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It seems to me we have an educational system stamped with an early industrial model. Kids are put into a factory of learning, put on an assembly line based mostly on year produced, graded a-f. Then dumped out after their expiration date.
My first thought is to rethink education, and instead replace it with learning. Education refers to an organizational structure, teacher is fixed and student is fixed. There is no flexibility for a teacher to learn from a student or a student to learn from a teacher. The hierarchy of this system is not constructive to the teacher or student. In reality both would be learners. A former teacher, maybe a guide, who learns, becomes better at guiding learners.
What if instead of segregating academics by age, we allowed students to advance based on their unique abilities. If instead of grading them, we just accept when a student has attained proficiency on a subject sufficient to advance to the next level or graduate.
Segregation by age makes some sense, but not academic segregation. We force kids to sit for hours, taking what for them may be meaningless classes never used in real life. We discourage cooperation, calling it cheating, but in life, we seek help from associates all the time.
The requirements of a child to obtain a high school degree, should be objective, some knowledge of history, geography, basic math, and English skills. Beyond that, kids should be allowed to explore most any venue of learning that interests them. Fixed hours, in crappy buildings, with inedible lunches are not going to inspire children to learn. A fixed curriculum prepared by some know it all far removed from a classroom is unlikely to chart a reasonable course for every child. Guides should be trusted to help enable learners. If learners attain goals, which would be measured by testing, that is all the interest the state has. Aside from of course assuring safety of all, delicious meals, and non-indoctrination to children of political or religious beliefs.
That sounds intriguing and similar to historical methods of learning from mentor to a small group of students. I'm not sure it could be done with the mass numbers of students we have today. It would require too many and much better teachers than we have today.
We are paralyzed by our obsession to attempt to make everything fair. Ideally, you woudl take the most amenable students to a progressive learning situation like you describe, separate them out and see how far they can go in 12 years. Other kids would be taught in different ways depending on their aptitude, attitude, circumstances, and ability. But that would not be fair.
In the USA we are obsessively convinced that we can make the world fair, by our definitions of fair, if we just spend enough money and pass more laws and regulations.
We cannot. Some kids are born to horrible parents who do not care about them and will not encourage, or support them. Those kids are messed up. They have virtually no possibility of becoming accomplished. It is not fair, but they have almost no chance to succeed by societal standards and schools are not going to fix that no matter how much money is thrown at the problem.
Maybe 1%-5% of kids in horrible situations will climb their way out of a horrible situation. However in many cases it is 0%. Yet we insist on focusing all of our resources on that 0-5% and dragging down our other students to make things more "fair"
We were in a school district that had a set of "fundamental" schools. Basically these were public school that you had to work to get into. The parents who cared got their kids into the fundamental schools. The kids whose parents did nto care, went to the regular public schools which wee comparative horrible. Since all the kids whose parents did not care were grouped together, those schools and 99.9% of the students in them did terrible on test scores. Only a tiny percentage went on to college, I thin fewer than half graduated. The fundamental schools were at worst average schools and many were exemplary.
One day someone looked around and said "this is not fair" They started taking the better performing students from the fundamental schools and the better teachers and spreading them out amongst the non-fundamental schools. Kids with parents who do not care were moved into the fundamental schools. The parent contracts requiring a commitment to both eh school (volunteer time) and to the kids at home were eliminated because thy were deemed not fair. Although non-mandatory, most of the fundamental schools had school uniforms. this was also eliminated.
The kids who got spread out to the schools for kids whose parents did not care, frequently stopped being exemplary or at least fell behind because the classes they were in were focused on struggling through the basics over and over again. The fundamental schools stopped performing as well. The regular schools did not perform any better, although there was a tiny percentage of increase in graduation rates as the former exemplary students still managed to graduate, even if they ended up two years behind their peers.
Kids who are worried about whether Mom is going to shoot up tonight; or whether daddy will beat up mommy; will my brothers firends come over again and threaten to kill me or burn m with cigarettes; or will we have anything to eat for dinner besides beer; are simply not going to make it through the school system. Nothing the school does is going to change this. Ideally, the schools would pick the kids out of these situations/schools who show a probability of succeeding and get them into a special circumstance where they can achieve "success" However that would not be fair. The whole "no child left behind" concept sounds really noble and caring. As a concept it is. However some children are going to be left behind, some are in such horrible circumstances are have become so jaded or whatever that it is hopeless. The teachers who "teach" at these schools are miserable. They have the knowledge. They have the drive. However they can see, even as early as elementary school, that they cannot make a difference with their students. Trying to make things "fair" by moving these students to better performing schools, or by moving teachers around, or shifting funding, does nothing but bring the better performing students down closer to the level of the hopeless students. That really accomplishes nothing.
