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Will US be able to move forward or stagnation and decline will be our downfall?
Curious on other people perspective on our educational shortcomings. Are we so insular that is impossible to move things in education in more positive direction? Is this complacency we are dealing with?
Millions of laid-off American factory workers were the first to realize that they were competing against job seekers around the globe with comparable skills but far smaller paychecks. But a similar fate also awaits workers who aspire to high-skilled, high-paying jobs in engineering and technical fields unless this country learns to prepare them to compete for the challenging work that the new global economy requires.
A longtime critic of the quality of teacher preparation in the United States.
The New York Times
The American work force has some of weakest mathematical and problem-solving skills in the developed world. In a recent survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a global policy organization, adults in the United States scored far below average and better than only two of 12 other developed comparison countries, Italy and Spain. Worse still, the United States is losing ground in worker training to countries in Europe and Asia whose schools are not just superior to ours but getting steadily better.
The lessons from those high-performing countries can no longer be ignored by the United States if it hopes to remain competitive.
In my opinion we need a new model, the current model is outdated. Students need to have the ability to learn, apply and recall. But they can't do that in a lecture environment and be successful, they must do it in a lab/simulation environment because nowadays students need instant feedback. Social media and the internet has changed our expectations in terms of feedback time and our education model hasn't completely caught up yet.
Students need practical learning environments that allow themselves to personalize the skills. I've had many adult students that struggled with fractions but once I was able to get them to focus on the steps first, the numbers second and explain to them why they needed to follow the process they understood it better. Once they had a basic understanding of it I took it to the next level by incorporating how they will use math in their individual majors.
We will decline because we refuse to address the elephant in the room. The fact our children do not want to learn and too often view education as something inflicted upon them by the system. Given our attitude about education we cannot even begin to compete with countries where children want to learn and who have been taught from an early age that their job in school is to learn.
Our problem is not our schools or our teachers or our text books or our technology or any of the other flavors of the year that are pushed but the simple fact our children do not view it as their job to learn, have been taught that their failure to learn is someone else's fault and too many of them simply don't want to learn. We do not value education. We see it as something we are subjected to that we must survive. As long as this is the case we will decline.
The really sad part is that education is the key to freedom yet we view it as oppression...brainwashing...indoctrination.... It is when you have enough stuff in your head to think about that you can begin to think critically. If you refuse to learn the basics, you cannot think deeper. If we really want to be individuals and free thinkers we should be trying to learn everything we can. Knowledge is power. Without knowledge you are destined to follow someone else because you will not be armed with what you need to make your own decisions.
We will decline because we refuse to address the elephant in the room. The fact our children do not want to learn and too often view education as something inflicted upon them by the system. Given our attitude about education we cannot even begin to compete with countries where children want to learn and who have been taught from an early age that their job in school is to learn.
Our problem is not our schools or our teachers or our text books or our technology or any of the other flavors of the year that are pushed but the simple fact our children do not view it as their job to learn, have been taught that their failure to learn is someone else's fault and too many of them simply don't want to learn. We do not value education. We see it as something we are subjected to that we must survive. As long as this is the case we will decline.
The really sad part is that education is the key to freedom yet we view it as oppression...brainwashing...indoctrination.... It is when you have enough stuff in your head to think about that you can begin to think critically. If you refuse to learn the basics, you cannot think deeper. If we really want to be individuals and free thinkers we should be trying to learn everything we can. Knowledge is power. Without knowledge you are destined to follow someone else because you will not be armed with what you need to make your own decisions.
The elephant in the room is that the current system is incredibly inefficient and has scarcely changed since the 19th Century. In an age of ubiquitous knowledge, advanced software, and a host of other technical innovations, the education of children has scarcely advanced beyond the hornbook. Sure there are computers in the classroom, but they merely serve as agents to support the same tired, pedagogical methods. Small wonder schools have discipline problems today. Kids aren't dumb. They know they're being led down a cattle chute.
And that is the point you seem to have missed. You say that students see education as indoctrination and brainwashing. But that's precisely what it is. They see it much more clearly than you do, because you're so invested in a particular approach, one that is out of touch with our society today.
