Education

[Deandra]

You do not know how many times I have seen people write something like Jesus's. It looks like it's wrong and it is wrong.

Funny you should give that particular example.

NOTE: Although names ending in s or an s sound are not required to have the second s added in possessive form, it is preferred.

So... I guess what bothers you is people referring to multiple people named Jesus and using an apostrophe in the plural? I would get really annoyed by that, too

[POMC S117]

I'm fine with it in speech but it doesn't look nice to me. Jesus's or Jesus'? And a grammar book that I have says that it is Jesus'.

[Norroen Dyrd]

I personally find drawing diagrams of sentences very helpful. It might look redundant when you are dealing with simple examples, but when you come across a sentence that occupies half a page, it helps a lot to understand the logical links between different clauses, the types and degrees of coordination and subordination and so on and so forth. When you have a dozen clauses beginning with 'which' and all stuffed into one sentence, a diagram will help determine which 'which' relates to which part of the sentence, if you pardon my pleonasm. Moreover, training yourself to seek out logical connections within a sentence is useful when it later comes to organizing your own written speech, especially when you are dealing with a foreign language.

[Kestral]

Education really depends on where you get it from, because not all schools are created equally. The biggest school in town is a dumping ground of up to 3,500 students. Of a senior class of 800-1,000, only about 200 of them will attend their graduation ceremony because only 200 have higher than a 2.0GPA. Compared to my school, which has a 99% graduation rate, that big school seems like a pile of crap bound in concrete, while my school looks like the School of Athens.

There are problems on the American education system on many levels. Students, teachers, funding, and culture's outlook on education. What popular music star sponsors getting a good education? What popular music star instead, sponsors going out partying all night? There's not enough focus placed on education, and it gives students an anti-school idea from a very young age. They don't read enough, and not enough even read at their level.

Then there are the teachers. Now, a union isn't a bad thing, but it is particularly when they let horrible teachers continue to teach. There was a case where a man exposed horrific mal-treatment of autistic students by a Wisconsin (I think) school. You know who was fired, after it was discovered that the entire staff partook in it? The aide. Not the teacher. One of the few ways to get a teacher removed is to make a big media deal out of it, otherwise they stay in. There are good teachers, and the teacher is one of the most vital aspects to learning, but there are also bad teachers.

Then funding is bad. That last federal administration to lend an hard focus to education was the Kennedy Administration. How does a country do that? The last focus on education was 50 years ago, and it took the cold war to even get to it.

And then there's students. There are just bad students. Hopeless students. You can't avoid; they are students who don't care about succeeding in life because they'll phase out in a gang or think that they have figured it out already. Then there are those who just don't know. I've met quite a few graduating seniors, who, when they got their diploma, didn't know where to go on from there.

So, in the end, Education is a mixed can of worms. Some places its good, most places it isn't. If it's a case of social Darwinism, that seems to be it, because the only students who are going to do anything with this system are the few students who would've accomplished those things anyways.

[Frost Mage]

According to my dad, the tedium of sentence structure, "expands your mind". I don't listen to my dad.

[DorostheConqueror]

Guys, guys, please! All this criticism! There's clearly been a misunderstanding here about the role of education; once you understand it's purpose, you can see that the system is working as designed.

The modern education system- more specifically, the mass education system, state-directed schools to which children of the lower and middle classes are sent, against their will, at their parent's expense via taxation- isn't there to churn out little Einsteins. You're not there to learn how to think critically and solve deep problems, uncover the mysteries of the world and advance the boundaries of human knowledge; if that's what you're looking for, that's why they make private schools. Go to Yale. No, mass education exists to produce citizens. It's there to teach children the importance of getting up in the morning, doing rote production for a set period of time, and accomplishing simple tasks that might be found in a generalized work environment. It's there to teach children to obey the law, acknowledge the proper authorities, and respect certain cultural traditions deemed important to mass unity. Since the mid 20th century, it's served as a fertile playground for members of the upper class academic-caste who want to experiment with social engineering on a grand scale. Above all, its goal is to create productive workers who can pay taxes; that's the payoff on the investment. Remember, education is expensive, and the state can only extort so much money from the people living under it's shadow; if the state is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in money on you that COULD have been spent on corporate bailouts, cruise missiles, and high three figure Congressional salaries, you'd better pay off.

And it works! Are you learning as much as you can? No. Have you been equipped with the tools of a proper classical education, as enjoyed by the educated classes of previous eras? Not in the least. Will you have to use algebra and trig and your extensive knowledge of the periodic table later on down the road? Probably not. But that's not the point. The point is to provide society with a doctrinal safety net and make sure you, your friends, and everyone else who isn't rich or lucky enough to afford a private education, can fit smoothy into the system.

[Oathbreaker]

I know that's what it's for I just disagree with the concept that the education provided and the preparation given has to be so sub-par just because it's a mass-production engine.