I do not know what the solution is, but I do know what we are trying right now is futile and does not work at all. Some (many?) other countries with better schools, make no effort to be "fair" but instead focus on the students who show aptitude. That in some ways is a brutal system, but it also results in "better" overall schools.
Again and again we try to make everything fair, by bringing the exemplary schools/students down closer to the median. Since we have not figured out how to make students with bad parents succeed, the only way to be fair, is to bring the students with good parents down to the level of the students with bad parents. That in a nutshell is why I believe our schools are lagging.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 02-20-2017 at 07:18 AM..
It seems to me we have an educational system stamped with an early industrial model. Kids are put into a factory of learning, put on an assembly line based mostly on year produced, graded a-f. Then dumped out after their expiration date.
My first thought is to rethink education, and instead replace it with learning. Education refers to an organizational structure, teacher is fixed and student is fixed. There is no flexibility for a teacher to learn from a student or a student to learn from a teacher. The hierarchy of this system is not constructive to the teacher or student. In reality both would be learners. A former teacher, maybe a guide, who learns, becomes better at guiding learners.
What if instead of segregating academics by age, we allowed students to advance based on their unique abilities. If instead of grading them, we just accept when a student has attained proficiency on a subject sufficient to advance to the next level or graduate.
Segregation by age makes some sense, but not academic segregation. We force kids to sit for hours, taking what for them may be meaningless classes never used in real life. We discourage cooperation, calling it cheating, but in life, we seek help from associates all the time.
The requirements of a child to obtain a high school degree, should be objective, some knowledge of history, geography, basic math, and English skills. Beyond that, kids should be allowed to explore most any venue of learning that interests them. Fixed hours, in crappy buildings, with inedible lunches are not going to inspire children to learn. A fixed curriculum prepared by some know it all far removed from a classroom is unlikely to chart a reasonable course for every child. Guides should be trusted to help enable learners. If learners attain goals, which would be measured by testing, that is all the interest the state has. Aside from of course assuring safety of all, delicious meals, and non-indoctrination to children of political or religious beliefs.
First off, in terms of the title of your thread -- "Should we rethink education" -- the answer is that we should always be rethinking education. Of course, as we do people ALWAYS go nuts. They don't like change. There is too much of the it was good enough when I went to school thinking in this nation. But, education should always evolve. What you're suggesting is a drastic right turn. It'll never fly, and the biggest reason is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Take the middle school where I was principal. At the time we had around 900 students, and the population has now grown to about 1,300. No matter how good or bad your suggestions are, I can't see how it could possibly work for the amount of money and the size of buildings and the number of personnel required.
But go ahead. Take Fairfax County Schools in Virginia and its 110,000 students. Be specific. Tell us how you will do that.
We are paralyzed by our obsession to attempt to make everything fair. Ideally, you woudl take the most amenable students to a progressive learning situation like you describe, separate them out and see how far they can go in 12 years. Other kids would be taught in different ways depending on their aptitude, attitude, circumstances, and ability. But that would not be fair.
In the USA we are obsessively convinced that we can make the world fair, by our definitions of fair, if we just spend enough money and pass more laws and regulations.
We cannot. Some kids are born to horrible parents who do not care about them and will not encourage, or support them. Those kids are messed up. They have virtually no possibility of becoming accomplished. It is not fair, but they have almost no chance to succeed by societal standards and schools are not going to fix that no matter how much money is thrown at the problem.
Maybe 1%-5% of kids in horrible situations will climb their way out of a horrible situation. However in many cases it is 0%. Yet we insist on focusing all of our resources on that 0-5% and dragging down our other students to make things more "fair"
We were in a school district that had a set of "fundamental" schools. Basically these were public school that you had to work to get into. The parents who cared got their kids into the fundamental schools. The kids whose parents did nto care, went to the regular public schools which wee comparative horrible. Since all the kids whose parents did not care were grouped together, those schools and 99.9% of the students in them did terrible on test scores. Only a tiny percentage went on to college, I thin fewer than half graduated. The fundamental schools were at worst average schools and many were exemplary.
One day someone looked around and said "this is not fair" They started taking the better performing students from the fundamental schools and the better teachers and spreading them out amongst the non-fundamental schools. Kids with parents who do not care were moved into the fundamental schools. The parent contracts requiring a commitment to both eh school (volunteer time) and to the kids at home were eliminated because thy were deemed not fair. Although non-mandatory, most of the fundamental schools had school uniforms. this was also eliminated.
