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The problem though is that the access also includes much erroneous information and people have no filter.
I agree. One thing schools have to do is teach the difference between a peer reviewed source and garbage. For example I forbid my students to use Wikipedia because any moron can edit it and they do just to be funny. They are getting better at having an owner for each page but I've seen pure garbage on their site.
I require two peer reviewed sources and one actual physical book reference for every lab report my students right. They hate it. I start the year with kids giving me "Google.com" as a source.
I have had parents find information on the web and then come in and argue that I must be wrong in marking their child wrong because they found it on the web. You can find anything you want on the web. You have to stick with tried and true sources.
You are comparing apples and oranges here. Athletics and the performing arts are extracurricular activities, while school is supposed to prepare students for life. Plus, the "resources" that go into athletics and performing arts often come directly from the parents' pockets. I have a child in musical theatre, and nearly all the kids who get parts have parents paying for voice lessons, dance classes, acting classes etc. It is the same in sports. Travel sports can be VERY expensive. Travel soccer in the our area can cost around $2000 a year just for coaching fees and uniforms. If you pay attention during the Olympics, you will hear many stories from parents talking about the tremendous financial sacrifices they made to get their kids to be the best in their sport.
In education, you could put similar resources into your kids and pay for private schools and tutors. They have very expensive academic programs for gifted students where they can do just about anything. This thread though was about public school education paid for by taxpayers not about extra programs. As a taxpayer, I want kids at all academic levels to be given consideration.
In addition, I don't know who gets to decide what kids have the "best minds." Other countries have had systems in place where the government has decided to pick kids for certain paths in life based on perceived ability. I am so glad the U.S. does not do this. I have a child who struggled tremendously in school in the early years. I remember her first grade teacher had already written her off. She told me that some students are "just not capable of doing well." We changed schools.
My daughter had a teacher in second grade who believed that all kids had potential, and you just had to find that potential. She changed the course for my daughter, who is now a successful middle school student preparing to go to high school. If she had continued in a school with teachers who displayed the attitude mentioned above, then she would have been yet another kid to slip through the cracks. One thing that has made our country great is the notion that all kids should be able to dream about their future, not just the kids deemed worthy of attention.
Could not agree more. Is it so hard for people to notice that music and sports make for a nice dessert but academics will be the meal for the vast majority of children?
Never mind that academic performance has been strongly correlated with family background, whereas music and sports performance not so much. The former doesn't require talent as much as it requires a solid curriculum, hard work, good pedagogical guidance and parental support. By contrast, being good at music or sports requires sheer talent more than anything else.
To send a message to children that some of them are just not that good with academics is to take away their chance for a piece of bread. To tell some children that they are not that good at sports or music...is to just ...well....let them know they are not that good at sports and music. As in "cry me a river".
Are there also a plethora of "pay checks" to cover the tuition private schools ask for?
Or perhaps I could stop paying the taxes that go to public ed so I can defray the cost of private school.
Your choices are: A) take the public education offered to you and supplement it yourself or B) pay for what you want. Public education is not an individual education. It never was and never will be. What is taught is determined by society. If you want something else, you have to go the private sector. That is the way life works.
No, you don't get to not pay taxes for public education any more than someone who has no kids in the system can stop paying for it. Public education you see is for the benefit of society. If individuals want something else, they're free to figure out how to get it. Society doesn't owe you what you want in an education. There is no way public education can do that without a tracked system and we've said nay to that. What is offered is one size fits all. If that doesn't work for you, you're free to go elsewhere but you don't get to change the system to cater to you because there are others to consider besides you.
What you are paying for with your taxes is not your own education or your kid's educations but rather to live in an educated society. This is why everyone pays for public education whether they use it or not because everyone benefits from public education whether they use it or not.
