"Education"

[Alpaca]

It's that merry season again! School begins for me on the twenty-sixth of August, so I'm again beginning to appreciate how abysmally dysfunctional America's system of so-called "education" actually is.

Actually, "begins" is not a good word. For the first three days, we do useless things. Like go bowling, and ice skating, and have dinner together. It's supposed to be a "bonding" experience. Screw that. I don't go to school to bond. I go to school to learn. I've had all summer to bond with my friends. (For the record, ice skating in Florida is not our idea of fun.) And if they think that anybody will do anything except hang out with the people they already know, plus assorted new kids... And the worst part is that I can't have an unfortunately-timed illness any of those days, because they include actually relevant things like book distribution and college meetings in the middle of it all.

That tangent aside, I got my schedule a few days ago. Yes, it could've been worse, but I'm not exactly thrilled.

Some background:

Sophomore year, I took AP Physics B. I was the first sophomore ever to do that. I was the only one in the class who got a 5 on the AP that year. This last year, I squandered my life with Chemistry 1, because our incompetent head of Upper School, who is a woman whose gait resembles that of a velociraptor, and whose girth resembles that of a hunchback whale, was somehow unable to schedule me for a real science class. Over the course of the past year, I and a group of friends of mine have appealed to and convinced the administration of the school to offer "Advanced Physics with Calculus," which means Physics C minus official AP certification. I reiterate: I personally worked to get this course offered for the first time this year because I want to take a higher-level class.

And so, what happens? I get my schedule, and, guess the scheduling conflict, kidz! NO PHYSICS C. Yes, I realize that schedules are generated by some piece-of-carp hacked-together computer program that ensures "optimal" results for all students. But is it not possible to apply a little, oh, I dunno, intelligence to these things? Jack Jockass won't give a damn that underwater basketweaving won't fit in his schedule, so he has another free study hall to make noise in the library with his friends. But apparently, it doesn't occur to anyone that MAYBE the CLASS I WORKED TO HAVE OFFERED just MIGHT be SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT to me!

So now, I'm going to have to schedule a meeting with the scheduling woman in the extremely narrow three-day opportunity window she oh-so-generously offered to make it clear that I will be taking every class I signed up for, whether in class or as independent study. Oh, boy, that'll be fun. Especially since how last year she didn't respond to any phone calls or email until I finally just drove over there (didn't have a license yet, so had to drag poor mother along).



Personal anecdote 2:

On the SAT, I got an 800 in writing, 770 in math, 790 in reading. On the SAT IIs, I got all 800s in literature, math 2, and physics.

I (or my parents, officially) then get a form letter from the school about how SAT improvement classes are being offered! Hooray!

Again, I understand it's automation, and I understand it's a form letter. And again, why can't they apply a little bit of intelligence!!??!

My father was supposed to write the responsible party a fake-naive email asking if my scores weren't satisfactory, since we got that letter. I need to remind him...



So those were two personal examples. Both are little things. But they represent what I think is the fundamental problem with out educational system today: lack of intelligence.

It's getting late, I have been typing long, and I should really get some sleep. I'll pick up tomorrow.

Meanwhile, your thoughts on education, siblings?

[jjj]

Does your school offer you some kind of help with vocation seeking?
Most young people have serious problems on deciding what they want to do in life.
Years ago, I toyed with the idea of an alternative school system:
Say a child enters school aged five. The first 4 years I would teach them the basics of writing, reading, math, bit of history, geography, physics, biology etc. Then the child would join a 'Work Group' (WG) of its choice. There would be a number of WG, reflecting/ simulating real vocation.
This system would cut down on wasting precious learning years on something (like algebra) the student might never apply/ need in your future vocation as adult. Also, it would enable young people to discover and develop their unique abilities and talents far earlier.   

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

Say a child enters school aged five. The first 4 years I would teach them the basics of writing, reading, math, bit of history, geography, physics, biology etc. Then the child would join a 'Work Group' (WG) of its choice. There would be a number of WG, reflecting/ simulating real vocation.

Isn't it too early for a child to join a "work group" at the age of nine?

How does a child decide that it doesn't need algebra at the age of nine? The parents? I didn't want to do algebra at the age of nine, and now I'm glad I didn't reject it, as I needed it in my later years.

IMO, those "work groups" as you suggested would make sence later, at middle school (or high school), not so early. First it is necessary to get a practical knowledge. Eg. I'm not a fan of history, but there are things, one should know - like WWII, WWI etc. In order to build up an overall intelligence about our past and build an opinion about it.


There's a much bigger problems in schools (speaking of the example of some European systems, don't know about the others, as I have no personal experience with them). In school, children are just taught to read and memorise things (and they forget a lot after the exam). They're not taught to think about the things they read. Once arriving at university (or any higher degree school), they are asked to think about things, build their opinions, use the things theyre taught on a practical level and not just memorise them. This constitutes a problem, as many people don't know how.

[jjj]

 

Isn't it too early for a child to join a "work group" at the age of nine?

