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The same is true of writing skills. If you can't put together a coherent sentence, let alone write at college level, you don't belong in college. And yet. a large percentage students admitted to college have abysmal writing skills, and that's been true for generations now. I noticed awhile ago, that some stage flagship schools require students who have been admitted to take a diagnostic test in writing, and make up any deficiency in their skill via a summer catch-up program.
That's one way to address the issue, but why aren't the schools doing a better job of teaching college-level writing? Why isn't the message reaching HS "English" teachers, not to mention gradeschool administrators, who should be hiring basic grammar teachers?
Agree with all that. I was just using math as an example. If there is any subject that you can't do at a high school level, then you don't belong in college.
We choose colleges which allowed credit for AP courses. It's an easy fact to find before applying to colleges.
As did I, 25 years ago, but it's getting harder and harder to find such colleges. I was the last student at my college ever allowed credit for AP Physics C. I think I've posted the story before.
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My son aced his AP history courses. It would make no sense to have him waste time or money on a world history or US history of the 20th century survey course.
Agree, but, unfortunately, most colleges, and most posters on this forum don't agree.
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Be an educated consumer! A drop in applications will change the college's policy.
Unfortunately, refusing AP credit doesn't seem to lead to a drop in application. But I like your attitude of voting with your feet, but, unfortunately, most people seem to just accept not getting the credit.
The initial post was about Gen Eds and dragging on finishing. You should be able to compete your Gen Eds, along with your other classes in the same 4 year period that it typically takes a student to demonstrate a college education. You could argue that Gen Eds don't contribute to the best use of time for those who already have studied those areas, but it's not dragging out anything.
Exactly, with 120 credits need for graduation, there should be enough time for those general education course that you wouldn't pick on your own or relate directly to your major.
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Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth
The same is true of writing skills. If you can't put together a coherent sentence, let alone write at college level, you don't belong in college. And yet. a large percentage students admitted to college have abysmal writing skills, and that's been true for generations now. I noticed awhile ago, that some stage flagship schools require students who have been admitted to take a diagnostic test in writing, and make up any deficiency in their skill via a summer catch-up program.
That's one way to address the issue, but why aren't the schools doing a better job of teaching college-level writing? Why isn't the message reaching HS "English" teachers, not to mention gradeschool administrators, who should be hiring basic grammar teachers?
Our public educational system is failing students. Especially in English! Students need to learn phonics!!! Students need to read the classics to appreciate great writing and to increase vocabulary. Instead of newer, easier novels required today as was discussed on another thread. //www.city-data.com/forum/paren...your-kids.html
It's true about the lack of writing skills. It's why the SAT's now have a writing section to screen students. It seems like summer course would be the best way to go.
The college writing courses don't teach grammar, but formatting. It's things like Associated Press Stylebook, Chicago, APA or MLA notes and bibliography style, the “Four S's†of singposting, stating, supporting, and summarizing of an argument. It's usually geared toward college required writing styles.
Last edited by YorktownGal; 11-17-2022 at 08:22 AM..
I'm right there with you. Why aren't schools doing a better job? I've argued before that they "everyone should go to college" mantra in the school systems means they have to water down the courses to get everyone through them. Hence the classic college prep curricula isn't anymore. Even AP has less impact as more and more colleges limit the AP credits they accept or require an alternate course if a student APs out of the standard one.
I didn't know that was going on. What's the point of AP classes, then? And why do away with college prep curricula altogether? Why not keep them as a choice for college-bound students? Or make designate the AP courses as college-prep? According to posters on the Bay Area forum, that's what Berkeley High has been doing for about 50 years. It seems like a no-brainer.
Our public educational system is failing students. Especially in English! Students need to learn phonics!!! Students need to read the classics to appreciate great writing and to increase vocabulary. Instead of newer, easier novels required today as was discussed on another thread.
It's true about the lack of writing skills. It's why the SAT's now have a writing section to screen students. It seems like summer course would be the best way to go.
The college writing courses don't teach grammar, but formatting. It's things like Associated Press Stylebook, Chicago, APA or MLA notes and bibliography style, the “Four S's†of singposting, stating, supporting, and summarizing of an argument. It's usually geared toward college required writing styles.
You'll always find support from me for phonics, Y-Girl!
The bolded is supposed to be covered in highschool, if not earlier.
I just found out from a friend who had gone through the Seattle school system, then later became a teacher in the WA State schools, that teaching grammar at any level: grade school or college-prep in HS, was officially done away with in the 80's. He said several "scholarly" papers had been published claiming that the teaching of grammar hindered free expression or presented such a burden to students, that they couldn't see their way clear of memorized grammar rules to be able to express what they wanted.
