Concepts for Education?

<Inst#cspell>

What do you think about these concepts?

1. Abolish mandatory schooling. Kids who don't care should not waste taxpayer dollars.
2. Cut the number of teachers in half, but double their paycheck. This would drastically increase the quality of teachers, but drastically increase the size of classrooms. One of the reasons all your teachers are so stupid, is because they went to graduate school only to get a 30-50k paycheck.

>>1

I wouldn't want someone to do that to my country. :P

First off, most people under the age of 18 shouldn't be allowed to make decisions that will have as much impact on the rest of their life as whether or not they get an education while they're still in the formative period of their life. For most people, it is much harder to learn the older you get.

Second, young adults don't learn that well from lectures, they require individualized attention, and right now, in a relatively uncrowded American public school, you've got about 30 students to a class-room, which means at the maximum 2 minutes of individualized attention per hour... that's just math. It doesn't matter how whiz-bang brilliant your teachers are, individualized attention has an easily calculable ceiling.

The only people your theoretical program would benefit would be the ones who are smart and who genuinely care about their education. They will do fine in life no matter what; I think it would be better for society to kick all those students out of school, and let them read a book and go to the library for their education, and increase the amount of individualized attention available to the kids who don't give a fuck.

Furthermore, and I hate to diverge into a slippery-slope hypothetical, but I am inclined to imagine that the society your system would spawn would be one of tremendous dichotomies, and it would wind up one way or the other... either it'd be a democracy, where the uneducated rule, and every elected office is held by the ignorant and dangerous or the charismatic and even more dangerous... or it'd wind up as some sort of autocratic serfdom ruled by a brutal and manipulative intelligentsia, a la the Republic of Plato.

>>1

That's why we offer citizens the option to drop out before they finish high school, so in one sense what you "propose" already exists.  As for dropping out when you're younger, you don't begin to even know what the hell you want until you're around 14, and even then, you're going through pre-adult phases.  So allowing kids to drop out 'just because' impacts negatively on society.  If we're going to compete with the Chinaman in the 21st century, individual comfort has to be removed from its throne. 

2. If you don't think teachers will be horribly overworked under this plan, you're an idiot.  Even though many of them are quite dumb, teachers DO work very hard-12 months a year.  What is needed in education is not necessarily more money (going to the teacher's unions) but MORE and BETTER teachers.  Yes, this implies better salaries.  But the money should be going to the teachers, and not to the god-damned NEA.

Although I did quite badly in Educational Psychology, I did learn about student-centered teaching vs. teacher-centered teaching.  Teacher-centered teaching does not imply that the teacher is the center of the universe.  The point is always to get the kids to learn, so that they can grow up and again, compete with the Chinaman.  Rather, teacher-centered teaching views the teacher as the source of the knowledge, and, within reason, the students as so much clay.  That's a simplification, but for the purposes of any K-12 setting, that's what's needed at the secondary level.  The problem is to hire competent people who aren't dicks.  This is my point: the whole fucking thing revolves around getting and keeping fuck-smart, fuck-cool teachers at this level.  It does NOT revolve around getting computers into the school, it does NOT revolve around most extracurriculars (even though the presence of some IS necessary for a good learning environment, and it does NOT revolve around money that just goes into the unions.  We must all conceptualize ourselves as being in a glorious competitive war against the Chinaman, and complacency and incompetent teachers are counter-revolutionary.   The POINT is to educate a society so that we can rise as one and truly say: "AMERICA-FUCK YEAH".

-more money for TEACHERS.  not other bullshit in the school.  This will attract fuck-smart, fuck-cool people.
-make an effort to attract fuck-smart, fuck-cool master's and Ph.D holders (NOT in education, in their FIELD) for some time with some tax breaks.
-make administration stop referring to themselves as "educators".  Mr. Principal, even though you may have taught a class in the past, and unless you yourself personally substitute-teach from time to time, YOU ARE NOT AN EDUCATOR.  READ A FUCKING DICTIONARY.  You are a system regulator and an obscurantist.  You are a necessary evil.

I'm mainly talking about what's needed at the high school level, here.

Tell me, do you think taxpayers are willing to pay more money in order to fund teachers?

The should, considering they're one of the pillars of modern society.

Basically, the concept is that of the guy running the Edison chain of commercial schools(ie, they get public schools to outsource to them). He wants to increase teacher pay at the expense of larger class sizes. Apparently it works in Japan.

