#8: Education

I'm not going to read through this whole thread, but I'll tell you about my experience ni Grade School. The experience that taught me to hate people and any sort of social interaction.

I was in Public school. Same one since Kindergarten. I had 1 friend. Just one. Later on, we got a few more kids to hang out with use, but we were tight. We were never popular; picked on for playing imaginary games and such. They separated us in grade 5, for no apparent reason. They hated us, and we knew it. Anyway, the teachers could care less about the kids, and were more childish than the kids were. They would always side with the popular kids, and anytime I would ask a question, they'd treat me like an idiot! I learned NOT to ask questions! (Which is the opposite of what school is about). This went on for years.
Grade 6. New teacher-25 years old. He is very athletic, and lots of kids admired him for that. Not me. I saw through him. He was a major show-offy jerk! "Look kids. I can make this shot from the halfway-line!" The class is in awe. SO WHAT! You're in your 20's. Your top physical condition! Anyway...
Then came grade 7. The only good year I had at that school. Our teacher was great. Very art/drama oriented. His teaching style was "Here' the main idea of the lesson. Now, apply it however you like!" For the first time, my assignments weren't just "READ THIS NOW! ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS!" It was "Here' the idea. There are a few questions on page 48. If you need help, just ask". (Even in high school, I visit him sometimes. He even helped me with homework when I was in grade 8.
Last year of school- young(ish) lady who is full of herself. Very close minded. She left halfway through the year, though. Guess who took her place? A 50-60 year old who is a recovering alcoholic and overall creepy guy. (He really was, he wasn't allowed to drive because of past drinking incidents). He was terrible.

My point is, education needs to be focused on the students. The teachers need to start teaching instead of reading out of a book.
 
afstandopleren said:
But not everyone has the money for a computer and agrees on signing the paper. There should be some solution to those 'exceptions'. But maybe that's just a flaw in the plan. But atleast the idea itself is 1 step forward in imho the right direction.
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In my school. 4 students out of 721 don't have computers. In 10 years, 99,9% will.

Even if the child doesn't have a computer, and doesn't sign for the laptop, The child can still use it in class, and the child can always spend an extra hour after school to finish computer work.
 
Well ya, but not for each student. We have a 40 student computer lab.
 
well it depends on where you are talking about.
because if you are talking about third world contries, then no, there isnt enough education
 
kashmaster said:
Juliacoolo said:
Well ya, but not for each student. We have a 40 student computer lab.
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Well how big is a class for 40 computers not to be enough in one session?
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Because more than one classes need it at the same time, and over 100 classes a day can't have every class in the computer lab.
 
For those who just want my basic opinion with no long, rambling story behind it: the education system is flawed (at least where i live anyway) because the people who're running it are flawed.

As far as I'm concerned it needs to be about the students, and I'm sure a fair number of teachers understand that and try to go with that. But the fact is that the people who RUN these systems don't get that, and as a result it's usually a lucky dip wether or not you get a teacher who's going to really help you and teach you well or someone who turns up drunk everyday and is more of a school-wide joke than a teacher.

Story time! x3

So primary school (grade school I think is the American equivalent). I don't remember too much from back then, all I really remember is that every break and lunchtime everyone played football. Always. Every day without fail. I wasn't interested in it, and I wasn't good at it even when I tried it, so I was pretty much an outcast. Not that any of the teachers noticed or would have done anything anyway. But I think a lot of my lack of self-confidence came from here. The teachers had a universal fix-all solution for everything: Shout at it. I was so timid that I couldn't stand being shouted at, so I would just kind of clam up and not say anything, silently wishing for them to stop yelling at me, but of course that only made them more angry... I remember once we were asked to draw an animal. Being the lazy sod I still am thought "What's the easiest animal to draw." Well... a snake came to mind. So I set about my picture, but I would have felt bad just handing in a big squiggle so I drew a big tree, and had the snake kind of weaving between the branches (I was quite young so that was pretty impressive of me in my mind at the time), so I take it out to her, proud of myself for putting effort into the lazy way and she takes one look at it and screams at me "You can't draw a snake!!11!!!1!" I was so shocked, I had no idea what her problem was, so I asked why not... "Because they're evil!!!!"... That was all the explanation she gave, she crumpled it up and binned it. I went back to my seat, confused, embarrassed and a bit upset. Now I realise that it was most likely to do with religion, but a small child isn't gonna know that. He's not drawing it because it's evil, he's drawing it because he's not confident enough in his drawing ability to do anything else. Not that the teacher cares though...
 
