productive members of the work force. The schools are just fine, but they are obsolete. The workforce is in other countries. People expect the schools to prepare students for college but that's just not how they work. Also, it's silly expect every student to prepare for college when most of them will not be attending it.

As a new teacher, I found this perspective very interesting. As a music guy, I'm not as regulated or interfered with as the others, but I'm also not as hired. Still, at least I get to remain an idealist within my subject area, a part-time idealists, but an idealist none the less.

Anyhow, what are some of your thoughts on education, what's wrong, what's right, how can it be improved, etc...

Simple. Abolish the department of education.

PreDOE America led the world in most statistics

PostDOE dropping fast.

Let locals decide what and how to teach their children.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 3:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:
Simple. Abolish the department of education.

I can support this if it is implemented with 1) the abolishment of personal income taxes and 2) there were some kind of transition period. I am especially concerned about the limited options of indigent children.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 3:58 AM

Even without parental direction children succeed on their own. All they need is the lack of an abusive environment, which more than anything, steals their time, and restricts their freedom of learning.

I went to grades 1,2,4 and 5, which is four years of schooling. When I started first grade, we were asked to teach something to the class. I demonstrated multiplication. I hadn't heard of times tables, the concept of mulitplication was obvious to me. The first time I encountered it in real life, I just drew it out visually, and that's how I demonstrated it on the board.

Second grade was totally pointless. There was nothing that the teacher had to tell us that I didn't already know, and she was abusive and mean and taking 8 hours of my day. After hearing that the 3rd grade teacher was much worse, I abandoned school.

Starting in Fourth Grade, we were given different subjects with different teachers. We didn't have freedom to select, but it was a more interesting format, so I went. My homeroom teach was an english teacher, and even though my mother was also, he was nice and entertaining. Next year I had the science teacher for home room. He was entertaining but it quickly became obvious that he was totally ignorant.

For the two years, Math was pointless not because the teacher wasn't good, but because the subject curriculum was way below what I would have considered normal. I spent the time teaching one fellow classmate math tricks like algebra and exponents. He was six, his parents had just decided to skip elementary school. Now he's a robotics engineer.

Social Studies was full of information but even then it seemed heavily agenda laiden and incredibly time consuming. I still think it is, I would much rather be solving problems than debating social issues. We spent a lot of time on current events, which is still a game of chase the ball, today the ball is TSA, tomorrow it will be something else.

Health was a pointless class. If this class had been taught as if it were a premed, we could have all been doctors by the time we graduated. That would have been reason enough to stay in school. Instead it was infantile. Again, I don't blame the teacher at all. She was very nice, and was sitting there with a hand-me-down totally inane curriculum.

Phys ed. was a pretty abusive class. I did well in it, but it had myriad problems. It was sexually segregated, and the bullying was bad. I don't know why I was a bully victim, I guess I was a push over, certainly not as socially adroit as my peers, but I was bigger than them, and had a gf, so it is hard to see in retrospect how I became so beta. These things are difficult to understand as a kid.

Art was something I did not excel at, and it took me years to take it up again. No one taught anything, so you either knew what you were doing or you didn't, and then you were graded on it. The underlying belief seemed to be genetic determinist: You were either born with something called "talent" for art or music, or you were not. Then you were graded on it. this would hurt your otherwise flawless record. It was pretty damaging. Later it would all prove to be nonsense, all you had to do was study it on its own, and like everything else, it was intuitive.

If I left something else out it didn't leave much of an impression I guess. I had no specific classes for history or govt., these were part of social studies, but probably in time I would have gotten them.

After fifth grade I wasn't able to go back because of family situations, but the only part I regretted was not seeing Regina.

Kaneman has a point. I would only say, individuals, not local govt. As my local govt. is almost as corrupt as my state govt. (True, they wouldn't agree to fracking.)

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 9:11 AM

Here is an interesting interview about the new documentary "Race to Nowhere," from the film's Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/video/video.php?v=442956650948

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 1:14 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Interesting discussion.

Free public education was fought for because it was seen as a great leveller of the class system . Back in the bad old days, people only received education if they could afford it. It was probably a classier system, but it was so the elite could remain elite. the vast bulk of population was illiterate, and could expect nothing more than being a ditch digger or a servant, and their children and their children's children would all be the same.

education was seen as one way to improve your lot in life.

Not sure whether that applies to the US system. For about 20 years here we had free tertiary education, of which I was lucky enough to enjoy the fruits. Now that certainly increased opportunities, but damned expensive to fund.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 1:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Not sure whether that applies to the US system. For about 20 years here we had free tertiary education, of which I was lucky enough to enjoy the fruits. Now that certainly increased opportunities, but damned expensive to fund.

That is something I've entertained for a while.

Here in Peru, all state-run universities (not a lot of them though) are free. Just free. As a result, they get the "smartest" (measured by exam results) people in the country, no matter how poor or how rich. Those who are plenty smart, but don't score high enough on the entrance exam go to private universities, where they pay a reasonable tuition.

I just LOVE the idea that smart, hard working youngsters can hope to get a free college education. I know there is a scholarship system in the States, but it doesn't feel quite as equitable.

Of course, the idea I love doesn't mesh well with my other ideologies, so...I don't know what to make of it.

I am happy though that Australia has a free tertiary education system.

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 5:06 PM

Peru?

In the US there used to be ways to get a free college education, but now the debt monster has taken them.

