Thoughts on Education

[phoult37]

Has anyone thought about education for education's sake alone? Like being educated makes your a more rounded, developed, fuller human being? Sure experience is going to be the best educator, but our experience is quite limited really if you think about it. I can't go back in time and relive history; I can't travel to the rainforest and study its complex ecosystem; I can't travel all over the world and learn about every culture through hands-on experience; etc etc. Through schooling and education we are exposed to an unlimited amount of knowledge.

I agree some educators are better or worse than others. I also agree that schools have their problems. But I can't hardly understand how anyone in a modernized Western country (US, GB, etc) can complain about how poor their education system is if they compare it to countries in South America, Africa, and even parts of Asia. The fact that we can sit on this forum and have an intelligent conversation about Education demonstrates that we are educated. Whether you want to contribute that fact to the efforts of your teachers or to your own merit is up to you. But my opinion, you learned a lot more in school than you think you did.

That's what they'd like you to think. It really turns you into a person who doesn't know what the hell you want to do with your life until you're in college, when you're pretty much stranded.

I'm one of "them" so naturally I'm going to disagree with you on this one. Many colleges offer general education courses so that you can explore different areas of study, thus allowing you to decide what you want to "do with the rest of your life." Furthermore, what would you do if you didn't go to school/college? You would still have no direction in your life, but in addition you wouldn't have any training either. At least with a college degree you have some training that can get you an above minimum wage job.

Anyone who thinks school/college is a waste of time, please tell me what you could be doing that is more productive?

[Frost Mage]

Hmmm, maybe discovering who you are and doing what you love to do in life?

[Lindai]

I don't want to get political because I would have to start at the very basics of modern society, the fact that money indeed makes the world go around and that it shouldn't be as such. I just want to say this : Less mindlessly learning junk off by heart; More actual learning.

[Frost Mage]

And even if it wasn't based on memory, it's the wrong stuff to be teaching them. How about kids learn about what they're interested and passionate about, instead of what the government thinks is what they need to know. If you go to college learning about what you want to learn about, with twelve years of education under your belt, will be infinitely more beneficial than if you had no prior experience in that field. Sure, that doesn't mean you don't need to learn some English and Maths, but unless you're into those subjects, they should place you in where you will enjoy the information you're absorbing.

[Wolfie]

And even if it wasn't based on memory, it's the wrong stuff to be teaching them. How about kids learn about what they're interested and passionate about, instead of what the government thinks is what they need to know.

Becusse how many kids hate: math, englsih, SS, history, computer scieice - eter thign here- and hate school in genreal?

many many kids dont like to learn at all should we let them do that?


Should math be done? up to when?
How about English or the other langues?
how about historty?
science?

If you go to college learning about what you want to learn about, with twelve years of education under your belt, will be infinitely more beneficial than if you had no prior experience in that field.

How ever how will you know what you like if you dont try? I did not like reading in til FAR FAR much later in to my schooling, if I had taken the "Easy" way and did what I want I would of missed it.

Sure, that doesn't mean you don't need to learn some English and Maths, but unless you're into those subjects, they should place you in where you will enjoy the information you're absorbing.

Why should they? Should schools bend to evrey ones wilms or should they do whats best for the futrue?
Yes, you may never use -enter math thing here- but it is [&@%!] to know, like I may never write a letter again should I not focse on my writting?

are there somethign that can be changed? yes but I dont think of any you said I agree with

amd my school time SUCKED as you can see by my grammar, if giving the choice I would of kept on doing this and doing this, without grammar is that the future we want?

[Lindai]

@Frostmage

Well, give an example of a college course that you have not prepared for at all through your high-school education. Here, the only preparation we have for programming/computer science is Maths but I know that programming is a school subject in other countries.
Medicine-Biology, Chemistry
Literature/Drama etc.-English,possibly music
Philosophy-Religion(somewhat)
Commerce and business orientated courses-Business studies, Accounting, Economics
I think that the curriculum has you relatively prepared for the vast majority of courses that colleges, ITs and universities offer. You can't really expect the curriculum to have you covered for every course out there. In fact, I believe that the only subjects you genuinely need to study are Maths and English. In the university I'm in, they only assume you have knowledge of Maths and English for many courses. Every thing else is taught with the assumption that you've never done it before, and so, is taught from the ground up.
We COULD have a better curriculum that prepares you exceptionally well for college courses, but that would require a lot more teachers which turn would require a lot more of that craptastic concept we call "money" that is clearly limiting worldwide social and intellectual progress.