You complain about entitlement on the part of students, but you don't address the sense of entitlement on the part of educators. For educators do not feel any need to truly innovate. They prefer to continue using the same tired factory model of teaching when the world has long passed those methods by. They cling to obsolescence because actually rethinking the entire endeavor would mean the possibility of lost jobs or actually having to let go of the comforting old ways of doing things. The true irony of the past 50 years is that it is educators who have failed to learn a cotton-picking thing. As a result, education is the least imaginative and dynamic institution in American life today by a long shot. Nothing even comes close in terms of being hidebound. Industry has remade itself dozens of times, quickly trying new methods, and productivity has quintupled over the past 50 years as a result. Churches have embraced technology. And Education? Well, you have mostly eliminated corporal punishment. I'll give you that.
You'd think that education would be all about innovation and pushing each child to fulfill his maximum potential. Instead, it is a long, tedious slog that is undertaken at the whim of petty bureaucrats, with actual education being the lowest priority. Perhaps it is the cynic in me, but I've come to realize that the point of education today is the take the bright, enthusiastic soul of a six-year-old and turn him into a docile little soldier, factory worker or middle-level manager by the time he reaches eighteen or twenty-two. It is a system that is not designed to unlock the mind and give him knowledge. It is instead designed to teach him how to cross things off a to-do list and sit at his desk for eight hours a day performing repetitive tasks.
Otherwise, why do the bright and motivated march in lockstep with the stupid and the lazy? Why does a child who masters a concept on Day One have to sit there waiting on others to get it by Day Five? Why does a child who reads lots of history have to sit in a history classroom listening to things he already knows? Why do we measure a child's progress by how many days he attends school than by what he actually learns? Why do we continue to pile on more homework when studies show that more homework does nothing to increase actual learning, even as Japanese, Germans, and Finns, assign minimal amounts and achieve better results? Why does a fifth-grader reading at a twelfth-grade level have to read what every other kid is reading in English class?
Educators don't have good answers to these questions because no good answers exist to support such a boneheaded approach. That is because educators are slaves to a highly-orthodox, inflexible system of thought that doesn't reward creativity, doesn't reward innovation, and is far too absorbed in its institutional self-interest to change.
The other thing wrong with your argument is that there is zero incentive for a child to excel in the classroom. Sure, there's the abstract reward of grades and a pat on one's head by the parents. Maybe a little certificate at the end of the school year. It says a great deal about the educator's mindset that excellence in a particular subject means that a student will be shunted to an Advanced Placement course where they get -- get this -- even more homework. In other words, "Johnny's mastered this busywork. So let's pile on more busywork."
Ultimately, here's the acid test for you. If someone came to you with $500 billion and said, "Take this money and completely, utterly change how we educate children. You can hire software developers, build whatever facilities you need, rewrite laws, and anything else your heart desires. You have carte blanche. Knock yourself out." If you had that kind of power, would your school or any other school resemble even remotely what is out there today? If you say, "Sure," then I would offer that there's not a lot of imagination at work there.
You want kids to be invested in your classroom? Turn them loose. Give them what they really crave -- namely, freedom - as a reward. If you master all the concepts in your algebra class by February, then no more algebra for the year. If you apply yourself to your schoolwork, you can graduate by the time you're fifteen. Had I had that carrot dangled before me, you can bet your ass I would have busted mine.
We will decline because we refuse to address the elephant in the room. The fact our children do not want to learn and too often view education as something inflicted upon them by the system. Given our attitude about education we cannot even begin to compete with countries where children want to learn and who have been taught from an early age that their job in school is to learn.
Our problem is not our schools or our teachers or our text books or our technology or any of the other flavors of the year that are pushed but the simple fact our children do not view it as their job to learn, have been taught that their failure to learn is someone else's fault and too many of them simply don't want to learn. We do not value education. We see it as something we are subjected to that we must survive. As long as this is the case we will decline.
