The school system kills our brains

[Raggit]

I'm sure alot of you all agree that the education system is a joke.Ã,  It kills our children's imaginations and toasts their brains.Ã,  Ã, Have a look at this link: http://www.thememoryhole.org/edu/school-mission.htm

It tells alot about this subject.Ã,  Also, be sure to look at this one too:Ã,  http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/

Whaddya think???

[LGM]

Bullshit.. The lack of intelligence is the abscense of motivation in schoolchildren these days. What with so many distractions as money, movies, computers, internet, malls, etc.. There's so many more important things than learning these days.

Even then, broken families and are alot more common these days, which leads to shoddy upbringing etc..

It's not the schoolsystem to be blamed (in most cases, anyways) moreso, it's the individual peoples on both ends of the spectrum.

[Raggit]

The article(s) do not disagree with the points you listed, lgm.Ã,  Such as money, movies and music etc.

AND the lack of motivation comes from the lack of a purpose to do the work.  It's all there.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

School is cool, IF you want to be there.  I did, and I learned a lot (granted, most of it cannot be readily applied to what I do for a living, but many kids don't know what they want to do at that age and teachers give them ideas).  The only thing I hated about school were the punks, really.  Most of my teachers kicked ass, particularly my two history professors; I almost became a historian because they had the whole 'rogue scholar' thing down.

[shbaz]

I think, in my case, the school system was to blame.

At the school I went to you were encouraged strongly to participate in sports or some kind of social group. Those who didn't were considered loners and were alienated in a way. Even when you did try to play a sport, you had to deal with all of the BS that the asshole jocks would put out. Yes, most of them were assholes, with a few exceptions. Joining a social group wouldn't be so bad if there were more than 3 of them, and they weren't only for home-makers, agriculture, and religion. I was on the academic team, and in the final year I was one of only 3 members to ever show up for meets. I answered 95% of the questions, with 70% (of those I answered) correct. The other two people always sat and griped about the topics I chose (I was the captain) or claimed to have known the answers to the ones which I answered incorrectly. They were there to bitch and pretend to be smart. I can't remember a time when there were more than 1 or 2 people on the academic team who belonged there.

Furthermore, if you were of above average intelligence you had nowhere special to go. The special kids were the ones who were of below or far below average intelligence and they had a special class and teacher where they recieved all of their answers so that they'd never have to work in school.

Aside from that, no one was really encouraged to do well. The system was set up to pass people through, not to challenge them in any way. I passed with A's until I realized just what a waste of time most of the coursework was, and then I passed with A's and B's without studying or doing any work outside of class (and still had time for naps during class). It was just repetitive BS from the years before.

When I took the ACT (college proficiency test, scores range 1-35) in the eighth grade I made an 18, which was the minimum requirement to get into a local junior college. When I was a senior I made a 25 (28 reading, 28 grammar, 27 math, 21 science) and it was the highest my school had seen in years. The class average (of those who took it) was 16. The reason my science score was so low was because we lost the only good science teacher before I got into chemistry and there was a coach teaching it. We repeated the same two chapters for the first semester and in the second we got a former cheerleader who'd just graduated. I think that situation is pretty easy to decipher.

The highest math class I was able to take was Trigonometry. I took Algebra in the eighth grade, Algebra II in the ninth, Geometry in the tenth grade (Calculus was offered that year but I hadn't yet had Trig so was advised to go back to an easier course - no harder were offered besides Calculus). In the eleventh grade neither Trig nor Calculus were offered so I had to take the only math class offered that I hadn't already taken; Statistics. In the final (12th, senior) grade I was finally able to take Trigonometry.

The "Honors" classes we had were designated "AP" or Advanced Placement. Those classes were sometimes easier than the normal classes due to teacher incompetence or inattendance. Another factor was letting people "slide through." People that teachers and counselors were fond of were put in the advanced classes just to help them look better and then they'd be given allowances by letting them get good grades on bad papers.

During the entirety of my school years I was labelled as one of the smartest along with a few others, and voted "Most likely to succeed." However, I was mocked and taunted by my peers because they couldn't relate to someone who wasn't a backwoods hick and the only logical thing to do to those people is to mock them. Harsh, but true.

So, before you go screaming "Bullshit" think about the above. My school was a small school, and there are thousands that are probably just like it with minor variations. The systems are set up to pass people through because they don't want to learn and it'd look bad to have an 80% failure rate. The people who do want to learn are forced to tag along because there is no one who will help them advance.

