"Education"

[Sibling Chatty]

Individual abilities and DISABILITIES need to be acknowledged as well. It's no secret here that I am dyslexic. My dyslexia is bizarre, even to the experts, because it's SYMBOLS based...yet I can read at an amazing rate, and often with 95%+ comprehension.

Only in English, only without lots of odd symbols (mathematic, scientific, runes, foreign words) thrown in.

Even though OTHERS didn't realize this early on, I did. And I tried VERY HARD to take all the right courses to get myself prepared for college. Failed first semester algebra TWICE, then took it from a brand new teacher...and made an A, made a B in second semester. She took the time to teach ME, OK, me and a band of similar mathphobes.

I say band advisedly. The next year, when she pulled strings to get us all into one Geometry 1 class, it was 34 people that I was already in either band or choir with, and 3 that I had been in orchestra with. All musicians. Mrs. Parker...Dr. Parker actually, had a Bachelor's in mathematics and in music, her Master's was in music, and her PhD in math, her EdD in teaching theory, and then a second Master's in music.

The correlations between music and math...obvious. Music is the only symbology I can read well. And she found US, grouped us and taught us. The results were amazing, even the deportment heads system wide were intrigued. BUT, to actually implement a program to identify and teach that way? OH, no, let's just take the kids that test well on basic standardized tests and stick them in accelerated classes at the start of Jr. High, and then when we send them to a NEW school, don't offer them the second year of that program, throw them, unaided, into the 'regular' program that was a flop everywhere, and has lead to a generation that graduated fro high school in the US from 1968-1972 being TOTALLY math-impaired.

Educational theorists never think about practical consequences of their high flown theory.

And "No Child Left Behind" means EVERY child is left behind. No child gets a decent education in favor of EVERYBODY being force fed the same crap to regurgitate, whether they LEARN or not. Dividing by capabilities means you can put you BEST teachers into the task of bringing the WORST students up to level...not reward the best with the best. The best WILL learn, you can't stop them...it's the slower learners that get shut down.

All fine and dandy for those who do not care to see TOO many people do well. (Yes, I sound like Goatie, and I mean it.) After all, SOMEBODY has to pick up the garbage, scrub the toilets, take care of the elderly and pick the delicate crops. You can't outsource EVERYTHING.

The American educational system is only as successful as the system allows it to be. Private schools, home schooling?? End runs around the fact that there will always be those that can't DO that...

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Even with private schools there is no guarantee. In fact I believe that the success of the privately schooled is more related to the effort of parents or private tutors than the actual methodology of the schools.

[Alpaca]

Given my private school experience, I have to agree with you. I don't think the private schooling itself instills any potential for success. Private schooling is, for most of my classmates, a result of ridiculously rich parents. Their "success" in life is probably also going to be a result of that same thing.

I don't think that private schools should at all be looked to as any sort of model for future educational reform. Private schools are generally unhampered by the financial problems that limit many public schools, but, at least based on my private school, they're still slowed down by the same fundamental flaws in teaching methodology.

[Sibling Chatty]

Private schools and homeschooling are a placebo for the well-to-do (in one way or another) that makes them think they're able of offering their children "more". Those able to afford private schools hope for the best that their money can by. They DO 'pay the money and take their chances'. Home-schooling parents are arrogant enough to either think THEY can cover all subjects adequately, OR that their "very specially blessed" children will be profaned and polluted by contact with others merely serve to provide the next generation of misfits (in one way or another) who will have to depend on their wits to survive a world where everything is not cushioned for them, or conformed TO them.

The recurring "school vouchers" program of the (moronic, IMO) soft-aggression Republicans is an attempt (promoted by the hard-aggression Repubs) to make the public school system another victim of the privatizing/outsourcing mania. In a country where the public is stupid enough to NOT see that privatizing means providing not only the infrastructure that the government HAD been paying for, but another number of layers of management, PLUS a hefty profit for the stockholders, the school voucher program is just another 'smoke and mirrors' promise for those unable to grasp the concept that The Wealthy DO NOT want you to join them...and will not cheerfully make you welcome if you do.

In the interim, who pays? In education, which IS the future, we ALL do. The Very Wealthy continue to have their wealth. Fine, but look at their descendants...how many generations of Hiltons were needed to produce Paris? 2? 3? Dumbing down in the most obvious way. (By the way, had Miss Paris NOT been accorded the private schooling but forced to attain a basic education, she might not have been making prawn videos at age 16.)  The rest of society depends on skills and/or education to stay afloat in an economy that (rising tides) is being designed to NOT raise all boats, but to sink the smallest in many ways. As long as there's cannon fodder, and maids and someone to manicure the lawns...

