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It's deeply engrained BECAUSE school REFLECTS what society values. No conspiracy here at all. Schools teach what society wants them to teach. Period. Of course it's going to look deeply engrained. It's deeply engrained in society but it was society that put it there. There was a time when self esteem was tied to a job well done in this country and it was any job well done. Now it's the job that pays the most. In case you haven't noticed, we're a very materialistic nation. The one with the biggest bank account, biggest house and best car when they die wins. Trades, are a means to a job and I think the assumption is that those who want to go into the trades will apprentice instead of going to college.
School is about academics and schools are about identifying the best and the brightest. That's what society wants school to be about (and every parent wants their child to be in the best and brightest group). I think the lack of trades programs really stems from not wanting to write kids off too soon. If I put a child into a college prep program and they decide not to go to college, I haven't done any harm. If I put a child into a trades program and it turns out they were just a late bloomer and could have been a physicist...I could have done a lot of harm. We tend to think that the sky is the limit for our kids and we structure school accordingly. It's not really an issue of what schools offer so much as what parents will accept. Seriously, I could get fired if I told a parent I thought their child wasn't college material.
I, totally, disagree on teachers becomeing defacto parents to kids. Kids are in school 7 hours a day and spend, at most, 6 of those with the same teacher in elementary school. After that, they see a particular teacher about an hour a day. Children see teachers, however many hours, appx half of the days in a given year and when they do see teachers, they share the teacher's attention with 29 other kids. Compare this to parents. Parents already have 5 years of history with a child before they enter school and parents spend time wtih their children pretty much every day of the year. Parents spend part of the day with their kids on school days and the whole day on days off. Parents also have fewer children to divide the time they have with children between. There is no comparison between parents and teachers. Teachers are minor players.
It cracks me up when people want to say teachers become like parents. Not even close. How much impact do you think a teacher can have when they see a child for half of the day for half of the days of a year and then see that child with 29 other kids. All you need to do is look at kids who grow up in orphanages to see that this doesn't work. You can't take an adult and spread them that thin and expect them to be a parent to a child. This is why we have our children one at a time and not in litters....
I do think schools market but it's up to people to buy. You seem to have this idea that people are sheep who will just follow whatever the commercial says to do.......We have brains....we can research colleges... People buy what colleges are selling because it's what people want to buy not because the colleges made them.
1st - We do value as a society big houses, big bank accounts. But you can get a big bank account with a trade! As a plumber or electrician. I know trade school debt is nowhere near some college debt.
After student debt repayments, many kids would be better off in trades. English lit, womens studies, is that going to get you a big bank account (at least very soon)? Probably not. Even normal degrees, psychology or history (or english). This is not the ticket to big riches. Why is there this blanket assumption that every college degree will turn to gold?
This is the conspiracy aspect. Everything is thought of as a yellow brick road in college. It is not.
2nd - The fact that it runs through every school in the country, makes me think its a conspiracy. Its funny how we live in a very diverse society (rich, poor, black, white, asian, gay, straight, different religious backgrounds). So, why treat every kid in school the same?
Look how diverse the country is....ie. california mountains, rocky mountains, hot south, cold northeast, etc. Why would you treat all those people the same? Is every kid going to be academic, of course not.
Why ignore the fact that people are wired differently (and process information differently)? I.e. some kids are very analytical, some are the opposite. But they do the same work. And the "dummies", quote un quote, might be dummies at analytical work, but great at auto repair.
I agree we're very materialistic. So put kids through the best system for them to reach that goal.
3rd - Kids are in school for an awful lot of time. From sept to june. 5 days a week. 6-7 hours a day. 12 years. From age 5-17/18, its basically a de facto second childhood. The influnces you get from it can't be overstated.
School shapes your identity. I.e., I'm a failure. I'm good at this ____. I dont think every kid is a sheep, but kids at 15-16 don't know very much. The problem is a lot of kids are shaped into something they're not.