Man Chaos, I really feel for you.

Anywho, Bam is right, so right, it's not even funny. This year, we had three people who didn't pass their final project of the year (we call it an exit project). Two didn't even put the effort into making one. And the brother of one of those kids was autistic, yet he made a project. That's just pathetic, in my opinion.

But compared to what you guys have said about the public school system, I think I had it pretty good at my public school. I'm gonna be moving on to middle school next year though, so I wonder what it's gonna be like.
 
Chaos6 said:
For those who just want my basic opinion with no long, rambling story behind it: the education system is flawed (at least where I live anyway) because the people who're running it are flawed.

As far as I'm concerned it needs to be about the students, and I'm sure a fair number of teachers understand that and try to go with that. But the fact is that the people who RUN these systems don't get that, and as a result it's usually a lucky dip wether or not you get a teacher who's going to really help you and teach you well or someone who turns up drunk everyday and is more of a school-wide joke than a teacher.

Story time! x3

So primary school (grade school I think is the American equivalent). I don't remember too much from back then, all I really remember is that every break and lunchtime everyone played football. Always. Every day without fail. I wasn't interested in it, and I wasn't good at it even when I tried it, so I was pretty much an outcast. Not that any of the teachers noticed or would have done anything anyway. But I think a lot of my lack of self-confidence came from here. The teachers had a universal fix-all solution for everything: Shout at it. I was so timid that I couldn't stand being shouted at, so I would just kind of clam up and not say anything, silently wishing for them to stop yelling at me, but of course that only made them more angry... I remember once we were asked to draw an animal. Being the lazy sod I still am thought "What's the easiest animal to draw." Well... a snake came to mind. So I set about my picture, but I would have felt bad just handing in a big squiggle so I drew a big tree, and had the snake kind of weaving between the branches (I was quite young so that was pretty impressive of me in my mind at the time), so I take it out to her, proud of myself for putting effort into the lazy way and she takes one look at it and screams at me "You can't draw a snake!!11!1!" I was so shocked, I had no idea what her problem was, so I asked why not... "Because they're evil!!!!"... That was all the explanation she gave, she crumpled it up and binned it. I went back to my seat, confused, embarrassed and a bit upset. Now I realise that it was most likely to do with religion, but a small child isn't gonna know that. He's not drawing it because it's evil, he's drawing it because he's not confident enough in his drawing ability to do anything else. Not that the teacher cares though...
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That is the most rediculous thing I ever heard. Race/Religion isn't supposed to interfere with education, and the comparison of snakes and evil in civilized activity is just absurd. You should have told your parents.
 
Here is how I see it. I live in a part of New England where the competition among kids is extremely high. I carry a 3.95 GPA and I am still only 24th in my Class. They way that our education is set up, we have the ability to pursue whatever we want after our first year in High School. I think that is a great way to go about teaching. I have plenty of teachers all of whom are different, and the best ones are older teachers, because they know how to teach kids, not how to be their friends. The way that my school works as a secular educational facility is good, but we are forced to take the SATS and the Standardized tests for our areas, however our school is driven by curriculum, and not by how much we know before our Standardized tests.

Now child left behind is one of the most outstandingly bad ideas that I have seen in my lifetime. I know for a fact that forcing kids to take standardized tests is not effective not because it may hurt their precious feelings and stress them a little, but because it is made extremely easy in order to help the stupid kids. Instead of trying to keep kids in school, my solution is that we give the option for kids to leave school whenever they please. Mandatory learning and an almost mandated "College Education" is putting our Economy back a few paces by keeping young adults off of the streets until they are in their twenties. That should be fixed, as it is important for America to have people who will fix cars and make burgers, and by doing that we give ourselves a newer age group that can work, buy, sell and stimulate what is left of our Economy. Teach those who want to/or are worth teaching, and boot the rest out into the real world. This will also let us deal a blow to the large Colleges in America, which is, as my teacher so kindly put it, "A group of organized criminals with less moral fiber than the mob."