The system of education in the US could do better, but it needs some decentralization, and less emphasis on uniformity as an end product. The British system seems to do a bit better, in many respects-especially beyond the primary school levels. What is bothering me the most is the growing evidence that the ability to read and write coherently is rapidly becoming a college level skill in the US, and mathematics beyond addition, subtraction and basic multiplication (including long division) have become the function of a calculator, not the human mind. You don't always HAVE to do it, but you DO need to know how.

No, not everybody needs a classical education, nor do they want it. But, people need to be educated in basics, to be able to read well, do enough is "sums" to know what they have to do to survive on a salary (or try to survive) and to function in the Real World. That may mean taking a look at learning skills and ability to do things CONSTANTLY, not just every 3 years with 'achievement tests'.

Given the system Alex envisioned, with more open levels of learning (Maria Montessori is clamoring in her grave, screaming YES, YES, let them learn!) many would self-level and then SEEK the things they needed to progress. Had I not been offered the ability to learn mathematics in a way I could understand it, I would have found it eventually...the hard way. (OK, I would have found the guy to teach it to me...and diverted his attention from the lack of 'normal' dates in favor of math tutoring by devious means. Sorta like I did in college.) I NEEDED to learn. I had the initiative to seek what I needed. Some people don't have the initiative, others have a fear of taking that initiative.

So why make the student work so hard to try to learn?

[Aggie]

(OK, I would have found the guy to teach it to me...and diverted his attention from the lack of 'normal' dates in favor of math tutoring by devious means. Sorta like I did in college.)

Heh, I know this technique...  she probably exceeded the extent of my math education by about Grade 9, but I had a text book and she didn't.  The chemistry tutoring was much greater help to a former history and archeology major.  It was the beer that sealed the deal, though. 

[Alpaca]

The recurring "school vouchers" program of the (moronic, IMO) soft-aggression Republicans is an attempt (promoted by the hard-aggression Repubs) to make the public school system another victim of the privatizing/outsourcing mania.

Dunno about elsewhere in the country, but here in Florida, it's also an excuse to give the church government money. With a few rare exceptions (one of which is my school), most of the private schools in the area are ultra-religious. Let's give them tax dollars!

By the way, Dee Dee, the prawn video thing ain't just Paris. Freshman year (of high school, that is), they made one over here, at a party. (Then my English teacher and I spent the rest of the year making fun of one of the young starlets who happened to be in that English class. Although, by now, given some of the more recent stuff she's gotten herself into, that looks like child's play.)

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Ha. We had a live version happen at my old high school two years ago. Threesome, in a dirt field (that's now an orchard, vineyard, and crop field) visible from the upstairs chemistry rooms.

Anyway. I think what my uncle did is a good way. He's an engineer at Ball-Aerospace. His kids went to public school, and he supplemented their education, mostly in math and science.
Granted, that requires the supplementer to know what they're doing already, but it's a start.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Without trying to sound pedantic, I have the feeling my kid has learned more from me in many aspects than in school. It has become a 'supposedly useful day care'.

[Alpaca]

I've certainly learned more outside of school than in school. Absolutely.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

DItto. Learned most of what I know of writing from my mother. Science and math have been the only exceptions. Learned lots from debate, which is (barely) school sanctioned.

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

I've certainly learned more outside of school than in school. Absolutely.

Me too.

But most of the things I've learned outside of school are actually the things school is not really fond of...

The pleasure of skipping classes and staying in the park........

[beagle]

Dividing by capabilities means you can put you BEST teachers into the task of bringing the WORST students up to level...not reward the best with the best. The best WILL learn, you can't stop them...it's the slower learners that get shut down.

All fine and dandy for those who do not care to see TOO many people do well. (Yes, I sound like Goatie, and I mean it.)

Actually I'll be surprised if Goaty supports streaming by ability. That's an old Tory rather than Labour policy over here. Are you out there Goat?

[Sibling Chatty]

It's not the streaming, it's what a better education will bring about...

The overall effect of a more effective system of education would be the ability for more people to work at an optimal level, which SHOULD (but rarely does) bring about a better rate of pay/higher socioeconomic standard.  IOW, streaming as a contributor to better economic parity...which the 'ruling classes' do not want.

(Here's another rant...the politicization of education. But ,totally expected given the amount of money and the number of jobs involved. I would just like to see a parent advisory board and more importantly a student advisory board for every elected school board. Make the politicians accountable to SOMEBODY.)