OK, let's call this group "Hobby Group"( HG)! This indicates that the child is going to choose a HG it likes best! After some time the teacher is going to find out if the child is good at it or if it only went to this HG for other reasons, just because the friend joint it or, because there they make cakes, for example.

How does a child decide that it doesn't need algebra at the age of nine? The parents? I didn't want to do algebra at the age of nine, and now I'm glad I didn't reject it, as I needed it in my later years.

If the HG is such that algebra is vital than of course this HG teaches it.

IMO, those "work groups" as you suggested would make sence later, at middle school (or high school), not so early. 
The point is... it offers the child to discover and develop its unique abilities and talents as early as possible. The earlier the better, because it's far easier to learn when one is younger.
They're not taught to think about the things they read. Once arriving at university (or any higher degree school), they are asked to think about things, build their opinions, use the things they are taught on a practical level and not just memorise them.

Yes... you nearly got it. >>> They should not only read and think about it... but learn to originate new ideas from what they study!

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

That's still not going to work. Most nine years old I know what to play video games and run around outside. I doubt that those things are going to be useful as adults...unless they join the army.


High school makes more sense.

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

OK, let's call this group "Hobby Group"( HG)! This indicates that the child is going to choose a HG it likes best! After some time the teacher is going to find out if the child is good at it or if it only went to this HG for other reasons, just because the friend joint it or, because there they make cakes, for example.

First of all, I had no problem with the term "work group" as such (although it might imply child labour a little;)) but more, how does a child decide what it is good in? At the age of nine, the majority of children don't know what they want to do in their future, hell, I wanted to be an astronaout, policeman, firefighter and similiar till the age of like ten... At the age of nine, a child has not yet made it's own opinion (in majority of cases) about the world, the parents still decide a lot about a child't "hobbies"...

Another problem with the teacher deciding - I lose now one year in one "HG", because it takes one yeasr for me to find out that I'm no good at algebra, but am a better writer. Now I want to join the "literature" HG. But I've already lost a year in the other one, do I have to repeat one year of HG?

[beagle]

Meanwhile, your thoughts on education, siblings?

My experience of British state education is that it was (is?) something of a lottery. At my junior school (ages 7-11) in the Sixties the teachers didn't drive kids to work hard; there was this sort of ethos that it didn't matter if kids couldn't read or write properly because they probably had some sort of compensating artistic skill, and that forcing them to learn was in some way evil and postponing the social revolution.  With hindsight I also realize they tried every trendy teaching technique going. To this day I still don't know what coloured wooden blocks have to do with teaching multiplication.
My dad ended up teaching me to read, write, tell the time, and do maths, and on his twenty minutes a day extra tuition I went from bottom to top of the class.

My secondary school was completely different. The headmaster was an ex-RAF fighter pilot. He was a fairly right wing, authoritarian figure (you'd get an hour's  detention writing out times tables for talking in the lunch queue for example). On the other hand he had an absolute conviction that children, whatever their background, could and should achieve the best, and recruited a staff that believed and enabled that.

From the way parents in Britain move house to get into the catchment areas of good schools, I suspect nothing has changed on this front. 

I think this background probably also explains why I'm more right wing than many here. Educated by socialists I'd have been spending the rest of my life pressing the same button on a factory stamping machine; it was the right-wingers who drove my personal social mobility.

So, from my own experience,  I agree with Kanaloa and Kiyoodle. You can't let kids of 9 or younger choose their own syllabus.  It might be a boon for the one Mozart or Einstein in a school, but it would wreck the futures of all the others.

On Alpaca's scheduling problems, is the lack of planning to do with school size?  After Columbine etc the press here reported that some U.S. schools are so large the pupils may have never seen the headmaster. 

[The Meromorph]

From my interests now, and for the past 40 years, I should probably have had a career in something to do with Biology, or Ecology, or evolutionary biology, or cognitive neuroscience.
Neither my primary or secondary schools had any courses in biology. I never had a chance.
I 'fell' into computer apllication systems design more of less by chace. I've been very successful at it.
But it's not what I like to talk about, read about, study, or think about. 

[Alpaca]

No, beagle, this is a small, private school. I happen to know - and have good relations with - all the staff members who directly affect me. This is, to a greater or lesser extent, true for all the students at the school.

Here's my education problem: I've never been challenged. The only effort I've seriously had to expend that challenged me was whenever I was assigned busywork. (Yes, there are a few notable exceptions in some of the better teachers I've had.)

I get the distinct feeling that I'm way, way behind where I could be academically. I get all the good grades, and everything, take the most challenging classes, yadda yadda. I still feel lazy. I get home, do the minimum amount of homework required - that is, do only the homework that will affect my grade, not the homework "for my own good" - and then play piano or do techie stuff. Piano and techie stuff are what I exert effort towards. School is just too damn easy.

That's my problem with the educational system in a nutshell. I have plenty more to go on about, but that summarizes it: My parents are paying $15000 a year for it (and public schools are even worse), and I don't feel like I'm learning as much as I could be.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Amen, 'Paca! I felt like that all high school (I went to public schools, too, so you're probably right).

