The education system

[WrathOfDeadguy]

IMHO, the system is rotten to the core. The entire focus of school has been shifted from learning to testing and competition. Standardized tests are applied so frequently and carry so much weight that many districts force teachers to devote a third or more of classroom time to test prep instead of a proper curriculum. This emphasis on testing only teaches students that the test is the only thing that matters- that, if they pass, their worries will be over and they can just forget everything. That is a problem in the long term, especially with today's easy access to information via the internet. Once the test is passed, students feel that if they ever need the information they were tested on again, they can just look it up online.

 

What students hear in schools today is: "Today we're going to learn what's on the test."

 

What they should be hearing is: "Here's what we'll be learning today, and you will be tested on it."

 

The second issue is the focus on competition- which has been an issue for longer than over-testing. Anything kids, especially high school kids, can use as a social status symbol, they will- grades lend themselves easily to that purpose. However, that should be between students- not encouraged by the staff and the system. Some students are driven to excel by competition; they enjoy the challenge of working under pressure and do extremely well on timed assignments or presentation projects. Other students are ruined by the same pressures.

 

There should always be rewards for exceptional performance, but there is very little support or encouragement offered to under-performing students. The message is that if you fail, you are a failure- poorer schools have difficulty providing remedial classes, and even better public school systems that do offer such courses typically treat them as long-term detention. When a teacher calls a parent to tell them their child is having trouble in school, they do it in the same manner they would if the child were in trouble.

 

Fear is a terrible motivator- if students fear failure, then they will be more likely to hide their grades when they perform poorly rather than working with their parents and teachers to bring their grades up. I was there; I know what that feels like. Failure is not a punishable offense; it indicates other, deeper problems like lack of interest in a subject or an incompatibility with a particular teaching or learning style. Students are told that they must learn in a particular way- I vividly remember several teachers knocking points off of my grades because I did not take pages of bulletpoint notes (one even docked me for not using a three-ring binder FFS)... when doing so made it more difficult for me to listen and pay attention. Homework is a classic example of this as well- the given reasons for assigning most homework are review and practice- but as long as the material is being learned, it serves no purpose except to pad grades and occupy time that students should be using to decompress at the end of a long school day. Out of class assignments are necessary, but they should be assigned only when necessary.

 

TL;DR- the entire system needs to be redesigned from the ground up. It will continue to fail; every attempt to prop it up will ultimately fail, and unless there is some form of total reform, it will fall apart within our lifetime.

[marharth]

IMHO, the system is rotten to the core. The entire focus of school has been shifted from learning to testing and competition. Standardized tests are applied so frequently and carry so much weight that many districts force teachers to devote a third or more of classroom time to test prep instead of a proper curriculum. This emphasis on testing only teaches students that the test is the only thing that matters- that, if they pass, their worries will be over and they can just forget everything. That is a problem in the long term, especially with today's easy access to information via the internet. Once the test is passed, students feel that if they ever need the information they were tested on again, they can just look it up online.

 

What students hear in schools today is: "Today we're going to learn what's on the test."

 

What they should be hearing is: "Here's what we'll be learning today, and you will be tested on it."

 

The second issue is the focus on competition- which has been an issue for longer than over-testing. Anything kids, especially high school kids, can use as a social status symbol, they will- grades lend themselves easily to that purpose. However, that should be between students- not encouraged by the staff and the system. Some students are driven to excel by competition; they enjoy the challenge of working under pressure and do extremely well on timed assignments or presentation projects. Other students are ruined by the same pressures.

 

There should always be rewards for exceptional performance, but there is very little support or encouragement offered to under-performing students. The message is that if you fail, you are a failure- poorer schools have difficulty providing remedial classes, and even better public school systems that do offer such courses typically treat them as long-term detention. When a teacher calls a parent to tell them their child is having trouble in school, they do it in the same manner they would if the child were in trouble.

 

Fear is a terrible motivator- if students fear failure, then they will be more likely to hide their grades when they perform poorly rather than working with their parents and teachers to bring their grades up. I was there; I know what that feels like. Failure is not a punishable offense; it indicates other, deeper problems like lack of interest in a subject or an incompatibility with a particular teaching or learning style. Students are told that they must learn in a particular way- I vividly remember several teachers knocking points off of my grades because I did not take pages of bulletpoint notes (one even docked me for not using a three-ring binder FFS)... when doing so made it more difficult for me to listen and pay attention. Homework is a classic example of this as well- the given reasons for assigning most homework are review and practice- but as long as the material is being learned, it serves no purpose except to pad grades and occupy time that students should be using to decompress at the end of a long school day. Out of class assignments are necessary, but they should be assigned only when necessary.

 

TL;DR- the entire system needs to be redesigned from the ground up. It will continue to fail; every attempt to prop it up will ultimately fail, and unless there is some form of total reform, it will fall apart within our lifetime.