4th - There's so much money $$$ in for profits, I think they've gutted the cirriculum in k-12, to basically handicap kids and create a customer base for themselves. If you connect the dots of the last 30-40 years, its pretty clear, whats been cut has been replaced by more expensive alternatives.
There shouldn't be anything wrong with apprencticing. Why is it "Bad" to apprentice or looked down on, but its ok to be in classes you don't need (like higher math) and fail? It doesn't make any sense.
It seems like now, its better to have self esteem (and feel good about yourself) and fail, than to have real technical skills and be a b or c student. That's scary.
Another point (and this ties to the op's question, does the system set kids up to fail).
-My cousin lives a few hours from me in san diego. He's 26 or 28. He didn't do well in school. Had reading problems early. Sort of a quasi drop out, but not really. One of the kids in school who would get a c average, with limited prospects.
He got into welding after highschool. I don't know much about it, there's certain certificates you have to get. He's probably doing no better or worse than many other 25-28 year olds now.
-I think the fallacy in school is thinking you'll explode after age 18-22, and be off into the sunset. That's not the case for many kids. The tradesman ends up not much different than a pyschology degree holder. Esp after debt and expenses. Why all the push and prodding at 16-18 to be a star?
-It seems like there is far too much pressure to do everything in the first 18 years of your life. Why not go back to college later if you need it? Why not let kids mature so they can benefit from it?
1st - We do value as a society big houses, big bank accounts. But you can get a big bank account with a trade! As a plumber or electrician. I know trade school debt is nowhere near some college debt.
After student debt repayments, many kids would be better off in trades. English lit, womens studies, is that going to get you a big bank account (at least very soon)? Probably not. Even normal degrees, psychology or history (or english). This is not the ticket to big riches. Why is there this blanket assumption that every college degree will turn to gold?
This is the conspiracy aspect. Everything is thought of as a yellow brick road in college. It is not.
2nd - The fact that it runs through every school in the country, makes me think its a conspiracy. Its funny how we live in a very diverse society (rich, poor, black, white, asian, gay, straight, different religious backgrounds). So, why treat every kid in school the same?
Look how diverse the country is....ie. california mountains, rocky mountains, hot south, cold northeast, etc. Why would you treat all those people the same? Is every kid going to be academic, of course not.
Why ignore the fact that people are wired differently (and process information differently)? I.e. some kids are very analytical, some are the opposite. But they do the same work. And the "dummies", quote un quote, might be dummies at analytical work, but great at auto repair.
I agree we're very materialistic. So put kids through the best system for them to reach that goal.
3rd - Kids are in school for an awful lot of time. From sept to june. 5 days a week. 6-7 hours a day. 12 years. From age 5-17/18, its basically a de facto second childhood. The influnces you get from it can't be overstated.
School shapes your identity. I.e., I'm a failure. I'm good at this ____. I dont think every kid is a sheep, but kids at 15-16 don't know very much. The problem is a lot of kids are shaped into something they're not.
4th - There's so much money $$$ in for profits, I think they've gutted the cirriculum in k-12, to basically handicap kids and create a customer base for themselves. If you connect the dots of the last 30-40 years, its pretty clear, whats been cut has been replaced by more expensive alternatives.
There shouldn't be anything wrong with apprencticing. Why is it "Bad" to apprentice or looked down on, but its ok to be in classes you don't need (like higher math) and fail? It doesn't make any sense.
It seems like now, its better to have self esteem (and feel good about yourself) and fail, than to have real technical skills and be a b or c student. That's scary.
I have no idea why we've fallen in love with the college path. I just know we have and education reflects what society wants. I have no choice but to deliver what parents want. The minute we start working on our own agenda's we're accused of trying to program kids, our jobs are threatened and so is our funding. It is society you must change to change this. Schools will follow.