The really sad part is that education is the key to freedom yet we view it as oppression...brainwashing...indoctrination.... It is when you have enough stuff in your head to think about that you can begin to think critically. If you refuse to learn the basics, you cannot think deeper. If we really want to be individuals and free thinkers we should be trying to learn everything we can. Knowledge is power. Without knowledge you are destined to follow someone else because you will not be armed with what you need to make your own decisions.
As usual, you have effectively - and, thank goodness, succinctly - outlined the issue.
The elephant in the room is that the current system is incredibly inefficient and has scarcely changed since the 19th Century. In an age of ubiquitous knowledge, advanced software, and a host of other technical innovations, the education of children has scarcely advanced beyond the hornbook. Sure there are computers in the classroom, but they merely serve as agents to support the same tired, pedagogical methods. Small wonder schools have discipline problems today. Kids aren't dumb. They know they're being led down a cattle chute.
And that is the point you seem to have missed. You say that students see education as indoctrination and brainwashing. But that's precisely what it is. They see it much more clearly than you do, because you're so invested in a particular approach, one that is out of touch with our society today.
You complain about entitlement on the part of students, but you don't address the sense of entitlement on the part of educators. For educators do not feel any need to truly innovate. They prefer to continue using the same tired factory model of teaching when the world has long passed those methods by. They cling to obsolescence because actually rethinking the entire endeavor would mean the possibility of lost jobs or actually having to let go of the comforting old ways of doing things. The true irony of the past 50 years is that it is educators who have failed to learn a cotton-picking thing. As a result, education is the least imaginative and dynamic institution in American life today by a long shot. Nothing even comes close in terms of being hidebound. Industry has remade itself dozens of times, quickly trying new methods, and productivity has quintupled over the past 50 years as a result. Churches have embraced technology. And Education? Well, you have mostly eliminated corporal punishment. I'll give you that.
You'd think that education would be all about innovation and pushing each child to fulfill his maximum potential. Instead, it is a long, tedious slog that is undertaken at the whim of petty bureaucrats, with actual education being the lowest priority. Perhaps it is the cynic in me, but I've come to realize that the point of education today is the take the bright, enthusiastic soul of a six-year-old and turn him into a docile little soldier, factory worker or middle-level manager by the time he reaches eighteen or twenty-two. It is a system that is not designed to unlock the mind and give him knowledge. It is instead designed to teach him how to cross things off a to-do list and sit at his desk for eight hours a day performing repetitive tasks.
Otherwise, why do the bright and motivated march in lockstep with the stupid and the lazy? Why does a child who masters a concept on Day One have to sit there waiting on others to get it by Day Five? Why does a child who reads lots of history have to sit in a history classroom listening to things he already knows? Why do we measure a child's progress by how many days he attends school than by what he actually learns? Why do we continue to pile on more homework when studies show that more homework does nothing to increase actual learning, even as Japanese, Germans, and Finns, assign minimal amounts and achieve better results? Why does a fifth-grader reading at a twelfth-grade level have to read what every other kid is reading in English class?
Educators don't have good answers to these questions because no good answers exist to support such a boneheaded approach. That is because educators are slaves to a highly-orthodox, inflexible system of thought that doesn't reward creativity, doesn't reward innovation, and is far too absorbed in its institutional self-interest to change.
The other thing wrong with your argument is that there is zero incentive for a child to excel in the classroom. Sure, there's the abstract reward of grades and a pat on one's head by the parents. Maybe a little certificate at the end of the school year. It says a great deal about the educator's mindset that excellence in a particular subject means that a student will be shunted to an Advanced Placement course where they get -- get this -- even more homework. In other words, "Johnny's mastered this busywork. So let's pile on more busywork."
Ultimately, here's the acid test for you. If someone came to you with $500 billion and said, "Take this money and completely, utterly change how we educate children. You can hire software developers, build whatever facilities you need, rewrite laws, and anything else your heart desires. You have carte blanche. Knock yourself out." If you had that kind of power, would your school or any other school resemble even remotely what is out there today? If you say, "Sure," then I would offer that there's not a lot of imagination at work there.
