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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: Education
Thread: Education This thread is 8 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT»
blizzardboy
blizzardboy


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posted May 04, 2009 02:14 AM
Edited by blizzardboy at 02:16, 04 May 2009.

I don't normally share this with people, but frankly, having some unsuccessful people is a good thing for the country. Somebody has to do the crappy jobs.

Making sure you have a solid base of higher-up academics is more important than having an overall high national average. Lots of countries have higher averages than the U.S., but they also pay the equivalent of 15 dollars for an employee to work at McDonalds and pump tons of money into the system.

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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted May 04, 2009 02:20 AM

I disagree. Many jobs can be outsourced or automated. The more human capital a society has, the better off it is.
(What you just said sounds like all the bad things socialists say about capitalists. )
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blizzardboy
blizzardboy


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posted May 04, 2009 02:23 AM
Edited by blizzardboy at 02:24, 04 May 2009.

Quote:
I disagree. Many jobs can be outsourced or automated. The more human capital a society has, the better off it is.

Outsourcing is unreliable though and it relies on other countries being suckier than you, it can't be an end-all-do-all. And outsourcing doesn't change the fact that there are many jobs in the service industry within the U.S. that need filled. That's not to say we should openly support an economic hierarchy, but having a high national average shouldn't take priority in making sure the good institutions we have remain good institutions.
Quote:
(What you just said sounds like all the bad things socialists say about capitalists. )


Basically.

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TheDeath
TheDeath


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with serious business
posted May 04, 2009 02:26 AM

Quote:
That wouldn't work in every field. It could work with, say, 3D designers, but what about teachers, or university professors, or psychologists - indeed, any job where performance is hard to measure?
Yeah and the paper/degree is sent from God and measured by God
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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted May 04, 2009 02:58 AM
Edited by mvassilev at 02:58, 04 May 2009.

Blizzardboy:
Quote:
And outsourcing doesn't change the fact that there are many jobs in the service industry within the U.S. that need filled.
More and more of them are being automated and the demand for more complex jobs is on the rise. If Americans aren't prepared, they'll be left in the dust. Outsourcing isn't permanent, but it can take a while before other countries come up to our level.

TheDeath:
Of course, it's flawed, but at least it's something.
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blizzardboy
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posted May 04, 2009 03:18 AM
Edited by blizzardboy at 03:21, 04 May 2009.

Well I don't see how the crime in bad neighborhoods is going to disappear, short of immense amounts of funding (not something I would support). And yes, one of the common criticisms of socialists is the high crime rates in market liberal countries, which (for now) is a fact. For me, it's an acceptable trade-off.

I guess some more immediate steps would be: end the drug war and reform our junky prison system which encourages criminals to remain criminals. I'm not an expert on the issue but I really think reducing crime will have a direct positive impact on these lower end schools.

It's going to take a lot for the U.S. to turn obsolete. A huge part of U.S. economy is built within the military. 1/3rd of our engineering jobs are military related. The U.S. is the paid guard-dog and military tech provider of the western hemisphere and much of elsewhere (which means World Peace would be a nightmare )

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Vlaad
Vlaad


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posted May 04, 2009 03:41 AM
Edited by Vlaad at 03:55, 04 May 2009.

Quote:
Quote:
If you're interested, please post a specific question and I'll try to give additional examples.
Well, suppose kids are being asked to read "The Scarlet Letter". Some of them understand it easily. Others don't. How do you go about teaching it?
I haven’t taught literature, but I’ll give it a try. This is not an actual lesson plan, mind you, just brainstorming.

