Thread: Etucaton

I saw an article that said a very large percentage of people taking the written test for the military can't pass it with the most minimal of score.

That got me to thinking with all the attention being thrown to testing and standards in schools what's going on?

You see the school system is the most important place to begin the reshaping of society. Yea they always talk (the politicians) about improving things but thats just window dressing. Those rich folks who control everything have it in their best interests to have a stupid and ignorant population. One that can be manipulated so that instead of focusing on the true enemy of the people and making informed decisions about elections and general affairs they will believe what they are told without question by shills of the rich. The population will accept the fact the enemy is amongst themselves thereby ignoring the true fight. So the state of affairs with education is the way it is because that is what they really want.

That's the way I see it.

I'd never thought about it that way, Nelson, but I can't find a flaw in your thinking.

I always thought of it as something like - Everyone agrees the education system needs to be improved, but no one actually wants to pay for it. My way of seeing it is probably influanced by my inability to get a teaching job and all the budget cuts I hear about from my friends who do teach.

Hmm. Food for thought anyway. The ideals of a Jeffersonian democracy depended on the voter being an educated person.

I remember old black and white TV ads that showed a new voter listening to both sides of the fence and studying the arguments and making up their own minds. Now the media has reduced us to 15 second sound bites designed to make people afraid. Fear is the motivator. No fact checking whatsoever.

I guess that won't work here. Anyone who is willing to take a sharp edge near their own jugular, or in the ladies case, the popliteal artery, isn't a regular person occupied by normal fears.

I don't know much about formal education having finished 8th grade then hitting what Woody Guthrie called "the road of the sunburned thumb." But one thing I do think is that a high school education in the 1930s, my mom and dad's time, gave the student a more advanced education than a college degree fifty years later. That is my impression whether it be right or wrong. What is the USA's ranking in the world in math and science now ...... 34th in the world or something like that ?

Federalizing schools, (local districts taking federal money with strings attached), creating a system that demands political correctness at the expense of critical thought and analyses, in recent years there has also been a federal move to get all students to pass federally accepted testing standards, so students are taught two things, political correctness and how to pass the federal tests. Minimal standards equal minimal results. No room for an education.

The answer? Let the locals run the districts, even if it means the loss of federal money, football games, cheerleading and other unnecessary programs. Teach the three R's, as well as history and science. Promote critical thinking.

Contrary to a lot of peoples thinking it is public education, or the lack thereof that are driving many people to Christian schools or homeschooling, it's not just a matter of faith.

When we talk about education the focus is always on the school system, which I suppose, is fair enough.
One thing that is often forgotten is the role of parents, my mother taught me to read and write at home before I started primary school and yes, she had a full time job as well.
Many people have kids and then think it falls to the state to provide everything.
My wife was a primary school teacher, mostly in the reception class. When she started her career it was about teaching kids to read and write. When she retired it was largely about teaching what the parents should have done, virtually toilet training some of them. Many seemed to be spending their entire lives outside of school watching cartoons on television. Not always while their parents worked in many cases, a large number of mothers were at home all day.
In terms of entrants to the military, I was shocked to read an article in the paper written by a serving soldier, who was starting a charity to provide books and reading help young soldiers. Apparently the reading age of recruits to the ranks in the UK is at least 4 yrs behind the national average, which in itself isn't high to start with.

Yea you got that right Jimmy.

Whenever you see these shows that discuss education who do they interview? Administrators ruled by politics and politicians and maybe a union leader. I've never seen a currently active teacher on one. They like to blame everyone especially the teachers but I've never seen someone even talk about parents and kids who only go to school because the law says they have to.

Talk to active teachers and they will tell you they spend too much time fighting with parents who don't give a damn and kids who have no desire to learn and spend way too much time doing reams of paperwork and meting out discipline in the class and dealing with kids personal problems. There's no time to teach.

A good friend of mine, and probably the most intellectual person I have ever known, was educated in a private, residential high scool, the Dublin School. I asked him one time, what if anything, he wishes he had more of in his education. To my astonishment, he started identifying areas of content within the traditional subjects. I would have identified more abstract concepts, critical thinkin, responsibility. In thinking about it, I should not have been surprised. In his experience, those things were not lacking in his education, as they were in my standard high school education. That's what I see as missing. Modern education teaches facts. It should be teaching ideas. My friend lived with his teachers, worked with his teachers, ate with his teachers, played with his teachers. I met him in college where he frequently would drop into his professors offices to discuss concepts that were addressed in classes. One of his teachers described him as the only student in the college who saw to it that he got his money's worth. Too bad we taxpayer don't get our money's worth.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

... Whenever you see these shows that discuss education who do they interview? Administrators ruled by politics and politicians and maybe a union leader. I've never seen a currently active teacher on one. ....

There's no time to teach.

This is the same for pretty much any aspect of our culture. The systems focus entirely on the process of _________ (education, health care, agriculture, energy, environment pick your favorite). It's about how things get done, meetings, hearings, surveys, goals, objectives, policies, politics, plans but never about getting things done. There is no attention, or resources or time, ever, given to the folks who are at the leading edge of contact between the providers and the product, until they need someone to blame for the problems caused by the system players who are never involved in the product. The systems are what waste the most amount of time resources and money, while the producers struggle to get anything done.

Since we're talking about teachers, why should there be a tax deduction for money the individual teacher spends on school supplies for their classes that their school doesn't give them? Outrageous. Rather than putting up the necessary money that the System requires to meet goals etc., the teacher has to kick their own money back into the system to meet those requirements. Rather than provide the money, the System influences the tax code change to formalize the kick back requirement.

The only animals on this planet that engage in futile cycles are destined for, or are already extinct.

Here's a bit different way to look at it. The main proposition is that the world is different and the education system of the past doesn't work too well anymore.
It's just conceptual though, there is nothing about how to go about testing it empirically.

YouTube - RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms