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I think the big problem is the lifestyle of Americans, the lack of emphasis on family. There's too many distractions, too much strife, too many ways to interfere in family. Often parents of a family both work just to pay the bills, when kids come home there's no one there for them and when the parents do come home after a long days work what is to be done?
I had a mom, my ex was a work at home mom. Our daughters have grown to be independent responsible members of this society. There were challenges and for more than a decade our social lives were mainly at work for me and immediate neighbors for her plus some close relatives. We never owned a new car, the clothes I had for work came from Goodwill and so did a lot of my wifes and daughters everyday clothes, we had very little in the way of the latest fashions or the full cable package.
Family is not a priority in this society any more and family is the garden our children grow and learn in. We've shoved a lot of the responsibilities of parents onto schools and sometimes it's societies fault, not the parents.
The education system cannot make up what families used to provide.
Families teach the life skills to their kids. Families teach them how to cook, sew, open a bank account, etc.
Schools provide the academic foundation so that society doesn't become illiterate.
Schools cannot make up for what families aren't teaching their kids anymore.
For much of the Twentieth Century schools remained under local control; prospective teachers were often supplied by a network of locally-dispersed "teachers colleges". They provided modest paychecks for people not suited to, or attracted to the physical jobs which were the norm in a heavy-industrial system which was both the envy of the rest of the world, and prospered from a near-monopoly at the close of the Second World War.
How many of the people in this thread are aware, for example, that in many urbanized school districts, the practice of "buying a job" in either the schools or the county Court House, was a common practice, regardless of which political party was in power? In the "Anthracite" region of Pennsylvania where I grew up, the practice lingered in some districts until the 1960's.
But the imbalance cited above, like all the rest, wasn't sustainable, and the "service economy", with more, but poorer-paying "opportunities" for "trailing spouses", emerged.
Simultaneously, many people within the public education system began to recognize that they held something close to a monopoly due to both the mandate for attendance and the much-higher cost (and effectiveness) of privatized education.
Teachers, once limited to salaries not much better than those of school custodians, became one of the "priveleged" classes within the post-industrial economy. I don't doubt that many of them continued to retain the higher ideals and standards of their formative years, but as a relative of several educators, I am also aware that the system creates the usual group of slackers, and these individuals are naturally drawn to the less-professional districts.
The problem is a cancer -- and the cure for cancer is often radical surgery. But I wouldn't expect this from our over-sensitized and short-term-oriented electorate.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 04-26-2015 at 12:08 PM..
People are jumping on the OP, but he's on to something. The education system here sucks - it is boring, uninspired, catering to the lowest common denominator, and pretty much takes the fun out of learning and kills any creativity, motivation, or original thinking.
I can see this now as a mom of a five year old entering K. I look at him and other kids his age and marvel at how ready to learn they are, they're curious, engaged, fascinated with everything and soak up learning like a sponge. You can really teach them anything, which is what we've been doing at home for the last two years. My son loves to read, he loves math - he goes through workbooks for fun and is now doing two-digit addition and learning multiplication. But how long will that last? I feel that once kids go through a few years of school, they all lose interest and begin hating the material because of the way it's taught to them. We chose our neighbourhood based on the schools and they're fantastic here, it's a highly educated affluent community with involved parents - but even so, he'll be learning stuff in K that he's known for over two years, and I've heard from other parents of bright kids who started school that it's a waste of time, the work is silly, and the kids are bored to tears and are regressing from what they learned in preschool. It's better in the best private schools, but these are very expensive and we can't comfortably afford it. It's kind of sad all around.
FWIW I went to school in another country, but it wasn't much different. I also remember this shift that happened gradually over the years. I remember myself in early elementary, how excited I was to go to school. I loved learning, I enjoyed every subject and was excited to learn. I was praised by teachers and got all As. Fast forward to middle and high school and I was dragging my feet, dreading every day, skipping class, making Cs, because I was so bored out of my mind. Almost nothing they taught us inspired any sort of interest. I pulled it together by senior year and in college, again, I experienced that real interest and spark of learning for the first time in years. I was engaged, interested, and got a high GPA, because I was actually learning what I wanted to learn and what I was good at. But those schooling years in between were just a wasteland of dread - I would wake up in cold sweat for years after graduating, dreaming that I was back in high school for some reason.
Last edited by EvilCookie; 04-26-2015 at 11:39 AM..
What, you think other countries teach these things in school as well?
The US education system is great, the best in the world, people from all over the world try to get into our universities, and most parents would do about anything to get their kids enrolled in a US high school as well.
Just because there is a sizable group of students who do not take advantage of what is offered, thus cause a dip in rankings, does not mean the education system is not great. You can bring a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
The only reason there is competition is because of labor costs, nothing more. You would see how quickly this solves itself if the immigrant worker actually held the visa instead of the company. It is not like the h1b worker can just go look for work like a citizen or something, nor negotiate the salary like one. The company holds the visa, thus has leverage over the worker which results in the worker working for less salary than what the market actually demands. This is why companies are pushing to allow more h1b's.
