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Everyone I talk about tells me how terrible the public schools are now a days. They tell me "in their day" our public education system was much better. The kids minded their teachers, people paid attention in class and the quality of instruction was much better.
If you are a baby boomer or older, do you think the school you went to "in your day" is better than what your kids have today?
If this is the case then there must of been a glory day in America's history when schools were great. In what era was our public education system in good shape?
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Originally Posted by dazzleman
There are a number of complex answers, but I can give a simple one. When an education became a 'right' that other people were supposed to provide for you, rather than a responsibility of the student to perform as well as possible.
I'm not a baby boomer, but both my parents are. What they've both found to be true is this: the 'Glory Days' of the American public school system spanned between the late 18th Century and early 1960's. And yes, schools were stricter then, though its been proven that there's no correlation between smacking a kid with a ruler, for example, and academic performance. So for those who are wondering, bringing that kind of discipline back will do nothing to fix any of the school system problems. The only workable solution is to change what's being taught (no more "New Math" or historical revisionism), and put the focus back on independent thinking by instituting a brand-new system patterned around the Socratic Method.
When the students are once again given the right to think for themselves and form their own conclusions, motivation will increase and so will performance. If not, they'll just keep doing what they're doing and remain sycophantic "yes-men" well into adulthood. The right to independent thought is as fundamental and important as the right to life itself.
As I stated earlier, the public schools went downhill when left-wing radicals took over the school system and stole the students' right to independent thought (think: 'mind control'). Prior to then, there was no school system problem to fix.
The system was 'reverse-engineered' by proponents of social engineering/reform in the 60's, and ever since then has been used as a tool to realize their dream. In about 50 years our public schools went from academic institutions to indoctrination centers. How many times do I have to repeat this? All anyone has to do is look at the people being produced by this system!
The misguided belief that education has become a "right" that other people are supposed to hand to you, is the result of teachings based on a grossly perverted definition of "education". The public school system, for its purposes, has redefined the word completely. Students harbor the belief stated above because that is what they are being taught, in school, on a daily basis! People feel entitled to sit back and receive an education instead of having to actually work for it, because they have learned to be self-centered individuals.
As I said earlier: When you are taught at an early age to hand over your mind and let someone else do your thinking for you, stupidity, laziness and greed come naturally. Also: The teachers who enable the "entitled" students to keep being ignorant, do so because they themselves are ignorant. These teachers (and there are a lot of them) are a product of the same failed system their students are going through.
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Originally Posted by dazzleman
Also, when parents stopped supporting schools and became an 'advocate' for their child, right or wrong.
That's incorrect, and just highlights how socialist the public school system has become. Parents have every right to advocate for their children, and are not in any way obligated to support schools who assert that they're more qualified to raise their children than they are. By law, when you have a child they belong to YOU until he or she reaches the age of majority.
Even if the child misbehaves (which 9 times out of 10 is blown out of proportion), a parent retains the legal right to watch out for the kid. At my first elementary school, my mother had to physically remove me from campus one day (temporarily) because a group of other kids came close to attacking me. Where were the school supervisors? Why did my mother, who just happened to be on campus that day (this was before cell phones), have to rescue me from my own peers when the school should have done its job and satisfied that responsibility? Ironically, the same school that promised my mother they'd do a better job at raising me could not back up their assertion worth anything.
Also ironic, is that kids could get away with beating up on one another on the playground, but passing notes and daydreaming would never go unpunished. Try figuring that one out.
Last edited by CornerstoneEagle04; 09-10-2011 at 03:29 PM..
The ironic thing is that you seem unaware of the fact that thinking was not encouraged in the public schools back in the 1840s or early 1900s. Public schooling was intended to forge a national culture out of our multicultural population. Catholics were one target, but others were also. The idea was to create *good citizens* not to create thinkers and certainly not to educate people for critical thinking.
Until the 1840s the education system was highly localized and available only to wealthy people. Reformers who wanted all children to gain the benefits of education opposed this. Prominent among them were Horace Mann in Massachusetts and Henry Barnard in Connecticut. Mann started the publication of the Common School Journal, which took the educational issues to the public. The common-school reformers argued for the case on the belief that common schooling could create good citizens, unite society and prevent crime and poverty.
Public schools have, from the beginning, been intended to create factory workers, not intellectuals. We have actually done more to encourage critical thinking in our schools in the 1990s and 2000s than was ever done back in the 1950s.
The ironic thing is that you seem unaware of the fact that thinking was not encouraged in the public schools back in the 1840s or early 1900s. Public schooling was intended to forge a national culture out of our multicultural population. Catholics were one target, but others were also. The idea was to create *good citizens* not to create thinkers and certainly not to educate people for critical thinking.
But I didn't say or imply that free thinking was encouraged in the public schools during that time period. I said the 'Glory Days' of the American public school system spanned between the late 18th Century and early 1960's. I did a poor job at explaining why, however.