[beagle]

The overall effect of a more effective system of education would be the ability for more people to work at an optimal level, which SHOULD (but rarely does) bring about a better rate of pay/higher socioeconomic standard.  IOW, streaming as a contributor to better economic parity...which the 'ruling classes' do not want.

It's more complicated than that over here.  Under the old class system if you had a degree you were middle class, but even if you were highly trained vocationally (plumber, carpenter, electrician etc) you were working class.  The remnant of that thinking led to parents wanting their children to have degrees, even in Mickey Mouse subjects.  Consequently the whole education system is distorted to ensure that every year more students get higher grades and more go to university, thus proving that politicians, students, and  teachers are doing "a good job". If it's a plot of the politicians then it's one parents happily connive at.  Only the employers fume that they have to teach new arrivals to count.

This led to such bizarre dislocations in the employment market that until recently people were leaving City finance jobs to retrain as plumbers because shortages meant they were paid far more.  The new solution is to import all our skilled tradesmen from Eastern Europe while our own twenty-somethings use their degrees in surfing to sell fast food.

[Sibling Chatty]

The disdain in which manual labor is held is a major part of the problem.

If pay scales were based on actual expenditure of effort...with physical effort being included, then the janitor would out-earn the Chairman of the Board.

I dare say that a business could exist MUCH longer without a CEO that it could without a cleaning staff.

While absolute income parity isn't the answer, the treating of every laborer as 'worthy his hire" would come a lot closer to making giant strides toward a more ethically balanced world economy.

"Degree inflation" is rampant. Several good universities have offered to scrape my assorted educational credits into some kind of degree plan that would, with the addition of a semester or so at their school, give me a Bachelor's degree, but more importantly, put me into grad school in one of their programs. (Yes, I have MOST of the hours needed for a BA in music education OR a BFA in Vocal Performance, or a BFA in Theatre or a BSci in Speech and Communications Theory, but I don't actually have it ALL for anything.) I have NOT fulfilled all degree requirements for anything...and have no real desire for a degree that would be useless or meaningless.

I found that what I WANTED to do was a totally different field. Yes, I could have been a quite cheerful professional musician (vocalist) or actor (regional theatre, maybe even Broadway, where character actors can actually play roles--NOT film.) But I LOVED my work as a florist. I was GOOD at it, and I SHOULD have been able to earn a living at it. Unfortunately...manual labor. Skilled, artistic, but manual labor, nonetheless.

Let's consider your physician and your automobile mechanic. Which do you respect more? The physician has learned about a closed, basically static physical system. If he guesses wrong at to a malfunction, he gets endless chances to guess again. If he never finds out WHAT the problem is, it's "a tough one" and you call in a BIGGER expert to guess for a while. The mechanic has to deal with constantly changing, constantly updated technology. Just as many interlocking systems, parts that are prone to MORE wear, and a mechanism that cannot TELL the repairman how it feels. (Much like the veterinarian, with multiple species that do not speak...and we undervalue them as well.)

Your mechanic must have MUCH more continuing education than your physician, but who gets the Big Bucks and the respect??

Now, I do understand that the 392nd guy in his class with a degree in Art History, after the schools have pumped out several decades of Art Historians that can't find relevant jobs either...just might have difficulties finding a relevant job. If the education snobbery hadn't been so strong, would he have been much happier following a different career path and being a welder or a tool and die maker, or even a florist?

One of the smartest people I know was forced to go to university when he wanted to go to trade school. Had he gone into a mettalurgy field from that direction, he'd have ended up in some well-paid trade...instead he did one semester of university studies, then took a full time radio job...then Army, then several other fields...and ended up an optician. 40 years later, he got to play with optical frame repair materials and was able to fix almost any metal frame flawlessly. Welding/soldering seems instinctive.

How many people get pushed into some field where they'll never be good at it and never be happy..because our (class-ridden, in one respect or another) society demands that a degree is needed to be educated or capable? Or, more importantly, paid well enough to live decently? The "trades", plumbing, auto repair, construction, etc. hold the "upper classes" hostage in order to live decently. Us low class folks learn to fix it all ourselves...necessity being the mother of creative auto repair. (Yes, I can fix a flat, change oil, do a brake job and have, in my day, rebuilt one carburetor, three transmissions, two water pumps and re-wired a Buick.) Am I GOOD at it? No. Can I DO it? Yes. Much like my home repair expertise, it's NEED, not skill.

Admitting that kind of ability is anathema to the educated...because LOW CLASS people do manual labor.

Rid the world of THAT attitude, and manual labor loses the negatives and more gets done WELL.