A month before the lecture the two members of the drama club, dressed in costumes, would play a scene from the novel in order to interest the class. While reading, students would be required to provide quotes for their respective themes and compose a short essay. The quotes would be read and discussed the following month in class, while I’d give points for the papers.  Mvass would write about historicity of The Scarlet Letter and 17th-century New England, TA would compare the role of the Church in Puritan and modern-day America, JJ would focus on sin as the motif, Kooka explain the symbolism, Khaelo would let us know whether The Scarlet Letter parallels Anna Karenina and how, Cat would tell us about Hester, Xerox about Pearl, Homer would inform us about the differences between the book and the movie, Ceph would write the definite ending of the novel featuring Pearl as a grown-up woman and her mother’s daughter, Baklava would have to whip up a parody of the novel but in Hawthorne’s style, etc. I realize not everybody would be happy, but I’d do my best to correct my mistakes next time. A month later the lecture should go smoothly - I’d ask questions in order to elicit all of the above and in that order: the settings, the main characters, the motifs, the plot, the style.

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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted May 04, 2009 03:49 AM

blizzardboy:
All those engineers, etc, aren't going to disappear if we cut military funding. They're in demand. As for the crime rates... doesn't France have a high crime rate too? And, indeed, any country with significant immigrant populations?

Vlaad:
That sounds brilliant - especially with everyone doing different stuff. Probably would be less boring for the teacher to grade, too.
Problem is, all of that stuff is indeed different, but of the same difficulty. The geniuses are going to fly through it, while the slow ones will still struggle.
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Vlaad
Vlaad


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ghost of the past
posted May 04, 2009 03:54 AM
Edited by Vlaad at 06:15, 04 May 2009.

Quote:
Problem is, all of that stuff is indeed different, but of the same difficulty.
That's what you think.
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binabik
binabik


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posted May 04, 2009 04:51 AM
Edited by binabik at 05:03, 04 May 2009.

Formal education is WAY overrated. And too much education can actually be detrimental.  Trying to learn too much too fast makes people stupid.  I don't mean stupid in the intelligence kind of way that's measured on IQ tests. Aggressive education like that may make someone better able to focus on particular tasks, but it can be very detrimental to awareness, creativity, observation, contemplation, etc.  The stereotype absent minded professor is very real.  The stereotype may be exaggerated except for extreme cases, but it exists at some level with most people.

Take for example a profession I'm familiar with, engineering.

An engineer can't be stupid, or he wouldn't have made it through engineering school.  But he only needs to be "book smart" and not necessarily smart in the ways that count for an engineer.  Whether or not someone is a good engineer is only partially measured by their performance/grades in school.  The engineer who is "in his head" and spends all his time immersed in books, computer, calculator, or scribbling on paper is less likely to be a good engineer.  On the other hand, when an engineer is staring off into space, deep in contemplation and visions, he's more likely to be a good engineer.

The reason for this is that even though engineering is considered to be a highly technical and "smart" profession, it's really all about creativity.  You can't really teach creativity in school, not to any large degree anyway.  Creativity is more of a natural talent, with the formal education simply being necessary background knowledge.  The education also gives the engineer certain tools to use.  The problem is that when the education is too much too fast, the person's own thoughts can become a trap. They end up stuck "in their head".  It's much like the curse of the song that gets stuck in your head to the point of distraction.  But in this case it's the curse of the intellectual thought stuck in their head.

The thought stream should not be something with a life of it's own.  It should be something that can be turned off, like switching off a light.  Someone who is "in their head" has a difficult time doing that.  That's why the engineer who is too much of an academian is less likely to be a good engineer.  He needs to be able to turn off that intellectual thought stream and allow himself to visualize.

The engineer who is staring off into space, often has no thought process in the sense of how we normally think of it.  It's pure visualization of something that doesn't yet exist.  He's turning it around and looking at every side.  He's taking it apart or putting it together.  He's imagining every possible size and shape and fit.  He's seeing the flow of electrons, the magnetic fields, the eddy currents.  He's seeing the thermal properties and any weaknesses due to hot spots.  There is no or little thought going on, it's pure visualization.  The curse of the runaway thought stream is nothing but noise at a time when quiet calm is needed.

Of course there are no absolutes in all of this.  Everyone is different and they have different tolerance levels for the amount of formal education they can handle.  But the idea that education should be a means of maximizing the intellectual potential of kids is downright abusive IMO.  This is the intellectual equivalent of the ambitious type of parent who insist their kids are  going to be star athletes.  Parents who push their kids in athletics like that are controversial and get a lot of media attention.  So why is it that pushing kids academically is treated as good when it's essentially the same thing?