You want kids to be invested in your classroom? Turn them loose. Give them what they really crave -- namely, freedom - as a reward. If you master all the concepts in your algebra class by February, then no more algebra for the year. If you apply yourself to your schoolwork, you can graduate by the time you're fifteen. Had I had that carrot dangled before me, you can bet your ass I would have busted mine.
How much learning can be done without a computer? Just because we have technology doesn't mean we should be using it to teach. Technology is a benefit IF you learn to think before you start using it. It becomes a crutch if you start using it before you learn to think.
I swear the kids I teach are handicapped by technology. They don't remember anything because they have an "I can always look it up attitude". Unfortunately, one cannot think about what is not in one's head. Google may be able to look up an answer for you but Google cannot think about how that answer relates to another question for you. That happens when both the questions and answers are understood and reside in your head.
I was educated in a time without technology and learned to use technology after I was educated. For me, technology is a boon. I can do things faster and better and learn more. Unfortunately, for those who came after me, they never learned in the first place because technology became a crutch.
If I ask my kids to write a paper on a topic, 90% of them will cut, paste and shake and never even read what they "wrote". Technology has killed their ability to write. It has killed their ability to read for understanding. It has killed their ability to remember anything long term. If you ask me, we need to go back to how we taught 100 years ago when the technology that was used was the human brain.
If I gave freedom as a reward in my class, I'd have a bunch of bored kids sitting there day after day. Seriously, that is not a reward. Having to show up to class with nothing to do is worse than learning at a slower pace and our system is set up so they would have to still attend class because we couldn't have them wandering the halls unsupervised.
If you gave me the unlimited capacity to design my own curriculum, mine would hardly include computers. Mine would be lab based with kids doing all the time but that takes money. One teacher simply cannot set up lab after lab after lab but I could buy the kits and then buy disposal buckets instead of processing chemical waste. I'd also buy lab books (they're about $20/ student) so all notes have to be hand written. That way I know they at least read what they copied instead of just cutting and pasting. I like the ones with the carbonless paper because the students keep a copy and I get a copy to grade.
I would also buy myself a cell phone blocker so kids can't text or browse the internet in class. Cell phones are a major distraction and kids can't put them down for 20 minutes.
The elephant in the room isn't that education hasn't changed enough because the human brain has not changed. There is value in learning how to do arithmetic BEFORE you learn to use a calculator. There is value in learning how to read with the intent on retaining information BEFORE you learn to Google information. There is value in learning how to write original ideas BEFORE you learn to cut and paste.
The elephant in the room is kids who don't want to learn. Kids who use technology as a distraction and a means to avoid learning. I have a niece who just finished her bachelors degree. She laughs about how they cheated the system. Most of her classes were on line and they'd have parties where they'd each log on and take a test with everyone in the room helping with the answers. They'd write papers together then paste and shake (rearrange and change every 4th word so a plagiarism checker doesn't pick it up) and turn it in. Technology is dummying kids down. They no longer have to use the technology between their ears. If you ask me we'd do well to go back to the way we taught in the 1950's.
The human brain hasn't changed since the 1950's....math as is taught in high school hasn't changed.....science as it's taught in high school hasn't changed much,....Reading shouldn't have changed....the English language hasn't changed.....ok we add some history.... Tell me what 16 year olds need to know that requires technology? Technology is a great tool once you learn to think. It is a handicap if you use it to avoid learning to think and that is what happens all too often today.
Don't get me wrong. I like technology. I like graphics that can help kids visualize what cannot be seen but, honestly, I don't need my students to use technology to teach them. I think they learn more by using their brains than just googling answers.
If we could fix that kids don't want to learn AND have $500 billion, I'd have a high school that works more like a college. Kids take classes at the level they wish to take them but they'd be teacher lead classes with students in the room (my students learn more from each other than they do from me). They would have the option of accelerating classes if that is what they wish to do but it would not be encouraged. Why? Because students benefit from having time to digest information. Education isn't just about memorizing and spitting out information as fast as you can. It's about getting it to stick long term so it's in your head to ponder.