I consider even the periods of time you referenced to be part of the 'Golden Years' of the public school system because, despite all its faults, it still produced smarter people who were more productive and helpful to society. And the schools, unlike today, did not serve as a catalyst for social engineering. The nationalism, racism, and ethnocentrism so common during that period all carried over from the colonial days. These beliefs were embedded into society from the United Kingdom, and were so deeply-rooted they lingered for more than a century.
So the schools weren't used as tools for social engineering, just tailored to suit the philosophies already in place.
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Originally Posted by nana053
Until the 1840s the education system was highly localized and available only to wealthy people. Reformers who wanted all children to gain the benefits of education opposed this. Prominent among them were Horace Mann in Massachusetts and Henry Barnard in Connecticut. Mann started the publication of the Common School Journal, which took the educational issues to the public. The common-school reformers argued for the case on the belief that common schooling could create good citizens, unite society and prevent crime and poverty.
And I think that was a good, just and necessary movement. It destroyed the localized and aristocratic school system (another carry-over from the days of British rule), which created a caste system and undermined the vision of our Founding Fathers. Mann and Barnard should be remembered as great patriots for this!
Unfortunately though, their dream of a system that would create good citizens, unite society and prevent crime was short-lived. And it never fully lived up to their expectations, though (IMO) it came close in the middle of the last century. It's tragic that the public school system went downhill just when it started to reach its prime.
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Originally Posted by nana053
Public schools have, from the beginning, been intended to create factory workers, not intellectuals.
That's one of the points I've been stressing! Our economy is manufacturing-based and has been from the beginning. The forcing of "New Math" on students and the re-designation of Algebra as a basic level of math has backfired severely; not a single objective of that initiative has ever been met. I laid out the reason why, at length, earlier in the thread.
We have always depended primarily on immigrants and foreign workers to satisfy our science and engineering needs. Even when the public school system produced more intelligent people! Severely limiting the educational options of students who are deficient only in Algebra, is an intellectual crime and hurts our society in a terrible way. "New Math" is just an arrogant and futile attempt to transform our economy from being manufacturing-based to service-based. The Dept. of Education is trying to reverse a system that has, for better or worse, sustained us for 235 years.
It will never happen.
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Originally Posted by nana053
We have actually done more to encourage critical thinking in our schools in the 1990s and 2000s than was ever done back in the 1950s.
I disagree. Judging from my own experience, and having compared it to that of my parents (whose educations spanned between the mid 50's and mid 70's), freedom of though and critical thinking are more suppressed today in public school than ever before. The 1950's certainly had its own set of societal ills, but at least when you went to school you were expected to learn using your own brain and not someone else's.
I disagree. Judging from my own experience, and having compared it to that of my parents (whose educations spanned between the mid 50's and mid 70's), freedom of though and critical thinking are more suppressed today in public school than ever before. The 1950's certainly had its own set of societal ills, but at least when you went to school you were expected to learn using your own brain and not someone else's.
I'm comparing it to MY education. I started kindergarten in 1952. I can tell you that learning was *rote* not critical thinking at all. I was bored as hell all through school because I was NOT expected to learn anything at all using my brain, only to regurgitate what I was told. We did not learn to analyze history, but to recite dates and battles. We did not learn math concepts, but formulas and plugging in (good for some engineering fields, but not much else, really).
My son learned a lot more in the 70s and 80s, as he took real college courses in high school. My grandchildren are learning a lot more today as they are expected to solve problems in elementary school rather than just regurgitate facts and this is in TEXAS which does not have the best schools. My granddaughter is in a International Baccalaureate school here and the focus is on the global society which, imo, is a good thing.
There is high stakes testing for all so kids don't fall through the cracks, but now it's the only thing that is taught - how to take a test, how to manage your test taking time, how to bubble in correctly, how to stay on the right line, and then curriculum that is only strongly believed to be on this year's test based on careful analysis of what's been on the test in years past.
I agree that part of the decline is that teachers teach to test, instead of teaching to learn.
Private schools have almost NONE of the behavior problems that low income area public schools have. Therefore, teachers can spend more time actually teaching, instead of having to spend most of their time on discipline issues with no parental support. THE PLAYING FIELD IS NOT EQUAL!!!!
Then chuck out the problem kids into an alternative school, or fail the brats till the drop out.
Sorry, but I have little empathy for kids that make the choice not to learn, and instead want to waste away everyone's time by being destructive disruptive brats.
If that particular family requires a particular combination of employment-- from one job to four-- then that's what it needs. Trying to justify one's own family style by denigrating others' is silly, petty, and pointless.
"One size fits all" never actually does.
True, but I have noticed that for OUR family, (since all three of us are "in school") we focus more on education, and due to that; our DD'd grades have improved by leaps and bounds. When we changed OUR focus, her life improved. And I helicopter parent, maybe to some teachers; but they only have her for a year, I am responsible for her whole life. Too many parents forget that, or never learned that core principle.
In my lifetime (I started school in 1950) I have seen education go downhill. Both of my parents were educators and I became a teacher so I do have an informed opinion.
My education was about 20% rote and 80% critical thinking. You needed the rote learning in the early stages to set the foundation. The older we got, the more we were encouraged to think for ourselves and the more our classes were largely discussion.