>>7

I hate to resort to a stereotype... but I think it's a well-established belief that Japan has a vastly greater cultural emphasis on education than America... that is to say, I'm not sure how much of a difference importing a Japanese school system to America would make... but I would hypothesize that it would have almost no effect.

Most American children are intransigent selfish short-sighted bastards with no fear of god, authority, or their parents, let alone an iota of respect...

Japanese schools have greater freedom than American schools, Japanese schools have rights and responsibilities that parents would have in the United States.

>>9

If that's supposed to be a retort, then you're missing my point. Perhaps I was unclear.

My point is that in Japan parents and society universally give a fuck if you get a D or a C on an exam, while in America, in a majority of families and cultures, it's not considered to be a big deal.

>>5

the point is not that they will, but that they OUGHT to.  Furthermore, we could get these salaries and obtain tangible improvements in education merely by diverting money from football, (or whatever sport or extracurricular you want to cut, but that's another debate) technology which you can't use intelligently until you're an adult anyway (computers for computer classes are an exception), and Teacher's Unions, and spending it on the teachers themselves.  This could conceivably be brought about without a raise in taxes.  But of course, what we OUGHT to do is to carry out education spending reform, and then spend that much more on it, once we have tangible results that we're putting our money in the right place-i.e. better performance and studies on young adult success.

>>11
<Inst#cspell> Fine. Anyone have counter-arguments?

>>11

I hasten to add that the reason why so many Americans are HESITANT to have tax money go to education at this time is precisely because many of them have problems with exactly the same sort of thing that I've outlined.  If we were to investigate and implement what I propose, when it causes an improvement after a measurable number of years (as I claim it would, done properly), THEN people actually WOULD be more willing to invest in a working system.  People are much less grudging about their tax dollars when they see those dollars working.  I've always been fairly optimistic in the following sense: It's not the rate of taxation, it's whether there is a public perception that the taxation is being used optimally.  That's how the Swedes live with themselves, after all.

>>1

As I am currently educating myself to become a teacher, here's my 50 cents.

Sweden has, under the recent 30 years, been on the receiving end of a LOT of political and war refugees. These people, unlike the worker immigrations during the 60's, were not planned or prepared for and thus had to undergo the same "trials" as a normal swede to get a job. They had to go to school, learn good swedish and get integrated into society(unlike the workers who mostly got employed to handle physical labour like building, cutting trees, etc.). Unfortunantly, sweden didn't have a good system for this, so while our economy dropped we got more and more refugees and more and more responsibility to handle their education well.

The solution? Well, it's not been found yet. For a while, the possibility to learn your native tongue was a fact, but recent economic downsizing has led to the limitation of that. It mostly depends on the municipy and the principal and how they choose to invest the money the government gives them(yes, schools are actually responsible for getting teachers themselves, which means most of the power is in the hands of the principal and his personal preferences).

What you're saying is that we should have all kids who don't want to study drop out of school at an early age. My question to you is, what are they going to do? Sit at home and stare into the wall? School isn't just a duty that every child has to undergo, it's also something that keeps them occupied and actually learning something. We can't send them to work, because lack of discipline, common knowledge and the fact that they're underage prevents them from doing most kinds of jobs... and to be frank, I hardly think they'd enjoy it more than school.

We're countries that are growing less and less dependant on national industry as we have other nations that handle the producing-part for us. Our main work force are the people working in offices, jobs that really need a good education to be successful. We can't just start up new factory here because the general level of welfare in our nations would make it less profitable for a company to produce their wares here instead of, say, a developing nation in Asia.

What are these kids to do then? Living in a country where education is steadily growing to become the most important factor in most, if not all jobs (today, for example, you can't become a carpenter in Sweden unless you're educated to be one, and to be an educated carpenter, you need to finish primary school first before continuing to the more specified education), not having a formal education puts them at a disadvantage of being integrated into society.

American schools are really just dumping grounds for kids.  Nobody cares what goes on there, so long as it gets the kids out of the parents' hair four eight to nine hours of the day. 

Specialization, to be honest, has nothing to do with school.  90% of what they teach is forgotten almost immediately by most of the kids, and the kids who do remember are usually the type who would be smart enough and driven (or bored) enough to read and find out on their own. 

Beyond say, 3rd grade, and a small amount of math and english skills taught in grades above that, education has no practical impact on a kid's life.  It's just a way to keep kids out of trouble during their more turbulent years.