During my senior year I was a teacher's aide. The teacher that I helped once commented to me, "You know, it's sad, but people who didn't want to learn used to just stop at the eighth grade. Now that they are forced to go through the rest of the years and we are forced to pass them." He had a Masters degree and was paid less than $30k (US) a year. You could make that as a common day laborer or secretary.

Can you really say with a straight face that there is no problem with the education system? This is in Oklahoma and it varies from state to state, but in general there is still a national crisis in education.

[Raggit]

School is cool, IF you want to be there.Ã, 

Very true. Ã,  The education system does work for some and doesn't work for others. Ã, But I urge everybody to read ALL of the articles provided in the links. Ã, There's alot of interesting info there.

[Moox]

I used to be one of those kids who never got in trouble, always made a's.Then I hit puberty...

I guess what Im trying to say is that learning is a dynamic process. Changes in behavior, food, friends, weather, even your latest hair cut affect how well you comprehend the information you gain in a day. People each have different learning styles, if a teacher doesnt manage to use your style, then you dont learn aswell.

[shbaz]

My point is that the style is irrelevant.

How often have you made it all the way through the textbook in a class? What about halfway?

They're just passing people through..

Have you ever been encouraged to start your own business or work for yourself? They always told me, "You're really smart, you're going to get a good job one day." Don't ask, just do. Don't question, respect your elders. We're smarter because we're older.

[Raggit]

They're just passing people through..

Yes.  Here is a qoute from one of the articles I linked to:  "In his 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College, Elwood Cubberlyâ€"the future Dean of Education at Stanfordâ€"wrote that schools should be factories "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry."

Sadly, it doesn't seem that some schools have moved beyond this.

[LGM]

I see your points, and yes it's true. Some schools just exist to pass kids through into the real world. But sometimes it's not the school itself to blame, it's the teachers. There are some reall shitty teachers. (and administrators) Adults who just don't care about the students anymore, and just run through the motions.

I dunno. You can't just generalize all of the different school systems from every single state into one negative category. And if this is another point in trying to say that America is inferior.. Well, then.. So be it. But stereotypes and generalizations should never be given more than a glance. The issues of school are subjective.. And you simply cannot generalize.

But on a different point, the whole "Lack of purpose" claim is SO stupid. I hate hearing punk kids say "It's all so pointless!!".. I just want to smack them and yell "SHUT UP!" Kids these days just never consider the future anymore. You go to school to learn life skills, people skills, and common knowledge for the inevitable life that takes place outside the bubble.. I mean, sure, you won't learn something "job-critical" by playing with building blocks in Kindergarten, but you ARE developing skills.

I dunno about you, but I've learned alot in High School and even Middle School. It's not a waste of time.

Are there school systems out there that totally blow? Yes. Most southern education systems lack funds and staff... Ergo they just aren't good enough....

And I conclude my point now because I'm tired and I'm rambling.

[Peter Thomas]

I think blaming the education system is a big cop-out. Undoubtedly there are schools that exist to emphasise a child's SPORTING side, etc, and not everyone belongs in them, but that's the parent's (sometimes the student's) fault for not abiding by the child's best interest. Don't blame the government.

Being at school and not WANTING to be there doesn't make the education system bad. It makes you stubborn and a huge pain in the butt. I'm doing a secondary-education degree as part of my university course, and trust me, even though the websites may have quotes in them, that doesn't make them relevant. I couldn't be more confident in the way I'm being trained, and I'm not saying this with some strange bias. If I thought the education system was a bunch of crap I wouldn't be going into it in the FULL KNOWLEDGE that it's relatively crap pay in the long term.

[Pumaman]

There are three important factors in education - the school, the parents and the child.

The child wanting to learn is of course the most important factor, but this will vary widely. One of the main problems with the education system as I see it is that all the kids are thrown in together, and this causes two problems:
1. the academically-minded kids get dragged behind by those that aren't; and peer pressure leads them to stop trying
2. the kids who aren't great at maths and science are forced to study them anyway, thus leading to a poor classroom atmosphere where they're likely to be disruptive (understandable, when they don't "get it" and don't want to be there).

In the news today they were saying that here there are plans to make maths only be a compulsory subject up to age 14, instead of 16 as at present, which actually seems a remarkably sensible idea to me.

Also, the exam-driven nature of schooling means that as we've said, the main objective of a school is to get as many students as possible to pass their exams, in order to make the school look good. In the process of doing so, whether it's actually beneficial or detrimental to the child's learning seems to get left by the wayside.

Parents have a big role to play, too. If a child has bad teachers, then this can to a large extent be compensated for by parents who are interested in what the child is learning, and supporting them themselves. And vice versa, if a child has really unsupportive parents, a good teacher can really help them out.

There are so many factors to the whole thing it's really difficult to say what could improve the situation. Lack of respect for others seems to be an increasing problem these days, but what can we do about it? Bring back caning and corporal punishment? Perhaps, but does that just encourage kids to see violence as the answer. It's very hard to say.

[Ozwalled]

I swear, if I could run a school, the misbehaving kids would be put on bike attached to generators. At least we'd get a little electricity outta' the little snots.  :o

And as future teacher, be assured that I jest.

[Hollister Man]

Shbaz, Oklahoma must be California in a parallel dimention!

Here they implemented a *brilliant* idea called "no child gets left behind." Its purpose?  To make sure that kids keep getting pushed to the next grade level, because that's where their friends are.  Not because they're any more learned or capable to learn better than the year before.  I was literally sickened in High School (so much so that I took the Proficiency Exam and got out early) that there were kids with a third grade reading level and practically unintelligible handwriting in my classes.  We were reading books in english class that I read in WA in elementary school.  I read 'Black Boy' in FIFTH GRADE, yet high schoolers weren't understanding it. 

CJ's got a point.  Parents are to blame for ALLOWING the school to play such games with their kids, rather than insisting on performance.  Often, their parents are not better, so they figure 'who cares.'  I live next door to a 6th grader, sharp as a tack, whose mother has told her that she's stupid so many times that she believes it.  Her parents WONT make her read, they take her out of school for weeks at a time (vacations for themselves) and won't make her do her schoolwork.  Oh sure, they yell at her when she fails, but they won't or can't help her to understand that its important.

Teachers are to blame because many of them are just not meant to teach.  My father, a teacher, loves his job.  He is one of the best teachers in the Washington school system.    I've had teachers that would be much better if the school would allow them to punish unruly kids, send them to the office, kick them out of the class, SOMETHING to make them shut up.  But the school wouldn't let them, that California policy again.  'They have the right to learn, even if they refuse to do so.'

And lastly, the students themselves are responsible.  If a student wants to, they can overcome all these stupid problems and become great anyway.  But sadly, the majority coast by, only learning what they are forced to.  Me, I lightly studied papers on quantum physics, programming, and read more than my share as early as elementary school.  I hated school the most when my progress was slowed by other students who did not want to be there.  Students who were being 'helped' so that their self-esteem might not be broken, rather than teachers insisting on performance.

I swear any kid I have won't be in public schools, I'll teach them at home, if I have to.  At least I can hold myself responsible for problems.  In schools, its all the kid's fault, parents aren't even considered most the time. 

[Mr Jake]

There are three important factors in education - the school, the parents and the child.

Dont forget the other students, its hard to learn in a class full of 29 students who DONT want to.

[Raggit]

There are some kids who DON'T want to be in the education system.  And they ARE a pain in the butt.   But they're not always stubborn. 

Like Robert Oppenheimer, who said that school was so boring, it was impossible to feel like he was learning anything at all.  The education system doesn't work for everybody, and that's why they don't want to be there.  Because they know they're not learning and that they are just wasting time.   

[Blitzerland]

Yes, I would have to agree. 

Furthermore, we are taught only one way of successfully completing an assignment or problem. This hampers us in the real world, because we lack the ability to think with an open-mind.

Also, teachers are often unmotivated due to low pay, which is stupid. Why should their pay be so low, if the world couldn't function without them. Without teachers, there would be no engineers, no goverment, no plumbers (GASP), nothing. None of the other vocations (jobs, for the simpletons) could exist without them.

That's my two cents.

[Moox]

No chile left behind was Bush's national program, its everywhere.

[shbaz]

No chile left behind was Bush's national program, its everywhere.

And in addition, he underfunded his own program to send more money to Iraq.

Another thing I hate is that, at my school, anytime we got huge grants they spent it on athletics and never on improving the education system.

There aren't as many problems with the University system, which is great for the kids who are able to secure scholarships and make it through. Although some would still disagree.

[Moox]

At least your school gets the grant money, our school superattendant hides it all somewhere.