The kids are starting school at an earlier age all the time, and they are being taught more and more at an early age.  Kids should be allowed to be kids and be allowed to run around and play, not be forced into some educational system.  Kids are forced to sit on their a$$es all day at some school, then do homework at night.  And people wonder why so many kids these days have attention deficit disorders and hyperactivity????

I'm not saying formal education isn't important.  But it's far from being as important as society makes it.  I think the first step in improving the education system is to stop placing so much importance on it.  

In addition to the more traditional subjects taught at school, I would very strongly favor adding some requirements for HS graduation.  In order to graduate, kids should have the ability to rebuild the engine of a car (or something similar). They should have the ability to build a house and maintain it.  PE should be mandatory 5 days a week in every year of school.  And PE should be taken seriously and given equal weight to the traditional academics.  Failure in PE should be treated the same as failure in math.

When I was in school there was virtually no education in the fine arts, neither learning about arts or doing them. That should be fixed. There was only slightly more education in music.  That needs to be improved.  Also, kids should be able to grow their own food and have a working understanding of vegetable gardens, fruit trees and flower gardens.

In the above two paragraphs I said the "ability" or "working understanding".  I'm not talking about journeyman level knowledge.  For example the ability to rebuild an engine means they have enough confidence, knowledge and understanding of engines and mechanics in general to be able to figure out anything they don't already know.  

It's only partly the actual knowledge of the above things that's important. It's also about the thought processes and confidence that some of the more practical education instills.  One example of this is when I was in college I informally taught some AutoCad classes and also tutored disabled people.  There was one guy who was extremely intelligent, but he was a quadriplegic in a wheelchair his entire life.  Even though his mind was brilliant, he had a very difficult time leaning AutoCad (I also tutored him in some other subjects including some computer classes and he did great).

In drafting, the first thing you learn is to draw views from the front, side and top of objects.  Due to his disability, this guy had never picked things up and messed with them.  In all his brilliance he had no ability to understand the back side of things. He could barely even turn his head, so everything he saw was from a very one dimensional point of view.  His actual handling of things was extremely limited, like moving the joystick of his wheelchair, and he could barely type with one finger.  By not handling things, he missed out on the development of some critical part of the brain.  He had very little to none of what we call spatial reasoning which is typically a large part of intellegence tests.

Kids learn tremendous amounts simply by playing.  Whether it's playing with blocks, playing sports, climbing trees, or picking up rocks to look at the worms and bugs underneath, they are learning and developing their brains.  When we take such young kids and throw them in school, we are depriving them of what quite possibly is a far more important education.  There are soooo many types of knowledge, understanding, and intelligence.  So why do schools and society place so much importance on such a narrowly defined academic education?

We also musn't forget vocational training. When/where I was in high school, the vocational school was a seperate school. It was basically the place where the "dummies" went, while the smart people took calculus, biology and physics at the regular school.  The basic needs of life are food water and shelter.  And the next step up are a few manufactured things.  When these are the most basic and important things to society, why are the farmers and tradesmen given such low status in society?  We can easily get by without the programmers, laywers and even doctors, but we will die in a hurry without the farmers and tradesmen.

The choice of vocational school should no longer be presented as an "alternative" to going on to college because college "isn't for everyone". It should be treated as an equal option for everyone including the intellectuals.

Oh yea! Take away the damn calculators and computers in school and make kids use their brains instead.

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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted May 04, 2009 04:54 AM
Edited by mvassilev at 04:55, 04 May 2009.

Quote:
In addition to the more traditional subjects taught at school, I would very strongly favor adding some requirements for HS graduation.  In order to graduate, kids should have the ability to rebuild the engine of a car (or something similar). They should have the ability to build a house and maintain it.  PE should be mandatory 5 days a week in every year of school.  And PE should be taken seriously and given equal weight to the traditional academics.  Failure in PE should be treated the same as failure in math.
I strongly disagree. Physical education should not be mandatory.