Public education cannot be all things to all people. It just can't. We don't have the manpower or the resources. Now if you want to cut my classes in half, I can do a much better job of giving individual attention but as things are, you're not going to get much from me unless you're willing to come after school for 1:1 tutoring and then I can only do that for one student at a time. With 24 students in a class, if I never taught the class and just went from student to student, I could give all my students 2 minutes per day or 360 minutes per 180 day school year. How much individualization is that going to get you? How much education is that going to get you?
What I do is teach the entire class at one time. I try to review for the kids who need it and go deeper for the kids who need it but most of what I do is aimed at the middle. I'm not sure what else you'd have me do with 24 students per class.
And don't say private schools do it. They do it because they have the luxury of students who have chosen to be there, who have parents who take education seriously and if they decide not to do the work or to be disruptive, they get kicked out. Private education works because of the type of student that goes to private schools and the kind of parents they have not because it's a better model. Give me students who accept learning is their job and parents who support me and the sky is the limit. Unfortunately, we have few of either in the public sector.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 03-08-2014 at 04:48 PM..
Your choices are: A) take the public education offered to you and supplement it yourself or B) pay for what you want. Public education is not an individual education. It never was and never will be. What is taught is determined by society. If you want something else, you have to go the private sector. That is the way life works.
No, you don't get to not pay taxes for public education any more than someone who has no kids in the system can stop paying for it. Public education you see is for the benefit of society. If individuals want something else, they're free to figure out how to get it. Society doesn't owe you what you want in an education. There is no way public education can do that without a tracked system and we've said nay to that. What is offered is one size fits all. If that doesn't work for you, you're free to go elsewhere but you don't get to change the system to cater to you because there are others to consider besides you.
What you are paying for with your taxes is not your own education or your kid's educations but rather to live in an educated society. This is why everyone pays for public education whether they use it or not because everyone benefits from public education whether they use it or not.
Public education cannot be all things to all people. It just can't. We don't have the manpower or the resources. Now if you want to cut my classes in half, I can do a much better job of giving individual attention but as things are, you're not going to get much from me unless you're willing to come after school for 1:1 tutoring and then I can only do that for one student at a time. With 24 students in a class, if I never taught the class and just went from student to student, I could give all my students 2 minutes per day or 360 minutes per 180 day school year. How much individualization is that going to get you? How much education is that going to get you?
What I do is teach the entire class at one time. I try to review for the kids who need it and go deeper for the kids who need it but most of what I do is aimed at the middle. I'm not sure what else you'd have me do with 24 students per class.
And don't say private schools do it. They do it because they have the luxury of students who have chosen to be there, who have parents who take education seriously and if they decide not to do the work or to be disruptive, they get kicked out. Private education works because of the type of student that goes to private schools and the kind of parents they have not because it's a better model. Give me students who accept learning is their job and parents who support me and the sky is the limit. Unfortunately, we have few of either in the public sector.
Is it though? Is public school producing a more "educated society"? I watched the video in the op according to the makers of the video and other sources, literacy rates were higher before we began compulsory education then they were after. I suppose the answer lies in what we define as "educated".
Is it though? Is public school producing a more "educated society"? I watched the video in the op according to the makers of the video and other sources, literacy rates were higher before we began compulsory education then they were after. I suppose the answer lies in what we define as "educated".
I stated the goal. I didn't make any claims as to effectiveness. Sadly, the illiteracy rate hasn't moved in a decade. Something is very wrong with schools that pass kids on who cannot read. We can blame the self esteem movement that said we can't hold Johnny back because then his self esteem might be damaged. Never mind the damage being unable to read will do...
I did not say there weren't things wrong with the current system. We need exit exams for every grade and every high school subject and if a student doesn't pass them then they don't pass the class. Something needs to be done to stop passing kids forward who are not prepared to go forward. I favor exit exams because then every school would give the same exam and you'd actually be able to compare one school to another. Exit exams would insure that what was supposed to be taught was taught and that students retained what they need to go on.