[Dean]

Money isn't the problem, it's peoples greed. Look at all the teachers in England going on strike because of their pension being cut a bit... funny thing is they still have one of the best in the country even after the cuts. Why can't they understand the country is in debt so everyone has to pay the price?

You could argue that money is the one making them that way, but remove it and you would still have the same thing happening... but instead of wanting money, they would want more trade goods for their 'services' instead. The reason I used trade goods as the alternative is because it's such an old concept, older then any other form of currency I would think, and everything is kind of based around that idea.

[Lindai]

And it's modern society and economics that breeds this greed. Acquire, acquire, acquire. The need to compete for money(or it's equivalence in "trade goods") when there's clearly enough to go around for everybody. But we all know how much money can be made by limiting the supply of goods and in turn forcing people to compete for this limited supply. The controlled sale of diamonds, for example.

We're a tad off topic now. Said I wouldn't delve into politics...

[Narzul]

Hmmm, maybe discovering who you are and doing what you love to do in life?

Feel free to do that once you've earned enough money to indulge in such luxuries. Education, especially college & university etc, prepares you for productivity, not happiness.

[dzio]

I have a pretty unique perspective on this - I'm 28, but I'm still in college (dropped one thing, worked for a while, went back to school), so I study with people 8 years younger than me. On top of that I give private English lessons, most to adults but I have a 12-year-old now as well.

And when I look at these people... The younger they are the more scared I am. I'm much too young to go all "the youth of today" on you, but what I see is really alarming. It's not that the kids don't want to learn - I didn't want to learn either, it's normal to want to have fun instead of reading about 15th century politics or the digestive tract of a fish. It's that they are not curious about anything, at least not very deeply. It's more of a passing interest, a quick glance, and they move on. It kind of [&@%!] me off - this is the first generation in the history of humanity that has almost unlimited access to all the knowledge and culture of the world. And they say "meh", go get drunk, and later post unfocused photos of their passed out friends on FB while skimming through some gossip site for pictures of Lady Gaga's newest dress (or something. I'm not a cool kid, I don't know what they look at). I want to grab them and shake them and scream in their faces. "Look, here's the world! The entire freakin world, right there, and you're watching Jersey Shore, you little tw*t!"

And their entitlement drives me nuts. It makes me want to get a job in HR, just so that I could crush their snotty stunted souls during job interviews, when they come to the startling realization that the Real World doesn't give a rat's a** about how cool their friends think they are, it's not going to give them anything they haven't earned. And the only people who want to socialise with a total dushebag they spent all their childhoods becoming are not worth talking to.

Wow, I'm not bitter at all...

[phoult37]

Dzio--take a step back, breath, and count to 10

But for real I agree with you. Students feel entitled to their education and as a result take it for granted. They don't realize the precious gift that an education has to offer.

As for curriculum, I don't think we can leave it up to kids to decide what they want to learn. Me, I would have wanted to study war history and physical education the whole time. Ironically, I'm going to be certified as a high school English teacher in about a year, but I didn't realize I wanted to teach or that I even liked English until I was a senior in high school (17/18 yrs old). If I had spent my whole early schooling doing just what I wanted to do, I wouldn't be prepared at all for my current profession. My point here is that sometimes schools know whats best for their students more so than the students themselves know whats best for them. And schools try to teach subjects that will be the most beneficial for the most students. Sure they may screw up a bit here and there, but for the most part I think schools are successful overall (at least here in the states, I can't really speak for schools elsewhere).

Final note, if you don't like what is being taught in schools, call your government representative, whether state or national. You could also try voting for candidates who have an education policy/education goals you agree with. Often times schools/teachers have the skills/subjects we want to teach (because we think they'll be the most beneficial to students) but we have to change our curriculum to match state/national standards. I'm not saying standards are bad, all I'm saying is that schools have less freedom to teach what they want than you might think.