I do not think k-12 for profits (there really aren't enough of them to lead public schools) are driving this. The for profits I was referring to are colleges where the buyer chooses what they want. Given that parents choose for profit schools when they are used, again, we're back to the schools delivering what the public wants. It's simply, demand leading supply. When there is a public outcry for trades programs, we'll have trades programs. Right now, the outcry is MY CHILD is college material. So the curriculum and the tests are geared towards college prep.
You're trying to find a conspiracy where there is none. Just as stores sell what buyers want, schools sell what society wants. If I owned a store, I would not stock it with what *I* think you should buy. You would balk at the very idea of my being arrogant enough to think I know what you should buy. Instead, I'd stock it with what you might actually buy. I'd look at what other stores sell and what I sell and don't sell over time. I'd love to have a store where everything was made in the USA but I know I'd go out of business because what customers really want (no matter how much they say they want locally made pruducts) is cheap goods. That's why Walmart is going gangbusters even in a bad economy. They sell cheap foriegn goods (there really aren't any cheap American goods besides food).
I'm with you on the self esteem movement but, again, parents lead this not schools. Schools just play into it because parents want it. Schools did not decide everyone should get a trophy, parents did. True self esteem is rooted in ability. It's not something you can confer to a child by giving him a trophy. However, society has it in their heads that you build self esteem by telling kids how special they are and giving them awards that mean nothing. This is what makes parents happy. They don't like it when THEIR CHILD doesn't win an award and if THEIR CHILD doesn't win an award, they have all kinds of excuses as to why the competition was unfair.
You want something to blame? Blame the mommy olympics. All of this started when motherhood became a competitive sport. Back when the objective of school was to choose a career you could make a living at, no matter how much education it required, mothers didn't compete with each other. Just go listen to a group of moms. It won't be long before they're comparing everything from quality of school districts to GPA's to when their kids walked, talked and read. The problem is, unlike the competitive Japenese mothers, ours don't ask their kids to actually accomplish something BEFORE they get that pat on the back. They get it just for existing.
When was the last time you heard a parent say "My child is average"? We don't even breathe those words. I was once run off of a mom bulliten board because I dared to say that my oldest child is average. I was chastised for not FINDING what is special about her. For not putting her in everything out there until she found the thing she'd SHINE at. IMO, all that would have done is convinced her she's supposed to have something she SHINES at. I don't. And I turned out fine but Lord help the mother who doesn't raise her kids on praise these days. She's a pariah. I'm old fashioned. I think trophies and praise should be earned. There is no shortage of people who won't hesitate to call me a bad mom because of it. You're trying to put the blame in the wrong place. Trying to make this some kind of government/school conspiracy when it's simply a reflection of society.
When parents accept that a C is an ok grade, it will, again, be an ok grade. When parents are proud of their child choosing a trade, choosing a trade will come back into favor and schools will bring them back. Seriously, I gave A's to 1/3 of my students last year and had parents complaining that I grade too hard....I'm thinking I graded to easy. In a normal bell curve, you'd have more C's than anything else but that is NOT acceptable to parents today.
Edited to add: I agree with you on the financials. When you look at the cost of getting an education and the lost wages while I was in school, I never break even compared to a line worker in an assembly plant here. However, I never had the opportunity to get that line job and they're closing the plants so I did end up better off but compared to my neighbors who retired from Ford, I never catch up. Individually, we have to decide if an education is worth it to us regardless of what society thinks. Believe it or not, we don't have to follow society's lead. We don't require the praise or even acceptance of others to do the right thing for us.
Who do you think is stopping kids from going to college later? The fastest growing segment on college campuses has been the 25+ crowd for some time. You are whining about things that are controlled individually. You don't need society to bless going to school when you're 28 to go to school when you are 28. You just go. Trust me, the colleges WILL take your money. (BTW, I was 25 when I decided to go to college)
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-29-2011 at 04:43 AM..
1st - We do value as a society big houses, big bank accounts. But you can get a big bank account with a trade! As a plumber or electrician. I know trade school debt is nowhere near some college debt.