Quote:
Take away the damn calculators and computers in school and make kids use their brains instead.
And have the kids write on stone tablets too - that'll teach 'em! Of course, kids have to know mathematical operations, but there's no point in making them do it by hand every... single... time.
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binabik
binabik


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posted May 04, 2009 05:09 AM
Edited by binabik at 05:10, 04 May 2009.

Calculators could be introduced in maybe grade 11 or 12 to learn some of the more advanced features. Computers could be used in actual computer classes, but not anywhere else.

About a month ago I was at the bank talking to the teller about maybe moving some money from a savings account to a CD. I asked her what the two interest rates were. Then I thought briefly and said "that's only a difference of $48 per 10K per 6 months".  She gave me a wierd look "did you do that in your head"? Sure. She twiddled her fingers in front of her and said she just uses the calculator for everything. So I told her that when I graduated from HS the calculator wasn't invented yet so we had to do things on paper or in our head. She gave me an even wierder look like I was some kind of dinosaur.

The point is that it's not stone age tablets. There's only maybe 1-2 generations who used calculators in school.

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winterfate
winterfate


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posted May 04, 2009 05:14 AM

I do simple math (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) in my head. Always creeps people out.

On another note, the educational system in Puerto Rico is also horribly dumbed down. Really it's more of a system of indoctrination than a system of gaining knowledge...
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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted May 04, 2009 05:56 AM

Binabik:
That's not my point. My point is, once you know how to do something, why do it the hard way? It makes absolutely no sense.
Think about it. Do people need to memorize every integration formula? No, of course not - they can just look it up, they only have to know the general principle of how it works. Same with addition, etc.
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binabik
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posted May 04, 2009 08:12 AM

Mvass, it's not about learning that 2+3=5 and then moving on to calculators after that because you already know it. It's about using the brain and regularly reinforcing what you've learned. The brain NEEDS that reinforcement. I believe that general use of the brain helps in all areas of thought. But reinforcement of specific activities is also needed.


<<<I strongly disagree. Physical education should not be mandatory.>>>

First, mandatory was not really a good choice of words since I don't think school itself should be mandatory. "Standard curriculum" is a better word.

Anyway, why is math more important than PE? Yes, there is a very legitimate argument that PE should be the responsibility of the parents, and I agree with that. But you could also use that same argument about many/all other things that are taught in school. This is a large part of what makes the discussion of education difficult. You must first decide what school SHOULD be before you can plot a course of action to reach that goal. People won't agree on what school should be, and they will agree even less about how to get there.

Also, when I say PE, I think the "E" should not be neglected like it was when/where I went to school. There was virtually nothing in the way of education in PE. It was basically the teacher saying what activity would be that day and then doing it. Things like general health, safety, avoidance of injury, some basic anatomy, nutrition, etc should all be part of PE.

Something else I'm completely convinced about. PE 5 days a week would improve students academically. Not only would it improve their general health, which is a good thing academically and otherwise, it specifically would improve the cardiovascular system. The better supply of oxygen that gets to the brain the better. Not to mention the stress relief which also can improve academics.

If PE were treated like other subject, it might also be appropriate to divide kids into classes according to their ability. Not much different than have multiple levels of chemistry or history.




So what do you people think about subjects like art and music? Should there be more of it?  Less? Are there any other subjects you think need more or less emphasis? I'm curious what you think about my ideas on rebuilding an engine or growing a garden.

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binabik
binabik


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posted May 04, 2009 08:13 AM


<<<1/3rd of our engineering jobs are military related.>>>

I don't believe that. Where did you get that figure?


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JollyJoker
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posted May 04, 2009 09:49 AM

While I'm no citizen of the US, the education system of many countries suffer from the same shortcomings.

It's important to see where school is coming from. Not so far ago, school was a privilege of those who could afford it. For THEM (for their children) education was simply something like a status symbol. The (higher) education that started with 12 and later with 14 had a specific purpose - to teach education for EDUCATION's sake. A wealthy member of society had to be educated, know the classics, speak Old Greek and Latin, could cite poems and calculate.