Complaining that H1B wages are low can make your complaint seem frivolous. People comparing wages only compare the wages for the official 40 hours per week. They don't take into account the unofficial 50 hours of free overtime that isn't on the clock. Employers can't demand that free overtime from American workers, because they can get a job that doesn't require it. So the issue is not that H1B salaries are low, but that they give 90 hours of work for the price of 40.
Honestly I can't think of a single life skill I learned by graduating HS and i grew up in NY NJ MD IL Nothing applicable like a basic finance course, basic course on nutrition. It's no wonder our most lucrative industries have to compete with people from the third world like India routinely. Our education system is HORRIBLE. It doesn't engender any practical or theoretical skills, critical thinking, rhetoric.z
I can't htink of how much better our country would be off we if taught hard or technical skills in high school and put as much emphasis on them as the humanities.
OP, you were supposed to learn basic nutrition in 2nd grade. Did your school not teach that? Food groups, and so forth? It wouldn't hurt to revisit that in Middle School in more detail, but the basics are supposed to be covered in grade school. I think they should require anatomy and physiology in HS, and a variety of science concepts in a non-laboratory course. Too many times when I've tried to discuss online electromagnetic phenomena associated with the human body or the Earth's atmosphere and space, people accuse me of posting "pseudo-science" or "woo woo" science. People don't know the difference between real science and fake science. That's not just sad, it's outrageous. And it's getting worse; the education system has been hijacked by lowest-common-denominator "back to basics" agendas.
OP, you were supposed to learn basic nutrition in 2nd grade. Did your school not teach that? Food groups, and so forth? It wouldn't hurt to revisit that in Middle School in more detail, but the basics are supposed to be covered in grade school. I think they should require anatomy and physiology in HS, and a variety of science concepts in a non-laboratory course. Too many times when I've tried to discuss online electromagnetic phenomena associated with the human body or the Earth's atmosphere and space, people accuse me of posting "pseudo-science" or "woo woo" science. People don't know the difference between real science and fake science. That's not just sad, it's outrageous. And it's getting worse; the education system has been hijacked by lowest-common-denominator "back to basics" agendas.
Maybe because the lowest common denominator is becoming the majority ?
If you look at test scores over the years and compare that with the changing demographics of America you will see a pattern emerge.
The declining test scores is a reflection of a changing demographic.
Complaining that H1B wages are low can make your complaint seem frivolous. People comparing wages only compare the wages for the official 40 hours per week. They don't take into account the unofficial 50 hours of free overtime that isn't on the clock. Employers can't demand that free overtime from American workers, because they can get a job that doesn't require it. So the issue is not that H1B salaries are low, but that they give 90 hours of work for the price of 40.
I was not complaining, I was pointing out to the OP that the reason there is such competition as the OP stated in their post was not because of poor US education, but because of labor costs, and merely pointed out of many ways as to why the labor costs is lower (your example is also a way), and an example of how this could easily be corrected (but notice corporations are not pushing for this change).
Because parents should have taught "life" skills? Schools only teach "material". Skills have to be learned else where...
I blame parents more than the teachers for any failures of the education system. A kid is stuck with the parents for 18+ years, the teacher only has a student for 8 months unless you get the same teacher the next year, then 16 months.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lordvader44
Schools are fine. In my neck of the woods we have parents that stress getting a good education and and are there to help and encourage their kids get the most out of their education. I think there are a lot of inner city and immigrant kids and parents that dont give two s"its about school and thats whats bringing down the average.
This is something that I myself often understate. The parents are providing the schools with a raw commodity... Our nation's future. Who is to say that they have set a good foundation for which the schools to work with? I would imagine it's very easy to be complacent when you can simply blame someone else... Which is what we have been doing in America for 30 years, while everything around us decays. How has that arm chair, finger point nonsense been working out for the country?
Thank you. This post is all that needs to be said. The system is designed for those at the top to continue to line their pockets. It is not designed to teach critical thinking skills, life skills, or anything else people in this thread are talking about.
God, you people cannot really believe this drek.
School has never been where you learn common sense or life skills. If people would actually spend two seconds with their kids, maybe they wouldn't be so useless.
This is something that I myself often understate. The parents are providing the schools with a raw commodity... Our nation's future. Who is to say that they have set a good foundation for which the schools to work with? I would imagine it's very easy to be complacent when you can simply blame someone else... Which is what we have been doing in America for 30 years, while everything around us decays. How has that arm chair, finger point nonsense been working out for the country?
The 5 year old is not a raw commodity. Much of the foundation is set by the parents from birth to 5 years old.
Early childhood development shapes and sets the foundation before they enter school.
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