Public school debate here is not about class, it's about conditioning. People think the system brainwashes and abuses children, and I agree. I think Charter Schools and private schools with vouchers and scholarships will replace them, but the internet will make almost the whole thing obsolete, except the part where you have to get away from your parents or they will eat all of your time.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 8:09 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

You know, I still think that family has the most influence on kids, up until the teenage years at least, and that even if they go a bit feral in those years, what happened when they were young still has the biggest influence on them.

I don't homeschool, but I don't leave the education of my son solely in the hands of the professional educators. I think what he has learnt, he has mainly learnt from us. As it should be.

My reference to class, was that it might be a crappy system, but it is probably better than no publicly funded system at all.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 8:10 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Here in Peru, all state-run universities (not a lot of them though) are free. Just free. As a result, they get the "smartest" (measured by exam results) people in the country, no matter how poor or how rich. Those who are plenty smart, but don't score high enough on the entrance exam go to private universities, where they pay a reasonable tuition.

I just LOVE the idea that smart, hard working youngsters can hope to get a free college education. I know there is a scholarship system in the States, but it doesn't feel quite as equitable.

Of course, the idea I love doesn't mesh well with my other ideologies, so...I don't know what to make of it.

Do you live in Peru? Me too, on the above.

Quote:
I am happy though that Australia has a free tertiary education system.

Not any more, sadly.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 9:07 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Well, other than mentioning the work of John Taylor Gatto, who I do not agree with completely on some things - there's not much I can say to it that I haven't said before...

But I will say this, you know that documentary I mention here and there ?
http://www.thewaronkids.com/

Well, let's just say that's Part ONE: wait till you see what's coming up behind it - I warned Cevin he's prolly gonna get lynched, cause the second starts a foray into what one might call my "turf", philosophically.

-F

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 9:09 PM

Shiny, lots of interesting takes on the subject. I'll try to address some of them from my perspective to the best of my ability, but I'm half drunk and just got back from salsa dancing. I believe teachers deserve a good drink more than most folks, but we gotta be smart enough to have it in a county where we're not workin'

Concerning the two hour thing, In my experience that cannot be farther from the truth. If you are lucky you can get 45 minutes out of a child before the are hopelessly unfocused and easily distracted. However, if you mean 2 hours out of the whole school day (with breaks every now and then) will stick, that's certainly possible. The last class of the day has always been by far the worst for me, whether it was general music, band or reading (though this was in a middle school). Classes near lunch time generally did well.

I think the best educations of any kind are well rounded. I've known teachers with Bachelor's and teachers with master's, and the master's degree teachers were more often worse than better. I wonder if the more specialized focus of a master's or Doctorate make's them less flexible and worse teachers as a result. I have no grad school aspirations myself, seems like more work, more debt (though possible more pay if hired) and I want to be a good teacher. Most master's or higher teachers I've met suck!

Also, few college professors (education wise least-a-ways) seem to have any idea what the real world is like outside of the University.

I also like the comment about learning to learn, or teaching oneself. That's something I try to develop in all my students. I'll have some of the students play/sing/whatever something and then I'll ask the rest of the class to tell me what they did well, what they could do better, and how to make it better (I avoid negative statements like "what was wrong?"). It's not as easy as it sounds, and tends to take a while, but hopefully I'm planting some kind of seed that will help them figure out things for themselves in the future. In my opinion, the best thing a teacher can do is make themselves obsolete. That's the true measure of good teaching.

I'm wary of any computerized based instruction for multiple reasons. The first of which is how will the student ask questions? Have you ever tried to use the help button? Useless, confusing, makes you want to throw the ruttin' machine out the gorram window! I also think children would relate better to other children and adults than to machines. I've got nothing more than a hunch on this angle, but I suspect subtle psychological... pheromoneal... instinctual... grammatical... cues make it easier to learn from a person than a machine (not to mention the whole bit about being able to ask questions).

Also, the student might think they've got it right but a good teacher can tell what's wrong, why it's wrong, and how to make it right. I'm not entire sure a computer can reliably cover the first one, let alone all three.

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Sunday, November 21, 2010 3:12 AM

Happy

Lots of opinions, interesting lack of fans of the education system

First 2 hours of the school day. My mom agrees with you on last class of the day. She said it's a disaster.

There's two things that define a teacher: 1) How much they know, and 2) How well they communicate. If they're lacking in knowledge, they have to learn to communicate that lack of knowledge and how to get it than to communicate misinformation

Your question about computers answers itself: Computer system students would ask questions just like you asked that one, on a forum full of peers.

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Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Peru?

Yes. I am an American currently living in Peru.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
I'm wary of any computerized based instruction for multiple reasons.

I don't think computer-based instruction is meant to be used alone, at least, not at first.

As a homeschooler living abroad, I rely almost exclusively on computer-based instruction via the internet, ebooks, CD roms, and DVDs. Real books are heavy and difficult to transport. But my kids don't use them on their own. I am there to answer questions, pose questions, oversee their learning experience. That's my job.

As they get older, they become more independent with their computer-based instruction. My daughter googled "cursive" the other day on her own, and started practicing cursive writing from the internet. She's been spending hours of her "free time" googling pictures of rocks and gems because she likes geology. That is good. It is part of slowly working myself out of a job.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:30 AM

KANEMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Peru?
Yes. I am an American currently living in Peru.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

Do you believe in ancient aliens?

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Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
But I will say this, you know that documentary I mention here and there ?
http://www.thewaronkids.com/

Very cool. Let us know when part 2 comes out, will ya?

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:33 AM