(I would like to say this is quite a thoughtful discussion, everyone, and I'm thouroughly enjoying it )

[dzio]

Yeah, I know, sorry for the rant.

I agree that letting kids choose is not a good idea, at least not when they're really young. They would all pick Basic Cartoon Watching and Advanced Manipulating Your Parents Into Buying You A New iPhone.

I guess the problem is not the schools, it's the parents. If the kid starting his/her education hasn't figured out that's it's fun to know things and that some of them are interesting it's going to be insanely hard to convince them to give a crap. I've been teaching on and off for the last 10 years and the most important lesson I had to learn was that you can't force people to learn. If they really don't want to, it's impossible - you can go blue in the face talking at them and drive yourself into the ground finding stuff they might find interesting (ha, wishfull thinking), tricking them into learning by playing games, explaining how they can use it to have more fun... And if that attitude is something they found at home (and it's supported at home) it's even harder to break through...

[Avron the S'wit]

To start our first conversation here, did you ever go to college, Avron? You have a job in literature, correct? Anyway, how much of your K-12 education are you using on a day-to-day basis?

I am so, so late to this conversation, but let me go back and answer your question, FrostMage.

I did go to college; I graduated from a four year university with a bachelors of the arts in 2010. Almost everyone knows I studied linguistics (and cultural anthropology, but that's so commonplace to me I forget to mention it). I was the very first individual in my family to do so, and one of the few to graduate from high school as well. It was not easy, but to me it was worth it. I worked in journalism (as a copy editor) and I've taught ESL classes while going to school, but currently I have a job that is in marketing. At this moment in time I'm actually reapplying to universities to get my masters and PhD so that I can do research.

How much of my K-12 education am I using on a daily basis? Well, I write every day; I learnt that in kindergarten and finally accomplished it sometime around middle school. I communicate with people every day, and I learnt how to structure a proper argument (commonly known as the "educated conversation") during those years as well. And I've been able to apply a wide range of knowledge to everyday situations, particularly the sciences, literature, and social studies - and that doesn't even mention all the social skills I learnt.

The educational system - and I speak for the only one I know, which would be the US - is hardly, hardly perfect. I will tell you I spent four years in college with a lot of people who were dumber than rocks and couldn't think outside of the box if their life depended on it, but therein lies the problem: schools don't teach you to think out of the box. Your post is pretty obvious of this. Sure, you can learn a lot about a great variety of things - but the trick isn't learning it to pass a test, it's about learning it to use in a real life situation, and that's where a lot of people come up short. Even in my field, which is language related and something that we all use every single day, there were a great deal of students who were just stumped when it came to applying the things they knew about their mind, society, and language abilities and making it into something real. It's half the students' faults and half the teachers'. A lot of teachers are pressured to teach to a test, because it is the markings on a standardized test that greater institutions use to gauge just how a teacher is doing. If a lot of kids fail, it's the teacher's fault. That's not really fair. Some kids fail because they don't care; some kids fail because they didn't have the right skills early on and aren't prepared; some kids fail for other reasons. But teachers don't have time to help students get to the bottom of the whys for those issues, and the cycle keeps going.

You don't need a classroom to learn; that's very true. But a classroom is important, because it is a place where you can be surrounded by peers and in the presence of someone with a great, vast amount of knowledge (the teacher) who can, if you are interested, introduce you to new knowledge. And with new knowledge, you are supposed to look at your world in a whole new way. The opinions, questions, and challenges of your classmates are there to get you to think about things from a variety of angles and to get you to ask questions - and to get answers. Everything you learn is supposed to help you reorient yourself in our big world and understand the way it works, the same way the news is intended to help you identify with people across the globe. Education isn't just about the book; it's about what you do when you've finished reading the book. But no one is going to teach this to you. You have to come across that yourself.

Basically, like John Adams said, there are two types of education: one should teach us how to make a living; the other, how to live.

PS - Do I know a good thread topic when I see one or what? *brofist*

[dzio]

Avron, I would send this to our Minister of Education, but I'm not sure the idiot understands English...