The thing is its not just tests, I agree with what your saying of course its just that the system also has messed up ways of teaching. I think the system is way too authoritarian, and that's one of the biggest issues next to the fact schools don't teach they tell.

 

@csgators

I would assume you would also want to get rid of the mandatory education law, which I would agree with in some ways. I doubt it would be able to pass in our congress.

 

I do think that its important to have a public education system though, if you only have private systems then only people who can afford it can get education.

[csgators]

I would assume you would also want to get rid of the mandatory education law, which I would agree with in some ways. I doubt it would be able to pass in our congress.

 

I think it should be up to the states, personally I think school should be mandatory until at least 15 or 16 at which point they should be able to opt out for a another type of school.

 

As far as standardized tests go that again is mostly due to the Dept of Education, they demand the same test be given to all students and base funding and other things on those test. The Dept of Education has only been around for 30 years, every year of that 30 years our results have gotten worse. Get the Fed out, cut out that extra layer of bureaucracy and waste.

[marharth]

I would assume you would also want to get rid of the mandatory education law, which I would agree with in some ways. I doubt it would be able to pass in our congress.

 

I think it should be up to the states, personally I think school should be mandatory until at least 15 or 16 at which point they should be able to opt out for a another type of school.

 

As far as standardized tests go that again is mostly due to the Dept of Education, they demand the same test be given to all students and base funding and other things on those test. The Dept of Education has only been around for 30 years, every year of that 30 years our results have gotten worse. Get the Fed out, cut out that extra layer of bureaucracy and waste.

I am a bit confused in what your trying to say. The department of education isn't nearly as federal as you think.

 

Its a federal branch, but the local districts have a much greater power then the federal part.

[csgators]

Just one example.

[marharth]

Just one example.

There are not many times when congress passes legislation about education.

 

That bill didn't really change much anyways.

 

Almost all the power is in local departments hands as it is now.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Ideally, proper education reform would have to include earlier and more options for students. I don't believe that everyone knows what they want to do with their lives by the time they're in high school, but they do know what they don't want to do. It seems rather silly to force requirements for competence in, say, classic literature if a person favors subjects like calculus or chemistry- or to force those subjects on a student who favors literature.

 

Usually it's phys ed that catches all the flak, and it should- where is the educational value in making a kid who couldn't give a turd about sports learn how to play football? However, forcing a kid to do something they have no interest in only makes them hate it. There are some lines of study that need to be taught, IMO, but once a clear preference emerges then a student should be allowed to pursue it to the exclusion of most of what is now mandatory.

[marharth]

Ideally, proper education reform would have to include earlier and more options for students. I don't believe that everyone knows what they want to do with their lives by the time they're in high school, but they do know what they don't want to do. It seems rather silly to force requirements for competence in, say, classic literature if a person favors subjects like calculus or chemistry- or to force those subjects on a student who favors literature.

 

Usually it's phys ed that catches all the flak, and it should- where is the educational value in making a kid who couldn't give a turd about sports learn how to play football? However, forcing a kid to do something they have no interest in only makes them hate it. There are some lines of study that need to be taught, IMO, but once a clear preference emerges then a student should be allowed to pursue it to the exclusion of most of what is now mandatory.

Good point, after a certain point people need to learn what they want.

[Dicecaster]

Here's a thought: how about we get rid of public school? In a government-controlled school:

 

1. They're going to be fed exactly what the government wants them to think, so if there's any government corruption (which there definitely is, to some degree) these kids aren't going to know about it or be taught to investigate it.

2. The children will typically be thought of as numbers and statistics. They're not going to get a personalized education, they'll be forced to fit into whatever cookie cutter the schools are using at the time. Even if specific teachers try to counteract this, they can only do so much when they have to look after 30 kids at once.

3. Schools can't teach religion, so here's what they teach instead: evolution. I'm sorry, what? "Well, we can't teach them about God or Buddha or anything, because that might be offensive to their religion or philosophy. Oh, I know: we'll teach evolution, which nearly all religions disagree with." With respect, what drugs are you smoking today, pal?

4. They don't get necessary time with their parents. Unless the parents take great pains, these kids will most likely become completely different from their parents (and never in a good way). Plus, all the stuff they don't teach in grade schools (like, y'know, morals) will be learned from their school peers (who know just as little as they do).

 

These are the major problems that come to my mind at the moment, but the problematic minutiae are innumerable. With private schools the parents have a choice about exactly what their kids learn (it's still not ideal, but it's way better than public school), and with homeschooling almost all the problems with both vanish.

I think it should be up to the states, personally I think school should be mandatory until at least 15 or 16 at which point they should be able to opt out for a another type of school.