That really depends on the principal (what we call the headmaster, I suppose). I went to a high school with ~2,800 kids, and for the first three years, I saw the principal regularly, even though I NEVER went to games and such.
My senior year, we got a new one, and throughout the year, I saw him maybe three times the entire year. Once when he stopped into my AP gov class, once at a debate tournament, and once at a senior meeting.
There was no significant difference in school size.

Honestly, at nine, I wanted to be a vet, like every other little girl in the country. I plan to be in something completely different now--international business law.
At nine, I probably couldn't have told you what was going to do the next day. Or what happened yesterday.

And furthermore, I honestly think even high school is a little too early to do much more than narrow the field. I switched professions about seven times in four years. Not even in the same professional vicinity from one time to the next half the time.
And often enough, parents still control the activities of high school kids. I've known many kids who hated piano, football, or whatever, and had to it. Or kids who's parents discouraged them from things they liked.

[Sibling Chatty]

Heh...I went to US public schools.

Bored silly the whole way through, often chose to ignore the classroom totally and read a book. Got away with it because of certain capabilities. (Called to the chalkboard to diagram a sentence in a class where I hadn't bothered to open the textbook, I didn't put down my novel, just walked up, looked at it a second, diagrammed it and walked away. The teacher had put up a rather complex sentence, full of all sorts of clauses, expecting to embarrass me. I'd reviewed the information the day before and winged it.)

I think that standardized education does a grave disservice to the disparate ends of the spectrum. (And that standardized testing is the invention of the foulest fiends...) Alpaca didn't need to spend 90+% of his 'educational career, bored out of his mind any more than I did. i don't know what it's done for him, but for me, it reinforced stereotypes that were prevalent back then, with the resulting mess being my abysmal abilities to deal with math and science.

However, give me NON-abstract math and I am fine, and most medically-related science is a snap...I have deciphered journal articles for some of the residents, interns and Post Doc Fellows that I would see at MD Anderson.

That private schools have chosen to align their systems along the same futile pathways as public schools is the fault of university admissions coordinators. <insert rant here>

In a perfect world, students would be able to progress at their own pace. This world isn't perfect, and it's too big. The availability of individualized education is rare to non-existent, and most 'educators' are so rule-bound that actually allowing someone to work to level is a MAJOR infraction worthy of stoning.

AS to knowing what you want to be when you grow up...I have not decided yet. Any suggestions?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Lol, still figuring it out myself.

I agree. I honestly hated most of what we did, because it was boring. English comp was something like that. Slept through the class, or ignored the teacher (who was a twit anyway) and got an A in the class.
I did enjoy science, though. We had really good science teachers, and I was mostly able to take what I liked. Biology, zoology, chem, bio engineering, environmental, botany, and advanced topics.

I think one of the flaws that public and lower schools have is that so much of it is abstract. I have actual, useful formulas to use for my math class now, and it makes so much more sense. I have "Use Addler's formula to determine what doseage of medicine a child should receive" instead of "If Billy is 14, and Svetlana is six years less than twice his age..."
I hated that.
And there's so much bull crap and non-subject stuff going on in class. My comp class was all reading, almost no writing. Some of which is understandable, but mostly it was a way for her not to actually have to grade our essays, because she didn't assign them.

[Alpaca]

<insert rant here>

As you wish. 

I'm going into my senior year of high school now. Time to freak out about college admissions! OMG!!!!1!1111!1!!!1one!

"The college admissions game" is a phrase that makes me want to strangle someone. What courses will "look best to colleges?" How can I hype up any and all good deeds I've ever done to make me look like a community service martyr? How can I play up my background to make me seem more diverse? Hmm, I'd better schedule some college visits - not because I want to see a college, but because I need to convince them how motivated I am towards them. (For the record, for all of the colleges I've toured and looked at, I have purposely NEVER stopped by admissions to fill out an information card.)

Fuck that. I've got better things to do for the first half of my senior year than play "the college admissions game." Like learn. Y'know, that thing I'm also supposed to do in college? If I want to play a game, my friend has a Risk board. I'm not going to spend my time figuring out the best way to prostrate myself in front of hordes of asinine admissions "experts." I'm going to figure out who can give me the education I want, apply, and go.

Edit: Oh, Kanaloa, I'm completely sympathetic about the math "word problems." That's a whole 'nother rant, because I think math is taught completely the wrong way.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Amen to that! I think a lot of things are taught incorrectly, because we're taught by professional teachers, not professional writers, mathematicians, etc. And 'coz text book writers get paid by the word, not the quality of the content.

I never bothered with that either, and got into a damn good college.
I got word about the possible scholarship and applied. Got in. Didn't worry about it. (Didn't go, but that was money, not the lack of opportunity.)

Enjoy your senior year, get some scholarships and grants. Do write a good entry essay, and call it done.

[Sibling Chatty]

Alpaca, with just those SAT's and the stuff you've done with the children's theater...I would suspect you'd have them throwing themselves at your feet, begging and pleading.

Let me suggest Texas A&M. Because it's 25 miles away...

Or Rice, if you think music may be the first degree you want. (85 miles.)