And I agree with what you said about applying the knowledge. Not just in the sense of being able to use it in real life situations - it's a big problem even in the classroom setting. It's especially easy to notice with maths and languages - you need to learn the abstract concept and be able to apply it to real situations and that's a huge problem for many kids. They have one sentence and are supposed to write another one using the same formula and they have absolutely no idea what to do. They don't see that there is a "recipe" for a correct answer written clear as day one line above. And they don't know that they should look for it - it's like for them it's something you magically know, just like that, and not something that has rules and steps that can be understood. It's really hard for me to understand this way of thinking (or not thinking, as the case may be) and help in a situation like that, because my brain doesn't work like that. When I see this kind of problem (a sentence in Spanish, a geometry excercise, an argument showing the logical steps leading to conclusions) I automatically try to take it apart, examine the pieces and see how they fit together. I don't even think about it and it doesn't even occur to me that I could just leave it be if I don't get it straight away. There are very few things that you can understand without any effort and most of them are not among the ones really worth knowing...

[everar]

Interesting thoughts. "Modern Education" has two parts to it currently, yet I think most simplify it to one extreme or the other:
1) Book-knowledge, boxy preparation for an industrial revolution-era workforce, heirarchical thinking and pragmatic specialization and expertise-driven
2) Problem solving, creativity, working in groups, discussion and debate, making broad solutions work by reimagining things or repurposing/upcycling old things and thoughts

Simultaneously on the individual level, you're dealing with the same things:
1) Pursuit of knowledge-based areas of interest, specializing skills based on personal vocations, knowledge building, information-sponging
2) Ego building/dissolution, healthy fluctuations of pride/humility, well-being and health, emotional intelligence, abstracting all of your knowledge into a more holistic wisdom

Education can always use improvement, and I think problem areas are discovered by starting from this dualistic perspective with respect to the institutions and the individuals.

[dzio]

"Modern Education" has two parts to it currently, yet I think most simplify it to one extreme or the other.

I think problem areas are discovered by starting from this dualistic perspective with respect to the institutions and the individuals.

Which doesn't make any sense, since one without the other is about as useful as a bicycle to a slaughterfish. Knowing a subject in depth won't do you any good if you are unable to communicate what you know or use it in creative ways to solve problems. Being great at working with people and debating won't help if you don't have anything to say because you don't know anything. (Yes, I'm skipping over all of fundamental science, which is very important, but we're talking about schoolchildren here, not MIT professors).

I don't know, maybe I'm oversimplyfying it too much or being naive, but I honestly don't see why this is such a huge problem. You need to get people interested in things and learning more about those things and then teach them how to use what they've got and where to go for more. End of story.

[phoult37]

PS - Do I know a good thread topic when I see one or what? *brofist*

And they say gamers just sit around and play games all day...WRONG!! We're here solving the world's problems

[dzio]

We should start threads for "world economy", "global warming", "unemployment among young people" and "healthcare system" and in a few years we'll be the first internet forum to ever receive Nobel Peace Prize.

[everar]

"Modern Education" has two parts to it currently, yet I think most simplify it to one extreme or the other.

I think problem areas are discovered by starting from this dualistic perspective with respect to the institutions and the individuals.

Which doesn't make any sense, since one without the other is about as useful as a bicycle to a slaughterfish. Knowing a subject in depth won't do you any good if you are unable to communicate what you know or use it in creative ways to solve problems. Being great at working with people and debating won't help if you don't have anything to say because you don't know anything. (Yes, I'm skipping over all of fundamental science, which is very important, but we're talking about schoolchildren here, not MIT professors).

I don't know, maybe I'm oversimplyfying it too much or being naive, but I honestly don't see why this is such a huge problem. You need to get people interested in things and learning more about those things and then teach them how to use what they've got and where to go for more. End of story.

Erm, I agree with mostly everything you say so I don't think our points are mutually-exclusive, but it's dangerous to look to something like education and say there are no problems. There are some huge issues, ignored by the US Secretary of Education every year. ~60-80% of federal student aid goes toward student loans for for-profit schools, which are essentially pyramid schemes (if i avoid explaining several paragraphs about it). It has been this way for 5-10 years.