After student debt repayments, many kids would be better off in trades. English lit, womens studies, is that going to get you a big bank account (at least very soon)? Probably not. Even normal degrees, psychology or history (or english). This is not the ticket to big riches. Why is there this blanket assumption that every college degree will turn to gold?
This is the conspiracy aspect. Everything is thought of as a yellow brick road in college. It is not.
2nd - The fact that it runs through every school in the country, makes me think its a conspiracy. Its funny how we live in a very diverse society (rich, poor, black, white, asian, gay, straight, different religious backgrounds). So, why treat every kid in school the same?
Look how diverse the country is....ie. california mountains, rocky mountains, hot south, cold northeast, etc. Why would you treat all those people the same? Is every kid going to be academic, of course not.
Why ignore the fact that people are wired differently (and process information differently)? I.e. some kids are very analytical, some are the opposite. But they do the same work. And the "dummies", quote un quote, might be dummies at analytical work, but great at auto repair.
I agree we're very materialistic. So put kids through the best system for them to reach that goal.
3rd - Kids are in school for an awful lot of time. From sept to june. 5 days a week. 6-7 hours a day. 12 years. From age 5-17/18, its basically a de facto second childhood. The influnces you get from it can't be overstated.
School shapes your identity. I.e., I'm a failure. I'm good at this ____. I dont think every kid is a sheep, but kids at 15-16 don't know very much. The problem is a lot of kids are shaped into something they're not.
4th - There's so much money $$$ in for profits, I think they've gutted the cirriculum in k-12, to basically handicap kids and create a customer base for themselves. If you connect the dots of the last 30-40 years, its pretty clear, whats been cut has been replaced by more expensive alternatives.
There shouldn't be anything wrong with apprencticing. Why is it "Bad" to apprentice or looked down on, but its ok to be in classes you don't need (like higher math) and fail? It doesn't make any sense.
It seems like now, its better to have self esteem (and feel good about yourself) and fail, than to have real technical skills and be a b or c student. That's scary.
I'd rep you in triplicate for these comments if I could.
Another point (and this ties to the op's question, does the system set kids up to fail).
-My cousin lives a few hours from me in san diego. He's 26 or 28. He didn't do well in school. Had reading problems early. Sort of a quasi drop out, but not really. One of the kids in school who would get a c average, with limited prospects.
He got into welding after highschool. I don't know much about it, there's certain certificates you have to get. He's probably doing no better or worse than many other 25-28 year olds now.
-I think the fallacy in school is thinking you'll explode after age 18-22, and be off into the sunset. That's not the case for many kids. The tradesman ends up not much different than a pyschology degree holder. Esp after debt and expenses. Why all the push and prodding at 16-18 to be a star?
-It seems like there is far too much pressure to do everything in the first 18 years of your life. Why not go back to college later if you need it? Why not let kids mature so they can benefit from it?
A good solid year of scrubbing toilets or flipping burgers for next to nothing is the greatest "education" of them all IMHO.
Not only will they learn that no one is going to hold their hand and allow them to 'redo' practically everything they screw up, they'll learn that they couldn't possibly live on next-to-nada for a paycheck.
Most employers I know train their employees regardless of the "education" they have in order to perform the job the way they want them to regardless of the classes they've taken in college.
While it's good to give all children options, we will never be able to stick them all into the same category in terms of what they can eventually achieve IMO.
I know people who came from literally the most miserably disconnected/disfunctional family lives I've ever seen. Still, they are very successful today. Why? As they matured, they learned were they DIDN'T want to end up.
Ivory, the job of schools was not intended to identify the best and brightest. Public schools were created to develop competent citizens that could be responsible and productive members of a society transitioning from an agrarian-based society to an industrial era.
Early educators in the public school movement believed strongly in the value of the socialization of children in order to develop responsible citizens. They also believed in learning by doing. Trades naturally played an important role as a part of a total education.