As for the fact that our kids are not as apt to learning as kids from other countries, who cares? Jimmy from China may know more math than I, but I know for a fact that his creativity is subdued in order for that to be accomplished. Instead of making our kids ready to compete with kids who are told to study and do nothing else, we should make sure that the kids know what they are doing, and make sure that they can help the world in their field. I don't care if my mechanic knows how to do Calculus, I just want to know that he is able to fix my car.
 
^ Good point, but what about the 4 children with the single mom who works at McDonalds. They might have a strong will to learn, but with the program you propose, they wouldn't get an education. Thats pretty much saying smart people; you rock enjoy life! Dumb people; DIE!
 
There are three main things I hate about the public school system.

1) Classes are dumbed down for the kids who aren't smart enough to understand what they are being taught. This really hurts the learning of the smarter kids. Luckily, as the grade gets higher, the division between the smart and the less smart becomes more prominent. But it's not right to make classes just appeal to the less smart students.

2) We are forced to take classes we have no want to and will probably have no impact on our lives other than eating up slots for classes that you want to take. There are a lot of classes I want to take in high school, but some of them I can't because of classes that I don't want to take. (English, PE, ect.)

3) A lot of material is something that we will either never need to know or recycled from previous classes. How will I benifit from learning nutrition facts of fish from a restaraunt I've never heard of? What does it matter that I can't tell the difference between a declarative sentence and an imparitive sentence. How many times have I learned that America declared it's independence on July 4th, 1776?
 
Education in the US is just awful. When I heard about the No Child Left Behind, I was gritting my teeth for hours.

Everyone has their own pace. There is no way you can boost someone's performance drastically without sacrificing EVERYONE'S progress.

Improve education, yes please. Lower standards to help students get by, please, no. Make them reach for the bar themselves.
 
Education is an interesting discussion.

Of course, education is an important topic in itself. There are many views over it but it mostly depends on the type of person you are. There's a relative in my family who would fight the schools to make sure they give the proper education for young highschool students. This relative believes that schools have done a less-than-excellence job, and well, in my opinion that's a view. On the other side of the scale, there are many people aren't hardworker and even some who are that believe that education doesn't matter and that school can be any way they want to make it. So there are two different opinions and some people in the middle who have goals of detecting flaws but also praising the opportunity we have to learn in America. So there are three-types of people and it is completely normal to feel any of the three ways.

My goal is probably near the middle: I want to present to the schools their flaws but I also think that the ability to do what they do is completely wonderful. They make it almost impossible to test out of a class that would cause them to pay money in the future if I need to take a college class in high school because I am ahead, and that is bothersome to me... I want to pass as best as I can because I want to let them know it's possible and it should be done because that's what they are here for. I also believe that sometimes they can be a bit unorganized and positions are given to the wrong type of people. But those are the only cons I notice at the moment except for the fact sports at my school are so vigorous and time-consuming. But my school is wonderful besides that. They have an amazing art program and they also have a great math program for the skilled and the unskilled. Underachievers and overachievers and easily attend the school but maybe sometimes there are some flaws that need to be changed.

So in conclusion, there are pros and cons. You need to find them, analyze them, and see if it's worth it enough to make a change. It's as simple as that. I hope this has made a difference. :3

- Luigi

PS. You'd think there wouldn't be one of these after such a long post. I haven't had much public school expirience suprisingly so feel free to disagree with me. Also, I'm amazed how much bullying there is in Elementary schools from other people's expiriences. It's very unfortunate because it probably increases the risk of depression very easily from constant ridicule and harrassment by other people. :/
 
Honestly, a lot of my teachers have also called the No Child Left Behind Act a joke. They don't like having to be "rushed" to cram in stuff for the standardized tests. Trust me my teachers were scrambling to get ready for our tests. Like stuff we wouldn't otherwise have covered. And you know what all they can do? They just review the study guides that they give us. They followed the curriculum and still got screwed by it. Now w/o the No Child Left Behind, we might have lower literacy rates or whatever. Or we could have higher ones if people could commit (IDK honestly). And also, I've heard this from a few people, but apparently New Mexico has an incredibly hard school system. Don't know about that, but they also said that Texas schools were like jokes compared to New Mexico.