Also, while it might work for the most part in the past decade or three it's been churning out less compatible product than I think the engineers realize. It's not necessarily through fault of the system in place, but those same people expecting the final results to go out and be tax paying citizens aren't doing much to give them the means needed to pay taxes in the first place. That's to say nothing of the students that just don't or refuse to learn some of those concepts such as authority recognition.

And to circle-jerk a bit, none of that is any excuse for our mass-education system to be any less thorough than the systems in place in Europe and Japan.



-edit-

And to touch on the grammar diagrams a bit: it's taught that way as a means of teaching all students, including those with learning disabilities. It may seem tedious, but the only other option is to give spoken concept or written examples, neither of which are nearly as effective as simply treating it like a math equation (math *is* the universal language, after all- and it earns that versatility). When you teach the students the basic formula they have the means by which to make sure all of their future endeavors in the subject are correct. Without those diagrams not only is it harder for any given student to learn it, but it becomes nearly impossible to teach to students with even minor dyslexia.

[Avron the S'wit]

You make a drawing of the sentence.

Spoiler:

I created that on Paint, by the way.

We do this in linguistics with syntax to show word rules and traces. I never understood the grammar school part.

I'll come back and share my view on education another day. I think you all know how I feel, since I'm going into higher education at one of the top 5 teaching schools...

By the way, you should read the article Deandra posted. It's fabulous and really also explains a lot of how I feel on the subject perfectly. Great piece! I wish he had offered more ways to change the system, but I hear the author also wrote a book, so perhaps it is in there. Fantastic all around.

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

You make a drawing of the sentence.

Spoiler:

I created that on Paint, by the way.

We do this in linguistics with syntax to show word rules and traces. I never understood the grammar school part.

I see the relation. I mean, I can see how it helps with recognizing the connection between different dependent clauses, subordinating conjunctions, proverbial clause, blah blah blah. I'm just not sure of the need for it.

[Avron the S'wit]

At the grammar school level, it's to help teach the parts of speech, I'm pretty sure, although I learnt them better in foreign language studies. There are practical reasons at the linguistics level, since it helps us sort of create a road map for how rules get applied in the brain, but that's a different beast entirely. (Those headers - NP, VP, PP, etc. - stand for noun phrase, verb phrase, and so on and so forth, so it's really the same idea to an extent.)

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

The teachers teach us the parts of a sentence with that, like subject, predicate, infinitive, conjunction, direct/indirect object, blah.

[Will Zurmacht]

There's clearly been a misunderstanding here about the role of education; once you understand it's purpose, you can see that the system is working as designed.

Magnifique analysis. Modern industrial society simply must have that basically literate army of worker drones (have to be at least able to read their checkbooks/information manuals & panels/warning labels & road signs) which is habituated to hierarchies of power, tolerant of drudgery, and accepting of the work-for-reward paradigm. Public education provides these basic foundations in addition to offering a shot at higher education for the fraction that actually warrants it. I think middle and working class pub. ed. beneficiaries are getting a great deal compared to the shake given to workers of previous eras.

[Velothi]

You're not there to learn how to think critically and solve deep problems, uncover the mysteries of the world and advance the boundaries of human knowledge; if that's what you're looking for, that's why they make private schools.

Or do it yourself - Private School is a poor example to try the 'boundaries of human knowledge'.

You learn that through experience, you learn that all through experience.

And even then - nobody has a perfect idea of these boundaries.

For example - you notice how people who write about poverty, destitution and depression are those who usually experienced it. Like Dostoevsky, or Gogol, or Chekov, or Steinbeck.

Could school help? Sure. But even then - put private schoolers alone they will only know this perfect little idea of how to do things. But in the process they'll screw themselves over.

Like in that one book about private school children escaping world War three and leaving the rest of us to die a painfully horrible death..

[DorostheConqueror]

Magnifique analysis. Modern industrial society simply must have that basically literate army of worker drones (have to be at least able to read their checkbooks/information manuals & panels/warning labels & road signs) which is habituated to hierarchies of power, tolerant of drudgery, and accepting of the work-for-reward paradigm. Public education provides these basic foundations in addition to offering a shot at higher education for the fraction that actually warrants it. I think middle and working class pub. ed. beneficiaries are getting a great deal compared to the shake given to workers of previous eras.

I'd just like to add that we shouldn't get too carried away with praising public education per say, at least not without a number of caveats. The peasants of the postmodern West are without a doubt better off than their kind has ever been, I think that much we can all agree on, but they owe this prosperity almost entirely to rational liberalism, free market capitalism, and industrial technology. Technology created by the private sector, the 1%; talented elites informed by the Protestant ethic and driven by self-interest, operating within a highly competitive, deregulated, meritocratic environment. It's the untaxed 1% that should be given the lions share of thanks for the bounty we enjoy!

The real "benefits" that our mass education system give to the lower classes are neither tangible, nor strictly practical, and ultimately don't provide much if anything in the way of objective, quantifiable results (especially now that our industrial technology has grown so strong, that machines can accomplish even highly technical operations better than modestly trained human workers, while our labor laws and tax policies have grown so draconian and bloated that for most companies, it's actually better to outsource labor to parts of the world NOT burdened by an "educated" workforce). True, public education can help to identify members of the lower orders suited for proper education, and for that we should but thankful, but real rags-to-riches, self-made-man educational stories are few and exceptional. Rather, the benefits of mass education are primarily psychological in nature. By indoctrinating citizens from an early age, the ruling political caste not only finds it that much easier to exploit it's victims, it's victims actually come to expect, desire, even demand, further control from on high. The medieval peasant was left largely on his own, so when a lord started causing too much trouble, the peasant was aware his way of life was in danger, and soon enough there would be a revolt. At best, the men in control of society could rely on the peasants to spend an hour a day, one day a week, being sermonized and indoctrinated by a separate body that at once repudiated and rivaled the secular power edifice's claims to temporal authority- the Church, which (despite the boogey tales the modern secular priesthood likes to scare us with) is almost completely dead today. Now, the men in control of society can rely on peasants spending six to eight hours a day, five days a week, for twelve (or more!) of their most impressionable/ least sensible years, being sermonized by agents operating directly under the orthodox approval of the state. Simply put, if religion was the opiate of the masses, state-sponsored education is the crack cocaine!

[Oathbreaker]

Magnifique analysis. Modern industrial society simply must have that basically literate army of worker drones (have to be at least able to read their checkbooks/information manuals & panels/warning labels & road signs) which is habituated to hierarchies of power, tolerant of drudgery, and accepting of the work-for-reward paradigm. Public education provides these basic foundations in addition to offering a shot at higher education for the fraction that actually warrants it. I think middle and working class pub. ed. beneficiaries are getting a great deal compared to the shake given to workers of previous eras.

I'd just like to add that we shouldn't get too carried away with praising public education per say, at least not without a number of caveats. The peasants of the postmodern West are without a doubt better off than their kind has ever been, I think that much we can all agree on, but they owe this prosperity almost entirely to rational liberalism, free market capitalism, and industrial technology. Technology created by the private sector, the 1%; talented elites informed by the Protestant ethic and driven by self-interest, operating within a highly competitive, deregulated, meritocratic environment. It's the untaxed 1% that should be given the lions share of thanks for the bounty we enjoy!

The real "benefits" that our mass education system give to the lower classes are neither tangible, nor strictly practical, and ultimately don't provide much if anything in the way of objective, quantifiable results (especially now that our industrial technology has grown so strong, that machines can accomplish even highly technical operations better than modestly trained human workers, while our labor laws and tax policies have grown so draconian and bloated that for most companies, it's actually better to outsource labor to parts of the world NOT burdened by an "educated" workforce). True, public education can help to identify members of the lower orders suited for proper education, and for that we should but thankful, but real rags-to-riches, self-made-man educational stories are few and exceptional. Rather, the benefits of mass education are primarily psychological in nature. By indoctrinating citizens from an early age, the ruling political caste not only finds it that much easier to exploit it's victims, it's victims actually come to expect, desire, even demand, further control from on high. The medieval peasant was left largely on his own, so when a lord started causing too much trouble, the peasant was aware his way of life was in danger, and soon enough there would be a revolt. At best, the men in control of society could rely on the peasants to spend an hour a day, one day a week, being sermonized and indoctrinated by a separate body that at once repudiated and rivaled the secular power edifice's claims to temporal authority- the Church, which (despite the boogey tales the modern secular priesthood likes to scare us with) is almost completely dead today. Now, the men in control of society can rely on peasants spending six to eight hours a day, five days a week, for twelve (or more!) of their most impressionable/ least sensible years, being sermonized by agents operating directly under the orthodox approval of the state. Simply put, if religion was the opiate of the masses, state-sponsored education is the crack cocaine!

One caveat here.

It's the untaxed 1% talented elites informed by the Protestant ethic

Religion on its own as a means of education is certainly more or less dead but its control over the peasants and politics is more powerful than ever. Once the masses move past the state-sponsored cocaine Religious guidance via politicians becomes heroin. "Separation of Church and State" is something taught in the mass education during indoctrination and yet it goes ignored by most for... some reason I can't articulately identify. I'll be veering off-topic by saying more and if it came up in the politics thread someone tell me because I'd like to know if it's there or not before I wade into the fray.

[The Loner]

I'm fine with it in speech but it doesn't look nice to me. Jesus's or Jesus'? And a grammar book that I have says that it is Jesus'.

Odd, just yesterday my teacher was saying the exact same thing, and I agree.

[POMC S117]

I'd say education fights against ignorance. That is why we are educated. To stop ignorance.

[Spiney]

I'm currently in college, going for a Bachelor of Interactive Media with a major in Games Design.

And right now, Frost's view of education in the OP is utter bollocks, naive and just downright arrogant (Which is to be expected as he's homes schooled and only 13).

It's like the laws of conservation of energy; you only get back what you put in. And if you only mingle around, scraping at the bare minimum you'll get the minimum satisfaction in return. It's those who put in their all, do extra things, try new things on top of what's already given who get the most out of their earliest education. The ones who become school captain, head of sports teams and so on are the ones who are getting the most out of education.

And there are plenty of things you can't learn on your own. All knowledge is derivative and the best of it comes from experts. Going to QANTM college has allowed me to listen to guest lectures from industry leaders and talk to other people striving for the same thing as me. And all of this was optional stuff; giving me a better understanding of the industry I'm going into and also budding new ideas of my own.

So yeah, stay in school kids and put plenty of your own initiative in.

[Jeff]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TylvUGJIi_w

[DorostheConqueror]

Magnifique analysis. Modern industrial society simply must have that basically literate army of worker drones (have to be at least able to read their checkbooks/information manuals & panels/warning labels & road signs) which is habituated to hierarchies of power, tolerant of drudgery, and accepting of the work-for-reward paradigm. Public education provides these basic foundations in addition to offering a shot at higher education for the fraction that actually warrants it. I think middle and working class pub. ed. beneficiaries are getting a great deal compared to the shake given to workers of previous eras.

I'd just like to add that we shouldn't get too carried away with praising public education per say, at least not without a number of caveats. The peasants of the postmodern West are without a doubt better off than their kind has ever been, I think that much we can all agree on, but they owe this prosperity almost entirely to rational liberalism, free market capitalism, and industrial technology. Technology created by the private sector, the 1%; talented elites informed by the Protestant ethic and driven by self-interest, operating within a highly competitive, deregulated, meritocratic environment. It's the untaxed 1% that should be given the lions share of thanks for the bounty we enjoy!

The real "benefits" that our mass education system give to the lower classes are neither tangible, nor strictly practical, and ultimately don't provide much if anything in the way of objective, quantifiable results (especially now that our industrial technology has grown so strong, that machines can accomplish even highly technical operations better than modestly trained human workers, while our labor laws and tax policies have grown so draconian and bloated that for most companies, it's actually better to outsource labor to parts of the world NOT burdened by an "educated" workforce). True, public education can help to identify members of the lower orders suited for proper education, and for that we should but thankful, but real rags-to-riches, self-made-man educational stories are few and exceptional. Rather, the benefits of mass education are primarily psychological in nature. By indoctrinating citizens from an early age, the ruling political caste not only finds it that much easier to exploit it's victims, it's victims actually come to expect, desire, even demand, further control from on high. The medieval peasant was left largely on his own, so when a lord started causing too much trouble, the peasant was aware his way of life was in danger, and soon enough there would be a revolt. At best, the men in control of society could rely on the peasants to spend an hour a day, one day a week, being sermonized and indoctrinated by a separate body that at once repudiated and rivaled the secular power edifice's claims to temporal authority- the Church, which (despite the boogey tales the modern secular priesthood likes to scare us with) is almost completely dead today. Now, the men in control of society can rely on peasants spending six to eight hours a day, five days a week, for twelve (or more!) of their most impressionable/ least sensible years, being sermonized by agents operating directly under the orthodox approval of the state. Simply put, if religion was the opiate of the masses, state-sponsored education is the crack cocaine!

One caveat here.

It's the untaxed 1% talented elites informed by the Protestant ethic

Religion on its own as a means of education is certainly more or less dead but its control over the peasants and politics is more powerful than ever. Once the masses move past the state-sponsored cocaine Religious guidance via politicians becomes heroin. "Separation of Church and State" is something taught in the mass education during indoctrination and yet it goes ignored by most for... some reason I can't articulately identify. I'll be veering off-topic by saying more and if it came up in the politics thread someone tell me because I'd like to know if it's there or not before I wade into the fray.

Even if religion is "dead" as a means of education (it isn't, not yet in the West and not one bit in the rest of the world, praise Allah!), that doesn't change the Protestant ethic. The Protestant ethic is just terminology; it isn't about religion, per say. The phrase simply refers to the set of values informed by the radical Protestant sects that spurred the development of capitalism: values like hard work, self reliance, personal responsibility, being a cheapskate, etc. The Protestant ethic isn't necessarily dependent on theological Protestantism, and can survive in the absence of Protestantism, at least if nobody stops to think about things for a minute.