Due to socioeconomic disparities and varied leadership, some schools are terrifyingly useless in performing their function. Others, like Cornell University, are deplorable for one's well being with high suicide rates, despite being rather good in on the side of book-knowledge.

[Avron the S'wit]

Due to socioeconomic disparities and varied leadership, some schools are terrifyingly useless in performing their function. Others, like Cornell University, are deplorable for one's well being with high suicide rates, despite being rather good in on the side of book-knowledge.

High suicide rates - and other mental issues - at high ranking universities are more of a sociocultural issue. Kids spend years beating themselves and others up to be the very best of the best, then are put into a school full of the best of the bests, and they go a little crazy under the pressure. It gets to you eventually. They need to realize that education is not a rat race and there shouldn't be any pressure to do it. Really, I've known people who were #1 or #2 at my high school and, honestly, they're very book smart but they can't use the knowledge for anything - and they all bulk under the pressure. I graduated college with several honors and in very good standing while working full time and supporting myself through it. If I bulked at the pressure, I wouldn't have graduated! Kids who are well off don't tend to grow up learning how to juggle that. They're also the ones most likely to graduate the system. (Sweeping generalization, but more or less slightly true.)

If you really want to learn about the issues in the US school system, you can always check out Kozol's Savage Inequalities (a book still relevant today) or organizations like Teach For America, which mean well despite their very narrow depiction of who can volunteer to help. Lots of problems without a lot of solutions. It's very sad.

PS - Do I know a good thread topic when I see one or what? *brofist*

And they say gamers just sit around and play games all day...WRONG!! We're here solving the world's problems

Like I always say: we all come for the TES games, and we hang around for the company. Lots of UESP members are above and beyond just video gamers - and they're smart, too! Just got to shake it out of them.

[dzio]

Erm, I agree with mostly everything you say so I don't think our points are mutually-exclusive, but it's dangerous to look to something like education and say there are no problems.

Hm, I guess I should have been more precise. I was agreeing with you all the way, not trying to present an opposing argument. I didn't mean that there are no problems and we should all be happy. I just meant that the shift from dualistic perspective to a more holistic approach is such a clear and basic idea that it's hard for me to understand why so many people stick to the "either/or" way of thinking.

[everar]

Ahhh! I think this is a semantic thingy then. I was thinking about dualism as a way to approach the holism. Or gestalt, or whatnot. Many words and approaches, lol.

I think I wrote the 1/2 dualism to describe that many people were ignoring one side or the other. One side of the entirety. I'm a bit loopy sometimes and typing this from work, but it all makes sense now hahah

[MasterRokon]

Ive learned alot in school, things that help me alot, i still got a year to go, but ive taken classes that prepare me for my college level education in game design, in my highschool and middle school they would atleast 5 times a year ask you what you wanna do and check up to see if you still want that career or if you made any head way towards said career outside of school. Since i was in 6th grade i knew and was preparing to be a game designer, only until recently have i thought of another career, culinary cheif. Also in middle schook we were taken personality sorta test to get a idea of the kind of work we most enjoy or would most enjoy.

[POMC S117]

My thoughts on education? It's needed. Without education we'd have no doctors, no police, no army, no fire service, no government clerks, no phones, no TV, no TES, no cars, nothing. It allows you to have prospects of a job - unless you live somewhere like Somalia or the USA (believe it or not but 1 in 5 people are jobless there).

[dzio]

I suppose those who are young and Spanish aren't very happy right now either (something between 30 and 40% of young people can't find work there).

I've read a pretty interesting article somewhere lately (sorry, don't remember where) about how the world basically screwed over the young generation. First the grownups told us we needed to go get a degree and it would get us good jobs - otherwise we'd end up washing dishes or driving garbare trucks. And then when times got tough they say "You entitled little brat, can't get a job you spent years (and thousands of dollars) preparing for? Go wash dishes! In my days we weren't afraid of hard work!" So first we were told that good education would save us from "bad" jobs and only losers end up doing them, and now we're told to shut up and be happy that we can get even those "bad" jobs. We're forced into a situation we were conditioned to consider shameful and demeaning.