I agree with Zyflair. I honestly have always been "above" the bar set for a few things, like growth patterns and the school system (this I was told by others, not making it up). I really could breeze my way up a couple of grades, and be into college and all that junk. But life can also happen in public school too. It's like TCG Nats-you go not only to play but to meet other people.

And really, this is sad, but I learn more history in french horn lessons than in history class. :/ That is not right. Music history is more educational than general history.
Just my take (again).
 
In England we have SATs and I'm pretty sure the U.S. has SATs as well. For the whole of year 6 (ages 10 - 11) and half of year 5 (ages 9 - 10) we spend all our time revising and going over simple mathematics and english in the hope that we will do better. We hardly did any science in Primary school and then we get a science test sprung on us for our SATs. And what does SATs prepare us for, NOTHING! They only do it so they can choose what level to put us at in High School. Fortunately the year 9 SATs have been disposed of.

The year 6 SATs really need to be removed from the curriculum.
 
I'd like to say that I hate how much emphasis is placed on passing tests. It seems like we had to learn the stuff to pass the tests then it didn't matter anymore. AP classes too, but to a lesser extent because I think I learned more from them even though the goal was still passing a test.
 
I still want to empizise the importance of supporting the smarter kids. It's a group with so much potential, yet it's practiaclly r aped (Sorry, this is the only word that comes close to what I have in my mind) by the system.

The reason why is because I am such child. And boy, do I have experienced some disturbing things.

For example:
Well, in 6th grade of elementary school, we had to do topography. One of the, in my opinion, easiest subjects....just like everything else was easy on the mind for me. Anyways, at the end, we were given a verbal list of Dutch cities and towns.
Teacher: I want you to learn for tommorrow where Assen, Driebergen, Sittard, and Epe are.
Me *raised my hand*: Which Epe(N)?
Teacher: What do you mean with which Epe? There is only one!
Me: No there are 2 Epe(n)'s. 1 without an N and one with an N.
Teacher *being seriously and obviously annoyed*: Okay, if you think you are right, show it to me.
*She rolls down the map of Holland while I walk towards the board with the map*
Me: There is 1 in Gelderland *points at it* and one in Limburg

The next thing I remember is her being angry and me being send out of the classroom. I bet she didn't like being corrected by a child in front of the class. But hey, even when I was little I expected to learn stuff with quality, not something as vague as this.
I did suffer from her bullying me for the rest of the school year. Like when I was bullied during recess, she would ignore everything I say or purposely ignore me whenever I raised my hand.
 
afstandopleren said:
I still want to empizise the importance of supporting the smarter kids. It's a group with so much potential, yet it's practiaclly r aped (Sorry, this is the only word that comes close to what I have in my mind) by the system.

The reason why is because I am such child. And boy, do I have experienced some disturbing things.

For example:
Well, in 6th grade of elementary school, we had to do topography. One of the, in my opinion, easiest subjects...just like everything else was easy on the mind for me. Anyways, at the end, we were given a verbal list of Dutch cities and towns.
Teacher: I want you to learn for tommorrow where Assen, Driebergen, Sittard, and Epe are.
Me *raised my hand*: Which Epe(N)?
Teacher: What do you mean with which Epe? There is only one!
Me: No there are 2 Epe(n)'s. 1 without an N and one with an N.
Teacher *being seriously and obviously annoyed*: Okay, if you think you are right, show it to me.
*She rolls down the map of Holland while I walk towards the board with the map*
Me: There is 1 in Gelderland *points at it* and one in Limburg

The next thing I remember is her being angry and me being send out of the classroom. I bet she didn't like being corrected by a child in front of the class. But hey, even when I was little I expected to learn stuff with quality, not something as vague as this.
I did suffer from her bullying me for the rest of the school year. Like when I was bullied during recess, she would ignore everything I say or purposely ignore me whenever I raised my hand.
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I correct teachers all the time. It gets me in trouble, but I am annoyed learning false stuff, and I'm also annoyed at our school for heiring teachers half of my class knows more than.
 
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