Schools should provide a wide range of experiences and methods of learning. The social aspect of schooling has been severely diminished over the past 20 to 30 years. The effects of this short-sightedness is reflected in our societal behaviors and interactions.
Ivory, the job of schools was not intended to identify the best and brightest. Public schools were created to develop competent citizens that could be responsible and productive members of a society transitioning from an agrarian-based society to an industrial era.
Early educators in the public school movement believed strongly in the value of the socialization of children in order to develop responsible citizens. They also believed in learning by doing. Trades naturally played an important role as a part of a total education.
Schools should provide a wide range of experiences and methods of learning. The social aspect of schooling has been severely diminished over the past 20 to 30 years. The effects of this short-sightedness is reflected in our societal behaviors and interactions.
I never said it was our job to identify the best and the brightest. I agree that public schools were created to develop competent citizens. I'm just stating that the definition of what is competence is determined by society NOT the schools. And we do provide a wide range of experiences and employ multiple methods of teaching. The goal, simply, remains to be college bound or, at least, community college bound...THAT is what society wants. Just look at the tests schools and educators are judged by. You won't find any trades material there.
I repeat....schools will provide what society wants!!!! We are, after all a public service. You can have all the ideas you want as to what schools should be but if society does not agree, society wins. Schools, simply, do not get to pick what is important. That is dictated to us. We operate within the parameters set by the public. So, if you want change, lobby for it. However, as long as parents glorify the college bound track, THAT is what will be emphasized in schools. If you want schools to be something else, you need society to buy into the new model.
I don't see schools as conspiring against what society wants. I see them as being driven by what society wants.
The problem lies with the fact that NCLB and its accompaying federal funding (and sanctions) took away state and local control of education to a large extent. The problem is getting worse not better. Although national content standards are important care should be taken to ensure that federal policy does not fully replace educational program diversity and innovation as well as the needs and desires of local communities.
The problem lies with the fact that NCLB and its accompaying federal funding (and sanctions) took away state and local control of education to a large extent. The problem is getting worse not better. Although national content standards are important care should be taken to ensure that federal policy does not fully replace educational program diversity and innovation as well as the needs and desires of local communities.
From what I can see, however, this IS what the local communities want. As I said before, just try telling a parent of a 9th grader that THEIR child is not college material. Just try telling them you're putting THEIR child in a lower level class because you don't think he can handle the higher class. Parents are placing unrealistic expectations on their children BUT AFTER THEY FAIL, want to blame the system. You see, their child could have gone to college if only their school had gotten it right because THEIR child really is college material but the school messed him up....
The push is to raise the bar and parents consider tech programs lowering the bar. They abhor the idea that kids might level out in schools and someone might be better. I had a student last year who really struggled in my class. He passed with a D. He should be proud of that D because he didn't let the subject get the best of him. He didn't give up like so many of his classmates. He was determined to pass and did. Sadly, no one but me sees that determination it took to get that D. I'd hire this kid in a heartbeat if I owned a company. He WILL figure out how to get the job done but all anyone will see is the D but, for this student, a D in chemistry represents him trying his best. If every student tried like him, I wouldn't fail anyone and my averages would be a whole lot higher. His kind of determination is rare.
I disagree that the majority wanted the federal government to take over education. Economics made states fiscal hostages as more and more unfunded federal mandates were imposed upon the states. NCLB had laudable goals but quickly turned into a high stakes testing program which resulted in a number of states gaming the system.
If you haven't read Diane Ravitch's latest book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, I highly recommend you do. Ravitch was a key figure of the group that developed policy that led to NCLB. She candidly discusses how far from the initial goals the policy strayed as well as the corruption and manipulation involved.
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Trades, are a means to a job and I think the assumption is that those who want to go into the trades will apprentice instead of going to college. 
...We have brains....we can research colleges... People buy what colleges are selling because it's what people want to buy not because the colleges made them.
You see, their child could have gone to college if only their school had gotten it right because THEIR child really is college material but the school messed him up....