It sounded like a lot of nonsense that must have been agenda-driven. Maybe teachers had gotten lazy, and didn't want to teach grammar, or didn't know it themselves. He said he thought the teachers' unions were behind it. But the Seattle school system had already stopped teaching grammar sometime in the 60's or early 70's, according to some people who went through it back then.
Not all colleges are alike. My history major son was required to take a calculus based statistics and a macroeconomics class.
Ideally, students come from a decent high schools with AP courses. Then students can test out of some of the general education courses and foreign language requirements. However. at a good college, general education courses are NOT basic courses. Basic, high school level courses are remedial classes.
At my college - general education courses were electives like pick one science, social science, one history, literature, math, foreign language course. There were no assigned courses. I could pick biology, botany or physics or any other science that fulfilled that requirement. You would have messed up SAT/AP's to be assigned to a general education redo of basic writing or math. The other option is its a less rigorous college with lower requirements.
Are you sure your son was required to take calculus based statistics for his history degree? I just looked at UG history paths across several universities (Texas, Florida, Yale, Rice) and couldn't find one that required any statistics per se let alone calculus based statistics.
As an obvious caveat just about every college offers well established math or math heavy minors tagged to history, sociology, psychology etc. degrees mostly for students very interested in graduate/professional school.
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I've lectured intermediate macro and micro while both leverage fairly simple simultaneous equations (I'd call that algebra) and a smattering of differential equations and related derivatives (I'd call that calculus) neither is calculus heavy. For sure though subsequent BS econ. classes become calculus heavy.
It depends on what one thinks college is for. There are different philosophies about that. It used to be that an elite college education meant a well-rounded classical liberal arts education.
"Liberal arts" originally referred to a course of study befitting a free person, and originally included arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, logic and music. AASCU posited a modern definition as "an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. It provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture, and society) as well as in-depth study in a specific area of the interest. A liberal education helps students develop a sense of social responsibility, as well as strong and transferable intellectual and practical skills such as communication, analytical and problem-solving skills, and a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and skills in realworld settings." Liberal Arts education is dedicated to actualization of the whole person, vs. a narrow set of career-related knowledge and skills.
When a Liberal Arts education actually fulfills the above, it is something that is of great value both to the individual and potential employers in most white-collar fields. However, as college/university has become more of a mass-scale business in the past 60-75 years, not all "liberal arts" educations rise to this golden standard, and thus the value can be diminished. The quality of each institution's general education can vary dramatically.
A more recently-developing philosophy of college education is driven directly by capitalism and is focused on career training for the many fields and industries today for which beyond-high school training is now necessary. In this view, a more broad view of education is seen as a luxury that is affordable only to the rich elite, while what most need out of college is only that which directly transfers to later salary dollars and knowledge/skills employers say they need/want. One issue with this model, however, is that many employers are lamenting the state of graduates coming to them for lacking the very liberal arts critical thinking and mindsets that have been sacrificed for the sake of the career-focused training.
My son aced his AP history courses. It would make no sense to have him waste time or money on a world history or US history of the 20th century survey course.
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
Agree, but, unfortunately, most colleges, and most posters on this forum don't agree.
Most colleges don't require a student to take world history or US history. They have numerous course offerings in the history department to allow for breadth of choice: African, Asian, Latin American history, and more specific courses within each region, for example. But most colleges don't require more than one history course per se, anyway. The history requirement (if there is one) often is part of a broader "sociology" or humanities designation of some sort, that also includes anthropology and other disciplines. So students may be required to take 1 history course as part of a broader designation within the gen-eds.
I can't imagine a college requiring US history, when all highschools in the country require it for graduation. What would the point be? OTOH, I do recall being required to take 1 lab science course within a narrow band of choices. I along with a lot of other students ended up taking a basic biology course, which I had just taken in my senior year of HS. If this kind of thing is what the OP intended to discuss: repeating HS coursework in college, though perhaps at a slightly deeper level, then I would agree it's a waste of time.
But the point that people often miss is that the system is not inherently racist or sexist. It was developed a long time ago, and our society back then was very different, and was more racist and sexist, and the system reflected society. Rather than dropping the whole system, perhaps some changes should be made to better reflect current society. You said, for example, that LGBTQ+ works have already been reclassified under sexual orientation. Perhaps the same can be done with other categories that you mention. Black history can be merged with American history. Women's work can be merged with jobs. All religious holidays, Christian or not, can be put in a common section.
Would you agree that my professor was incorrect in saying that no library has used the Dewey Decimal system in the past 100 years (he said this in late 1999)? Would you say that I am correct that, even today, public libraries tend to use the Dewey Decimal System, and academic libraries tend to use the Library of Congress System? Or am I wrong?
Plus keep in mind that this professor basically slandered an employee of the university that he worked for.
Also, this professor required us to buy a book that he wrote, it had to be a new copy, and we had to prove to him that we bought it new, but we literally never used the book for his class, not even once.
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