The kids who got spread out to the schools for kids whose parents did not care, frequently stopped being exemplary or at least fell behind because the classes they were in were focused on struggling through the basics over and over again. The fundamental schools stopped performing as well. The regular schools did not perform any better, although there was a tiny percentage of increase in graduation rates as the former exemplary students still managed to graduate, even if they ended up two years behind their peers.
Kids who are worried about whether Mom is going to shoot up tonight; or whether daddy will beat up mommy; will my brothers firends come over again and threaten to kill me or burn m with cigarettes; or will we have anything to eat for dinner besides beer; are simply not going to make it through the school system. Nothing the school does is going to change this. Ideally, the schools would pick the kids out of these situations/schools who show a probability of succeeding and get them into a special circumstance where they can achieve "success" However that would not be fair. The whole "no child left behind" concept sounds really noble and caring. As a concept it is. However some children are going to be left behind, some are in such horrible circumstances are have become so jaded or whatever that it is hopeless. The teachers who "teach" at these schools are miserable. They have the knowledge. They have the drive. However they can see, even as early as elementary school, that they cannot make a difference with their students. Trying to make things "fair" by moving these students to better performing schools, or by moving teachers around, or shifting funding, does nothing but bring the better performing students down closer to the level of the hopeless students. That really accomplishes nothing.
I do not know what the solution is, but I do know what we are trying right now is futile and does not work at all. Some (many?) other countries with better schools, make no effort to be "fair" but instead focus on the students who show aptitude. That in some ways is a brutal system, but it also results in "better" overall schools.
Again and again we try to make everything fair, by bringing the exemplary schools/students down closer to the median. Since we have not figured out how to make students with bad parents succeed, the only way to be fair, is to bring the students with good parents down to the level of the students with bad parents. That in a nutshell is why I believe our schools are lagging.
I think we should celebrate what the public education system does well.
The USA is one of the few countries on earth that attempts to educate everyone. What people leave out about other countries, especially the Asian ones, is how they treat their special ed & poorer students. Also in countries like France, how they treat their ethnic minorities.
Yes, because our education system is truly universal, it probably does inhibit the potential of some students. It's up to the parents to recognize that potential and get them into something that will take proper advantage. That may cost a heck of a lot of money. The public schools can do things like AP or magnet programs, but when you get right down to it this is a service for the GENERAL PUBLIC not an individualized education program.
The U.S. does not perform as well as countries like Finland, which is kind of an education superstar. Finland, however, is smaller than Massachusetts alone. Interestingly, if we pit only Massachusetts against Finland, it's actually fairly competitive.
Last edited by redguard57; 02-20-2017 at 11:40 AM..
First off, in terms of the title of your thread -- "Should we rethink education" -- the answer is that we should always be rethinking education. Of course, as we do people ALWAYS go nuts. They don't like change. There is too much of the it was good enough when I went to school thinking in this nation. But, education should always evolve. What you're suggesting is a drastic right turn. It'll never fly, and the biggest reason is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Take the middle school where I was principal. At the time we had around 900 students, and the population has now grown to about 1,300. No matter how good or bad your suggestions are, I can't see how it could possibly work for the amount of money and the size of buildings and the number of personnel required.
But go ahead. Take Fairfax County Schools in Virginia and its 110,000 students. Be specific. Tell us how you will do that.
My son and I just moved from Loudon County Public Schools to AZ education system. At his school in Lansdowne, Va he was learning division easily in second grade...perhaps a little ahead of the other students? Not sure. Here in AZ they are barely touching on multiplication. He is on the Principal's List and he takes about two minutes to complete homework. I am shocked. I also "undercover" sub and the education system here is a complete mess. Not sure how to fix it, but I am glad DeVos is going to give it a go.
My son is enrolled in BASIS Charter Schools beginning next year because he is bored and needs a challenge. Most of all, I actually care about his education and no matter how tired I am or he is we make sure he is prepared each day for school.
My son and I just moved from Loudon County Public Schools to AZ education system. At his school in Lansdowne, Va he was learning division easily in second grade...perhaps a little ahead of the other students? Not sure. Here in AZ they are barely touching on multiplication. He is on the Principal's List and he takes about two minutes to complete homework. I am shocked. I also "undercover" sub and the education system here is a complete mess. Not sure how to fix it, but I am glad DeVos is going to give it a go.
My son is enrolled in BASIS Charter Schools beginning next year because he is bored and needs a challenge. Most of all, I actually care about his education and no matter how tired I am or he is we make sure he is prepared each day for school.
I don't see what your response had to do with my post.
Unfortunately you're expecting a woman who has no background in education at all, and never attended a public school to fix schools.
And just a reminder...don't forget to call your plumber and make an appointment for him to do your taxes for you.
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