I really see a divide is coming in this country in the next 100 or so years, human nature shows there has to be.  95% of the populace is dumb as dirt, and education doesn't really help them, as they just grow up to be carpenters or something.  The other 5% have to suffer through some mandatory schooling given half-assedly.  Our potential suffers as a result.

In the end, we're going to have to separate out thesmart kids from the dumb ones, and treat them as such.  All this equal opportunity BS doesn't work and isn't practical. 

I don't believe people are born equally and there's a wide different in potential, but seriously though... what WOULD these kids be doing between the time they drop out and when they can actually start working? Play around? Playing doesn't earn your money, and unless the parents sell them for scientific experiments or just child labour, they're not going to be earning any money.

what's wrong with child labour? as long as there are fair working conditions, it seems moral.

>>17

The problem with child labor is that there AREN'T fair working conditions. Even assuming that there were, who would want to pay a 12 year old (who obviously has less work experience and isn't fully developed as an adult) the same minimum wage as an 18 year old?

If you can think of a case where a child could do a better job than an adult, feel free to clue me in.

>>17

I have two objections to child labor:

a.) The less life-experience you have (e.g., the younger you are) the worse you often are at making safe decisions. Education is a safer bet to a happy life than jumping right into the work force. There is an argument that you could work when young, and go back to education later but I think its well-accepted that for neurological reasons children learn faster than adults.

It may work out for some people as being the best thing they could have done with their lives, but it is risky, and children shouldn't be allowed to determine their own level of risk-tolerance.

b.) Once you start making money its hard to give up making money. This may just be me, but I've been working *some* job since I was 14 without interruption (14, paper-route -> 15.5, food service -> 17, zoo cage cleaner -> 18, UPS package tosser -> 19, desktop support -> 22, computer consultant), and a lot of those times, in retrospect, I had no *real* use for the money at all. I mean, sneakers, video-games... I should have spent more time just hanging out with friends, getting drunk, building things from the Anarchist's Cookbook...

If I ever have a kid, I don't think I'm going to let him or her work until they're 16, because I'd like them to pay their own car insurance (good incentive not to do things which increase it). Their "job" is going to be getting all A's, on everything, all the time.

>>18
The argument here seems to me that education is basically wasted on some children. So we might as well make use of them by giving them jobs when they are 12 so that when they are 18 they will have vastly more experience.

>>20

You're missing the point! No one would want to hire them! Since we're living in a "democratic" society, everyone has the right to a minimum wage, and no employer, no matter how stupid he is, would pay for younger kids to do job (crappier) than older would. What's left for them to do in a nation where not even all grownups have jobs?

I dunno, coal mining? Their much smaller bodies would be able to fit in the narrower tunnels. Oh, and cleaning chimneys! They're excellent for that. Heck, they can just climb up and down and clean it up with their bodies.

Oh wait, it's already been done in Victorian England!

Education isn't wasted. It teaches children to submit to authority and teaches them to read so they can do the boring jobs that people with prodigious intellects - such as myself - can exploit them. The indoctrination done in schools is important to keep a good democracy working properly. So my answer to >>1 is no to both. The school system is perfectly fine.

Yeah, but look at the number of jobs available that even a trained monkey could do.  Customer service.  Delivery.  Shelf stocking.  Telephone operator.  Computer operator.  Data entry.  Fast food preparer.  President. 

How about community service.  Pick up trash, paint over graffiti, plant some trees, etc.

You're all teenage retards who already know for a fact that this is a bad idea.  Here's how it is.

1.  Children are dirty, incompetent little beasts.  At the same time, they are at the most intellectually pliable stage in their lives.  They are not suited to the adequete performance of any task, apart from the manual labor which they are made to do in various countries.  The performance of any repetative task day-in, day-out, in your formative years, is just as likely to make you an invalid or a shiftless criminal as it is to make you well-suited to the burger-flipping jobs that society requires.  Any task more complicated would require adult directors and minders who could as easily do the job themselves.

2. The social function of education is utilitarian in nature.  YES, it gets the kids out of their parent's hair for eight hours a day, in addition to many other more traditional goods.  It's also a simple statistical problem.  Even if they're not liking school, they're present.  Less time to go do some crimes.  The money "wasted" on keeping kids in school will be wasted ten-fold on other social programs which would inevitably be deemed necessary for all the fucked up adults produced.  You already know this perfectly well.  We can't afford to assume that kids in general know what the hell they want out of life.

