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Well, I've taught in both systems and gone to university in both systems, and I didn't find any substantial differences in the students except that the British system forces you to specialize earlier. That is great for some kids, but it means that someone who is a late academic bloomer will have a much harder time getting into university because they will be put on a trade school track about the time we'd be starting high school.
I taught some really badly behaved kids who were functionally illiterate because of bad schools in Britain and I taught some really smart, wonderfully behaved and well educated Americans. Different students will thrive under different systems- I hated my education in Britain because they were very big on rote memorization and didn't like that I had an opinion and spoke up in class. These qualities are more acceptable in the American system.
In my experience as an international student in England, I found the kids from developing countries to be incredibly well spoken and well educated (more so than most of the Americans or Brits) BECAUSE only the smartest kids get nurtured. Average or below level kids get left behind because countries with limited resources don't waste time on anyone but the best. Your friends may have been very well educated because they were selected by teachers at a very young age. What country are they from? Educational systems vary a lot from country to country. In my experience of attending school in Britain, then living and teaching there, the British educational system doesn't work that well in Britain.
What country are they from? Educational systems vary a lot from country to country. In my experience of attending school in Britain, then living and teaching there, the British educational system doesn't work that well in Britain.
My friends are from UK, Barbados, Jamaica and St. Kitts. And you are right, they were selected from among the best. However, the opportunities for vocational education seemed to open up employment options for kids without higher education. In the US (the major cities, primarily), vocational education has been eliminated or moved to community colleges. I wouldn't want anyone to slip through the cracks entirely but the current system basically says no college, no decent job. I think there has to be a mid-range alternative.
I think education is much worst than anyone realizes in the US.
-I graduated highschool in 1996 and I remember back then, I had history teachers that really believed we had "solved" depressions. They didn't happen anymore. Bank runs, bank panics, we had solved all of that.
And you wonder why people were caught off guard during the 08 crash. Similar with the housing boom and bust. None of the financial problems we had in the 2000's were covered in any highschool books that I had. Highschool econ or finance books don't cover greed, ego, selfishness, ineptitude, laziness. Everyone is "rational" and working in their own best interests. Just crazy constructs that have no basis in reality.
They teach rote memorization, but it doesnt do you much good in understanding whats going on now. Say you take a multiple choice test and you have to memorize different laws that have gone into effect.
But, what if the glass steagall act gets repealed? It allowed banks to do stupid things. Multiple choice tests don't tie things around to what's happening now. Or the consequences.
I think education is much worst than anyone realizes in the US.
-I graduated highschool in 1996 and I remember back then, I had history teachers that really believed we had "solved" depressions. They didn't happen anymore. Bank runs, bank panics, we had solved all of that.
And you wonder why people were caught off guard during the 08 crash. Similar with the housing boom and bust. None of the financial problems we had in the 2000's were covered in any highschool books that I had. Highschool econ or finance books don't cover greed, ego, selfishness, ineptitude, laziness. Everyone is "rational" and working in their own best interests. Just crazy constructs that have no basis in reality.
They teach rote memorization, but it doesnt do you much good in understanding whats going on now. Say you take a multiple choice test and you have to memorize different laws that have gone into effect.
But, what if the glass steagall act gets repealed? It allowed banks to do stupid things. Multiple choice tests don't tie things around to what's happening now. Or the consequences.
We are not officially in a depression, we are in a recession. There is a clear definition of those and as bad as some things seem, we are no where NEAR the 1930's as far as market conditions and unemployment. There are conditions and procedures in place to prevent the stock market crash of '29 ever happening again and those procedures worked.
Simply put, in this country, the teachers suck. The administration sucks. The education system as a whole is complete garbage. Couple that with half-hearted(or less) teachers trying to instruct students who don't care... and boom we have retards running around everywhere.
Blanket statements are usually used by those most ignorant about the topic at hand.
We are not officially in a depression, we are in a recession. There is a clear definition of those and as bad as some things seem, we are no where NEAR the 1930's as far as market conditions and unemployment.
There is actually not a clear definition of a depression, before the great depression recessions were called depressions. Comparing today's issues to the 1930's is difficult because a lot of the measures of economic health have changed. Suggesting that we are no where near the 1930's is not all that accurate. Today's issues are different and the problems are far from over.
Which is worse a short period of very high unemployment or a long period of moderately high unemployment?
Quote:
Originally Posted by golfgal
There are conditions and procedures in place to prevent the stock market crash of '29 ever happening again and those procedures worked.
Why did they not work in the early 2000's? The only way you can prevent a stock market crash is by closing the markets and pretending nothing happened. The great depression was proceeded by a large stock market bubble where as this time the bubble was in real estate. That is why stocks did not crash as heavily this time as they did last time. On the other hand real estate held up fairly well during the depression and it crashed during this recession.
But I'm not sure what John's point is....a History teacher should not really be expected to poses significant knowledge of economics. To what degree modern monetary policy is effective is after all not really a matter of History.
Blanket statements are usually used by those most ignorant about the topic at hand.
I wonder if you realize that this is entirely self-defeating?
The claim made by Smooth23 is not all that out there. Is it really realistic to expect the market to allocate 3.5 million intelligent people into teaching in primary and secondary school systems? Is it realistic to expect your average teacher to produce things in kids that they do not themselves poses?
There is actually not a clear definition of a depression, before the great depression recessions were called depressions. Comparing today's issues to the 1930's is difficult because a lot of the measures of economic health have changed. Suggesting that we are no where near the 1930's is not all that accurate. Today's issues are different and the problems are far from over.
Which is worse a short period of very high unemployment or a long period of moderately high unemployment?
Why did they not work in the early 2000's? The only way you can prevent a stock market crash is by closing the markets and pretending nothing happened. The great depression was proceeded by a large stock market bubble where as this time the bubble was in real estate. That is why stocks did not crash as heavily this time as they did last time. On the other hand real estate held up fairly well during the depression and it crashed during this recession.
But I'm not sure what John's point is....a History teacher should not really be expected to poses significant knowledge of economics. To what degree modern monetary policy is effective is after all not really a matter of History.
Well, they did work in the 2000's and the "crash" in the 2000's was nothing compared to 2008. There are stop gaps in the system to prevent it from falling too far, especially in one day. One also has to accept in a free market there are going to be ups and downs, much of what happened in 2008 was media driven as well--not that there weren't economic factors that triggered the downturn but they HYPE made it worse then it had to be. The biggest "ups" in the market have also come on the heals of the biggest downs but people also forget that stocks are LONG TERM investments for the most part and looking at day to day or even year to year changes are not what they are about--look decade to decade and you will still see significant growth.
Well, they did work in the 2000's and the "crash" in the 2000's was nothing compared to 2008.
It was more isolated in nature (mostly tech stocks, etc), but the crash was huge. The Nasdaq went from around 4000 to 1600 in a matter of 2 years and 10 years later it still has not recovered. In the 30's the vast majority of the declines occurred slowly over 2 years after black Tuesday, in fact there was a modest recovery after black Tuesday. Stop gaps and things of that nature don't prevent anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by golfgal
look decade to decade and you will still see significant growth.
That depends on the decade. It is a myth that stocks always do well "long term".
The markets are cyclical. This is something that people should have learned in high school economics. I did. Is economics still taught in most high schools today?
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