I would design my school so that kids took as many/few classes as they wished. I would rather see someone take 4 classes a term for 6 years and learn the material than be forced to take 6 classes a term for 4 years and fail 1/3 of them. I would have social time built into the day. I don't know if that would help with the current issue of kids wanting to use class time to socialize but it's a start.
Computers would come into the picture only in advanced classes after kids have learned to do. Once you know math, you can use a calculator, once you know how to write, you can use a word processor, once you know how to research and retain information, you can google information. I would require students to demonstrate that they were using technology as a tool not a crutch.
About the only place I'd use computers earlier would be math and then it would be in a supervised environment to make sure kids aren't cheating. I'd put homework on the computer and require students to get the problems right before they can move on. I do like computers for math drill work but the student would still have to do the work manually and they could not google the answers.
Every year I give an extra credit assignment to separate salt and sugar to my chemistry classes. Every year I get the same poor results because all they do is google how to do it and not think about it. One of the questions I ask is why their results are so dismal. They can't tell me because they can't google that answer. The problem is the popular internet solution is to dissolve the sugar in alcohol BUT the kids don't have access to 100% alcohol. They go to the pharmacy and buy 70% alcohol which is 30% water and water dissolves salt. I have yet to have it occur to a student that this is the reason their separations don't work. I have yet to have a student suggest another method because they can't find one on line. Trust me. The problem isn't we don't use enough technology. If anything we're using too much. They google an answer and even when it doesn't work don't stop to think about why it didn't work. In their world googling = thought but that is just not true.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 01-02-2014 at 02:56 PM..
The elephant in the room is that the current system is incredibly inefficient and has scarcely changed since the 19th Century. In an age of ubiquitous knowledge, advanced software, and a host of other technical innovations, the education of children has scarcely advanced beyond the hornbook. Sure there are computers in the classroom, but they merely serve as agents to support the same tired, pedagogical methods. Small wonder schools have discipline problems today. Kids aren't dumb. They know they're being led down a cattle chute.
And that is the point you seem to have missed. You say that students see education as indoctrination and brainwashing. But that's precisely what it is. They see it much more clearly than you do, because you're so invested in a particular approach, one that is out of touch with our society today.
You complain about entitlement on the part of students, but you don't address the sense of entitlement on the part of educators. For educators do not feel any need to truly innovate. They prefer to continue using the same tired factory model of teaching when the world has long passed those methods by. They cling to obsolescence because actually rethinking the entire endeavor would mean the possibility of lost jobs or actually having to let go of the comforting old ways of doing things. The true irony of the past 50 years is that it is educators who have failed to learn a cotton-picking thing. As a result, education is the least imaginative and dynamic institution in American life today by a long shot. Nothing even comes close in terms of being hidebound. Industry has remade itself dozens of times, quickly trying new methods, and productivity has quintupled over the past 50 years as a result. Churches have embraced technology. And Education? Well, you have mostly eliminated corporal punishment. I'll give you that.
You'd think that education would be all about innovation and pushing each child to fulfill his maximum potential. Instead, it is a long, tedious slog that is undertaken at the whim of petty bureaucrats, with actual education being the lowest priority. Perhaps it is the cynic in me, but I've come to realize that the point of education today is the take the bright, enthusiastic soul of a six-year-old and turn him into a docile little soldier, factory worker or middle-level manager by the time he reaches eighteen or twenty-two. It is a system that is not designed to unlock the mind and give him knowledge. It is instead designed to teach him how to cross things off a to-do list and sit at his desk for eight hours a day performing repetitive tasks.
Otherwise, why do the bright and motivated march in lockstep with the stupid and the lazy? Why does a child who masters a concept on Day One have to sit there waiting on others to get it by Day Five? Why does a child who reads lots of history have to sit in a history classroom listening to things he already knows? Why do we measure a child's progress by how many days he attends school than by what he actually learns? Why do we continue to pile on more homework when studies show that more homework does nothing to increase actual learning, even as Japanese, Germans, and Finns, assign minimal amounts and achieve better results? Why does a fifth-grader reading at a twelfth-grade level have to read what every other kid is reading in English class?