This video states the truth that our educational system is designed not to teach people to think, but to condition people to do mind numbing repetitive tasks in a feudal system where the average worker is little more than a wage slave.
We do spend too much time teaching facts (rather than concepts), and students have a hard time memorizing facts by rote memory.
Do you remember in high school algebra (or any math class) doing pages and pages of problems? You were so proud when you got them correct. Then at the end of the chapter there were "wordproblems" ...and you had no idea how to set them up. What good were all those pages of problems if you don't know how to use them in the real world? I've never had an employer come to me and hand me a sheet of paper with the following on it: f(x) = 3x - 7x+5.
I'm not saying that math is useless, but the focus should be on the word problems so that you can think out how to set up the problem and resolve it. Obviously, a few math problems ahead of the word problems are necessary to teach students new concepts and how to set up the word problems...but math is taught very goofy in the United States. Personally, I was good at math...but this may be why the United States ranks #32 in math compared to other nations in the world.
Is it though? Is public school producing a more "educated society"? I watched the video in the op according to the makers of the video and other sources, literacy rates were higher before we began compulsory education then they were after. I suppose the answer lies in what we define as "educated".
It's producing a literate society.
The majority can read at 8th grade level and do simple math.
The majority won't become "educated" but literate enough to function in society.
Less than 50% that enter a 4 year college graduate.
Less than 30% that enter a 2 year college graduate.
College is not for everyone although no matter what the Dept of Education says.
The intent of public school was to educate the working class well enough that they could function in society.
The title of this thread is, "The truth about our educational system". The truth is that there some kids who are better suited for school: some kids are more talented, some kids are smarter, some kids are naturally more gifted.
Using the above as an example, I would venture that there are many children whom it won't matter how many private lessons, dance classes, etc. that they receive, the kid will always be of mediocre talent. Will they have shown growth based on said lessons and extra classes? You betcha.
Just as I can get any kid to show growth during the course of the year. But there will always be a varying degree of growth among students within the same class, school, etc. which is attributed to a myriad of reasons; some being that certain kids are just plain smarter.
Part of the problem in the United States educational system is that people have different learning styles too. Some kids just are not good at sitting in a class and being lectured at. Also, not everyone learns at the same pace. I have a nephew who showed a high IQ but was a miserable failure in high school. My sister took him out of there and placed him in a charter school...where he could learn through a myriad of different styles. He could also study when his biological clock wanted to study. He is not a morning person. He loved the computer, so he did a lot of his learning by reading and doing hands on work on the computer...no lectures. He was also able to get all the individual attention he needed. He just graduated with great grades.
Yeah for charter schools! They are not for everyone, but thank God they are available.
Could not agree more. Is it so hard for people to notice that music and sports make for a nice dessert but academics will be the meal for the vast majority of children?
Never mind that academic performance has been strongly correlated with family background, whereas music and sports performance not so much. The former doesn't require talent as much as it requires a solid curriculum, hard work, good pedagogical guidance and parental support. By contrast, being good at music or sports requires sheer talent more than anything else.
To send a message to children that some of them are just not that good with academics is to take away their chance for a piece of bread. To tell some children that they are not that good at sports or music...is to just ...well....let them know they are not that good at sports and music. As in "cry me a river".
We have to stop with this "talent" mentality. Those people who are wildly successful at whatever they do, whether it is academic or athletic in nature are that way because of effort. Yes, Michael phelps has funny bending ankles, if he didn't put in 10,000+ hours of practice it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest. The same is true for academic achievement. Some people are naturally smart but to do anything with it, they must but in their "practice". And enough with this "sheer talent" with regards to music. It doesn't matter if you are gifted in music, no one will know until you have spent the years learning to play and thousands of hours in practicing.
The 10,000 hour rule applies in any endeavor, academics are not special that way. Most outliers are that way trough effort, not through some random genetic talent. It is a dangerous stereotype to perpetuate in all areas of life as it discourages effort across the board.
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Re: Education