People fought for a general education that would allow people of all classes of society to get a higher education, since a formal grade in higher education is a prerequisite for all the academical jobs.

However, what we still have, mostly, is the system of old with a lot of the curriculae of old and a massive funding problem.

The first thing is, we need a more differentiated system. It makes no sense that you'd be barred from, say, being a teacher of history and English when you are a complete loser in mathematics, physics and chemistry - in fact, if you are a complete loser there, you'll be unable to take on any acedemic job, at least in Germany.

So what we need is:
1) a general education which would be the same for all, starting with 6, ending with 14. You'd learn THE BASICS, with an eye on furthering talents and interests of children for later job choice.
2) a special education, depending on interest and talents; this would already be job oriented to a certain extent, with issues of choice and so on. This wouldn't be mandatory anymore for all, obviously.
3) an even more special education for SPECIFIC jobs.

In today's time we need to teach METHODS to find knowledge more than actual and factual knowledge - knowledge is just changing and increasing too fast.

Which brings us to funding. We just need to switch ALL higher schools, that is, the education given to 14+years to computer. This allows a much more differentiated work. Instead of books you can have DvDs, and the material can easily be updated each year without completely removing and reprinting books. Work in school must be done according to the possibilities technology offers, and if you look at how interesting material can be presented today (look at some of the things the BBC made), you could make school infinitely more interesting. Since those productions would be used for all schools they wouldn't even be expensive in the long run.

We simply have to consider that life OUTSIDE of school offers infinitely more of interest than 50 and even 30 years ago. School is in COMPETITION with all that.
And we must not forget that school should be teaching a lot more than knowledge: social competence and team work, for example.

I agree, by the way, that Physical Education should be MANDATORY. Kid's health is RAPIDLY deteriorating due to overall less playing outside, more sitting before some screen and eating junk food. Today you'll need something like an hour PE PER DAY to make up for the missing bodily exercise. This is simply part of the education process - whether you like that or not, Mvass (this is one of the dictatorial socialist "we-know-better-than-you" things).

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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted May 04, 2009 02:54 PM

Binabik:
Quote:
The brain NEEDS that reinforcement. I believe that general use of the brain helps in all areas of thought.
Carving in stone tablets improves fine motor skills. Does that mean we need to do that too?

Quote:
So what do you people think about subjects like art and music?
Should be optional. They have their benefits, but they're not for everyone. I can't imagine Bubba benefiting much from them. I can tell you that art classes have not done me any good at all - I just suffered the whole time.

JJ:
Quote:
Which brings us to funding. We just need to switch ALL higher schools, that is, the education given to 14+years to computer. This allows a much more differentiated work. Instead of books you can have DvDs, and the material can easily be updated each year without completely removing and reprinting books. Work in school must be done according to the possibilities technology offers, and if you look at how interesting material can be presented today (look at some of the things the BBC made), you could make school infinitely more interesting. Since those productions would be used for all schools they wouldn't even be expensive in the long run.
This. Very much this.

Both:
Yeah, PE can be useful for some kids, but nearly every subject is useful to some extent - why is PE so special? I agree, there needs to be more general health awareness taught, but as for actual physical activity? Nah.
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Corribus
Corribus

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posted May 04, 2009 03:10 PM

Quote:
Yeah, PE can be useful for some kids, but nearly every subject is useful to some extent - why is PE so special? I agree, there needs to be more general health awareness taught, but as for actual physical activity? Nah.

Because learning the rewards of caring for one's health is - literally - a matter of life and death.  Learning how to draw isn't.  

I didn't like PE in high school and thought it was a waste of time.  But that's because it was half-baked and basically no more than "Ok guys, go out and play for an hour."  Like just about every other subject, the PE curriculem needs to be seriously retooled.
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mvassilev
mvassilev


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posted May 04, 2009 03:40 PM

Well, you can go and tell people the rewards of exercising and eating right - but you shouldn't go out and make them do it any more than you should make them do other good things, like say "Hello" or save money.
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