Educators don't have good answers to these questions because no good answers exist to support such a boneheaded approach. That is because educators are slaves to a highly-orthodox, inflexible system of thought that doesn't reward creativity, doesn't reward innovation, and is far too absorbed in its institutional self-interest to change.
The other thing wrong with your argument is that there is zero incentive for a child to excel in the classroom. Sure, there's the abstract reward of grades and a pat on one's head by the parents. Maybe a little certificate at the end of the school year. It says a great deal about the educator's mindset that excellence in a particular subject means that a student will be shunted to an Advanced Placement course where they get -- get this -- even more homework. In other words, "Johnny's mastered this busywork. So let's pile on more busywork."
Ultimately, here's the acid test for you. If someone came to you with $500 billion and said, "Take this money and completely, utterly change how we educate children. You can hire software developers, build whatever facilities you need, rewrite laws, and anything else your heart desires. You have carte blanche. Knock yourself out." If you had that kind of power, would your school or any other school resemble even remotely what is out there today? If you say, "Sure," then I would offer that there's not a lot of imagination at work there.
You want kids to be invested in your classroom? Turn them loose. Give them what they really crave -- namely, freedom - as a reward. If you master all the concepts in your algebra class by February, then no more algebra for the year. If you apply yourself to your schoolwork, you can graduate by the time you're fifteen. Had I had that carrot dangled before me, you can bet your ass I would have busted mine.
Could you define who is included when you say 'educators'?
The elephant in the room is that the current system is incredibly inefficient and has scarcely changed since the 19th Century. In an age of ubiquitous knowledge, advanced software, and a host of other technical innovations, the education of children has scarcely advanced beyond the hornbook. Sure there are computers in the classroom, but they merely serve as agents to support the same tired, pedagogical methods. Small wonder schools have discipline problems today. Kids aren't dumb. They know they're being led down a cattle chute.
....
Question. Are you now - or have you ever been - a K-12 Public school teacher?
If not, then I recommend others to completely disregard this entire post.
If so, please tell us this utopia in which you've been teaching, so the rest of us can apply.
Question. Are you now - or have you ever been - a K-12 Public school teacher?
If not, then I recommend others to completely disregard this entire post.
If so, please tell us this utopia in which you've been teaching, so the rest of us can apply.
Too many times people outside of education see technology as some kind of great savior. They don't see what I see which is kids using technology as a crutch and excuse not to learn to think. Technology is great IF you know how to think. If you use it to do your thinking for you, you're sunk. This is the battle I fight every day.
Why learn when we can look it up they cry....why learn to write when we can cut and paste they cry....why pay attention to the teacher when we can look it up later they cry....we're smart because we can USE technology they cry.... They have no idea what the technology that has been laid at their feet is capable of because they can only do with it what the technology can do for them. Instead of being the masters of technology we imagined they'd be, they are slaves to it. Unable to do a simple math problem or spell a word without a technological crutch to help them.
I cringe when I hear people say we need more technology in schools. I know we need less technology in schools. Kids and parents are using the availability of technology and the solutions technology provides as an excuse not to learn or think. We are going down a dangerous path.
People outside of education cry about how education has not changed but the human brain hasn't changed either. Just because we have computers now doesn't mean we stop teaching to the brains sitting in our classroom. How did kids learn math and writing before computers? Not only did those low tech methods work, they worked better than the high tech methods we're employing today. I swear the more we use technology the less we expect kids to do with their brains. Technology is dummying down our kids and we are dummying down education for the new high tech student who can't do anything without the assistance of a computer. The next step will be to invent computers that can think for us and just let the computers do everything.
I agree with what many are saying. i also think there needs to be more respect given to the role of an "educator" or a teacher. Back in the day, being a teacher was something that was seen positively, as is in many other countries today. I don't believe that in the US being a teacher is seen as a good profession. This (and many other factors- such as lack of resources, low income...)may contribute to the lack of motivation that exists for many teachers today and the way they interact and motivate other students. As part of the Self Determination literature, students learn best when they are motivated and part of being motivated is seeing that their teachers are motivated as well.
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