 

While such is certainly not the case, the general idea about America is that it's a free country. Forcing parents to send their kids to school is a direct contradiction of such rights to freedom.

Edited February 15, 2011 by Dicecaster

[evilneko]

1. They're going to be fed exactly what the government wants them to think, so if there's any government corruption (which there definitely is, to some degree) these kids aren't going to know about it or be taught to investigate it.

 

I take it you've never been to a poorer school. In my high school years, pretty much all the history teachers were Vietnam vets. Think they had anything positive to say about the government? Think again. Hell, even my econ teacher was quick to criticize and she'd never served in any form or fashion.

 

2. The children will typically be thought of as numbers and statistics. They're not going to get a personalized education, they'll be forced to fit into whatever cookie cutter the schools are using at the time. Even if specific teachers try to counteract this, they can only do so much when they have to look after 30 kids at once.

 

Thirty is not that bad a class size, really. I'd love it if all my classes had thirty students. I do agree that teachers need to be more flexible with students though, but my own experiences in education make me wonder if it's not so much the class size, or even the system, but the teachers themselves. To be sure, everything else is a factor, but a good teacher can make a much larger difference than I think you're giving them credit for.

 

As well, the public school system would need to be replaced by a system of Federal and state assistance for people to pay for private schooling. Private schools would need to expand exponentially to handle the influx of students, and where do you think all those teachers'll be coming from? That's right -- the public schools. Kids'll end up with the same teachers as before. It'll be rough going, probably for a few years, and I don't really have much confidence in a completely-private system ending up that much better than what we have now.

 

3. Schools can't teach religion, so here's what they teach instead: evolution. I'm sorry, what? "Well, we can't teach them about God or Buddha or anything, because that might be offensive to their religion or philosophy. Oh, I know: we'll teach evolution, which nearly all religions disagree with." With respect, what drugs are you smoking today, pal?

 

There's good reason for that. The only place for religion in education (public or private, IMO) is in a comparative religion course, or dedicated theology courses (though I'm sure both of those would cause plenty of controversy in public school, I think at least a comparative course would have definite benefits, namely in increasing understanding and tolerance of other religions). And, unfortunately, there is a distinct lack of focus on evolution in biology classrooms. It leaves students grossly under-prepared for college-level natural sciences, should they choose to go into those courses.

 

Fear is a terrible motivator- if students fear failure, then they will be more likely to hide their grades when they perform poorly rather than working with their parents and teachers to bring their grades up. I was there; I know what that feels like.

 

Hehe, same here. Been there, done that. I used to hide report cards from my dad, hoping both he and the school would forget about them eventually. Not that it was very effective, each successive report card also showed the all previous periods' grades on it. :rolleyes:

 

I do agree with the general sentiment about standardized testing. Certainly, there needs to be some way of fairly assessing and comparing schools and teachers, but the whole standardized testing craze has just gotten way out of hand if what I'm hearing is correct. In my school days, if we were preparing for the tests (at the time, TAAS) all year, at least they did it in a way that you'd never know it--at least until maybe a couple weeks prior. Then they had test-prep sessions in-class and workshops available outside of class. None of this spending one-third or even up to a full semester or worse on it. As I recall, I did fairly well on those tests, but then all the way up through high school I always was a pretty good test-taker.

 

Actually, what I'd like to see in schools is a one-semester (one half a school year, three six week periods in most districts in my area) course covering basic learning strategies. It would present various methods of note-taking (and there are some very interesting methods out there), test-prep, studying, that sort of thing.

 

Ideally, it would also include a survey to determine each student's ideal learning method (visual, auditory, or kinetic). The school could then use this information to match students and teachers best suited to each other. I'm very much a mixed learner. I have to take notes and I have to have examples to see, and write down step by step, then some problems to do it on myself. I have a friend who is an extreme auditory learner. As long as the teacher talks about it in class, he can learn it. Teachers that say, "go home and read chapter five" are the bane of his existence. He also hated taking notes. This would help alleviate some of the problems of students being stuck with teachers they can't learn very well from. Naturally, there will be those who end up in just that situation anyway, but hopefully the "How To Learn" course will have taught them how to compensate for it.

 

This would also help with this problem:

This emphasis on testing only teaches students that the test is the only thing that matters- that, if they pass, their worries will be over and they can just forget everything. That is a problem in the long term, especially with today's easy access to information via the internet. Once the test is passed, students feel that if they ever need the information they were tested on again, they can just look it up online.

 

If students know how to study and learn, then even if they think they're just cramming for the test and will forget it all later, they'll actually be learning. They'll retain more, a lot more, I think.

 

It may seem like I'm harping on this a lot, but I've been in college off and on for a long time now, and if there's anything that's helped me, it's good note-taking.

 

...and, whew, this got long, I think I'll cut myself off here, even though I'm not sure I've mentioned everything I wanted to mention.