I do wish I had learned some more by rote but that's another story.
In the 1960s the spoiled independent thinkers of my generation wanted to change the world. Their intentions were good but it went too far. Radicals took over and that's what started to ruin education. Radicals, not the regular ordinary people.
Radicals wanted college courses that would be "relevant". As if they knew what would be relevant!
This was probably in the early 1970s and thank goodness I was done with college by then. Students lost all respect and occupied their professors' offices and demanded their "rights".
Why do we need to learn how to SPELL? Why can't we smoke in class? Why can't we sit on the desks? Why do we need homework? Why do we have do dress properly for school?
So what did we get? A few generations of people who cannot spell, sit still and show respect, won't listen to the teacher, etc. "Let's have college courses in Hollywood Films where we just watch movies all day and give us three credits for it! We'll take that class instead of learning English grammar or American history." "We don't need to know geography, it's not relevant."
So they teach them a bunch of junk and skip the basics. The kids are disrespectful and the parents go along with it by over protecting them and defending them against their "nasty" teachers. My precious little boy/girl who never does anything wrong-how DARE you punish him.
Also everything was "dumbed down." We don't want to hurt little Johnny or Suzie's feelings of self esteem. No grades given out. No report cards. "It's all so unfair." Well, LIFE is unfair so it's better to just get used to it!!!!
The power was coming from the bottom UP instead of the other way around. Not that it should have been a totalitarian system but back in the 1950s and 60s there was a good balance. A long time ago it was too strict. There was little understanding of individual differences and learning styles and it was all taught by rote but those methods went out and education was pretty good. I think kids in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s got a good education, just as I did in the 50s and 60s.
It all (along with society in general) got too permissive. Anything goes.
Probably all this standardized testing is a reaction to that permissiveness when you could study or not study anything you wanted to. (How about asking a class of 5 yr olds what they want to learn that day?!!--how stupid is that? Most will choose things that are fun and anyway how could they POSSIBLY know what they need to learn next at age 5!)
The solution is back to basics and back to discipline and respect. Sorry, but we've got to have some rules. Not chaos. If certain kids don't want to learn, then it's reform school for them--that's what used to happen. They weren't allowed to remain in the classroom and ruin it for everyone else.
Ideally, we could provide millions of social workers and teachers at kindergarten age to help kids and their families when they are at risk of failure. Look at the families--so many divorces, missing fathers, poverty and deprivation--these kids need help and support, a chance to succeed. They can either take it or leave it but if they want the help then it should be there for them. The families need help--so many disadvantaged families where they don't even READ to their kids, they need to be told how important it is to read to them. They need to be told about the important of homework and how their kid needs a quiet place to get it done. And so on.
Give everybody a chance. But if they are well into elementary school and all they do is cause trouble, then how can a teacher teach the class? That's the time to pull these kids OUT and help them if they can be helped or start them down another path.
We need to get tough again. (I'd get rid of teachers unions too.....used to be that the school administration and the teachers worked together as a team. Now the teachers still do the hard work on the front line while the administrators look at them as opponents. The administrators usually want to line their pockets and get a higher up job so they placate the parents and punish the teachers.
That's what has happened. And it's not a case of liberals vs conservatives or Dems vs Repubs--I am a liberal myself. It's a case of throwing away all the rules. Turning things upside down. Everyone wanting everything.
I disagree. Judging from my own experience, and having compared it to that of my parents (whose educations spanned between the mid 50's and mid 70's), freedom of though and critical thinking are more suppressed today in public school than ever before. The 1950's certainly had its own set of societal ills, but at least when you went to school you were expected to learn using your own brain and not someone else's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nana053
I'm comparing it to MY education. I started kindergarten in 1952. I can tell you that learning was *rote* not critical thinking at all. I was bored as hell all through school because I was NOT expected to learn anything at all using my brain, only to regurgitate what I was told. We did not learn to analyze history, but to recite dates and battles. We did not learn math concepts, but formulas and plugging in (good for some engineering fields, but not much else, really).
Quote:
Originally Posted by nana053
My son learned a lot more in the 70s and 80s, as he took real college courses in high school. My grandchildren are learning a lot more today as they are expected to solve problems in elementary school rather than just regurgitate facts and this is in TEXAS which does not have the best schools. My granddaughter is in a International Baccalaureate school here and the focus is on the global society which, imo, is a good thing.
There’s something I failed to account for. Public schools in the deep South were severely behind the rest of the nation back then (1950’s). Neither of my parents went to school down there, which is probably obvious. Thanks for catching that.
For those who don’t know: From the early 1900’s to the late 1960’s the deep South was behind the rest of the country in public education quality, just as it was in nearly every other area. This is because the states in that region were governed by corrupt power-hungry politicians who were racist, chauvinist, and had a utopian view of “Confederate society” which they forced upon their citizens. That’s why the learning was rote and independent/critical thinking was discouraged. Since the Civil Rights Era, great progress has been made.
Though sadly, today they’re just as bad as the rest of the country. One form of oppression was traded for another. So much for “No Student Left Behind!”
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