If one of the following was implemented in schools, how would it affect education and learning:

1.  Morals and Ethics
2.  Discipline and Responsibility
3.  Overview of everything (describing the big picture)
4.  Freedom of choice and consequences (religion, drugs, smoking, sex, alcohol, etc)
5.  Money making and entreprenuership
6.  Success and excellence over mediocrity (but not perfection) 

>>1

1.) It could result in a monoculture wherein the nation practicing it losed the ability to function as a democracy by failing to cultivate dissension. More likely it would have no effect.
2.) Responsibility and discipline are cultivated through willing yourself to undertake a goal and seeing it through despite hardship. But you can't force a person to will something, so this is impossible to teach.
3.) You mean history class?
4.) I would say this is the sum total of what they learn out side of classes; teaching them this in school would simply be redundant.
5.) This is impractical. Just like there needs to be a wide predator/prey ratio, there needs to be a wide entrepreneur/working stiff ratio. It'd be like telling kids that they can all be astronauts and presidents and professional football players when they grow up; it's a fucking lie and will lead inevitably to dissapointment.
6.) Once again, I don't think you can or should teach this.

I think that in general if you succeeded in teaching those things you'd stifle dissent and thereby democracy. People should be allowed to be homosexual polygamist abortionists if they want to. Some degree of moral relativism is necessary for there to be debate.

err, 27 is meant to be a reply to 26, not 1... though I think it's obvious. :P

And as a p.s., I think that if you're going to inculturate any traits in your average human being, it should be pretty much the opposite of your above hypotheticals indicate... people need to embrace the fact that they will not all have glittering hollywood lives, renounce materialism as a road to happiness, and generally chill the fuck out.

What about fostering a more "intelligent" mindset?  Where kids are encouraged to think intelligently, rather than learn and forget.  Adapt the methods that "smart people" use to understand things. 

>>29

What the fuck is a smart person? :P

I've met people who, sometimes, are clever... and I've met people who are very knowledgeable about a broad array of things, and I've met people who are incredibly knowledgeable about one thing (and know little of things I thought everyone knew). Once while camping, my cousin and I lost our food supplies when we were about 70 miles from our car. My cousin who'd been held back in school 2 years consecutively (he was a 16 year old highschool freshmen) caught a fish with his bare hands, then prepared a fire to cook it on. Since then I've gone on to score in the top percentile on the SAT, ACT, and LSAT... but I'm inclined to think that my brainiac ass would have gone hungry, and to be honest, I'm not sure I would have even been able to find my way back with a compass and a map.

So yeah, when you come up with a comprehensive and useful definition of intelligent... maybe then I can answer your question.

>>30
Street smarts versus book smarts.

>>31

It doesn't break down into such a simple dichotomy as that.

Last Summer I was a teacher for inner city junior high students who had to go to Summer school or repeat the previous grade; many of these kids were very "street smart" but couldn't find north to save their own lives.

The kernel of truth in your 5-word reductionist cliche is that all intelligence is situational and application-oriented... which is the reason why I believe it to be impossible to define intelligence in a non-arbitrary manner, and therefore impossible to teach it.

How about the ability to analyze, categorize, and question information?  Take any subject where the student goes "Oh, I get it" and find out what caused that as opposed to a crappy teacher where the student barely gets a good picture. 

>>33

So do you suppose that all epiphanies are verbal? Every time someone internalizes a concept they announce it? Or are you just using that as a metaphor? I'm inclined to think that most the time when I succeed in learning something, I don't announce it; and furthermore, I'm not even aware that I learned it.

Usually the point at which I know I learned something is when I'm forced to recall it; like during a test. But some skills aren't easily testable, and some people aren't good at test-taking. On a certain level, I think all you're advocating is President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" mandate.

>>32
I like you and agree with what you said there.

>>1

As much as I'd like to agree, mandatory schooling is, well, mandatory. Many kids don't want to learn, or go through rebellious years, only to realize later they like knowledge and not being a bum, but by then it's too late.

Also, some parents could use that as an excuse to not LET their kids go to school.

All countries would like collapse and the human population would dwindle, for better or worse.

>>1

As much as I'd like to agree, mandatory schooling is, well, mandatory. Many kids don't want to learn, or go through rebellious years, only to realize later they like knowledge and not being a bum, but by then it's too late.

Also, some parents could use that as an excuse to not LET their kids go to school.

All countries would like collapse and the human population would dwindle, for better or worse.