posted on February 21, 2004 11:18:17 AM new
I was thinking about what I learned in school. I've never needed to use algebra or calculus. Science was my fav, but I only remember the table of elements. Geography was interesting, but I don't remember much. History was interesting too - up to a point. I've never run across someone who wanted me to tell them about Balboa and Ponce de Leon. English was great! I learned alot that I still use today. Other than being good at trivia games, I'm not sure I needed to spend all those years in school learning all that stuff I was bound to forget.
Don't you think the basics should be crammed in to about 2 or 3 years and the rest devoted to how to live and survive?
posted on February 21, 2004 11:25:03 AM newDon't you think the basics should be crammed in to about 2 or 3 years and the rest devoted to how to live and survive?
While I don't believe it's necessary to be college educated in order to survive, IF we only had 2 - 3's of education we'd have no doctors, scientists, NASA projects...the list goes on forever.
Your personal experience is NOT what is going on in the real world. We sit behind our monitors chatting on boards like these most of the time. For that we didn't need to learn all we were taught. Doesn't mean it isn't necessary.
In my grandfather's day, a farmer, the norm was to only go to school to 8th grade. They felt that was all that was necessary to be able to run a farm. Those who wanted to do more than that needed higher education. Still the same today. It depends on what you want to accomplish in live as to how much education you need.
posted on February 21, 2004 11:50:21 AM new
I remember insisting that there was never going to be a situation where I would need albegra and that there was no point in having to take it and yet now I find myself using it constantly. The only thing I found silly were some of the electives. After two years in a bording school I had most of my academic requirements done by the time I returned to public school and spent the last half of my senoir year taking I think 5 PE classes to fulfill the electives requirements.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on February 21, 2004 12:18:28 PM new
The last year of high school is generally repetitive and could be better used attending college or possibly taking work related courses. A couple of my kids were able to take college level courses during their senior year.
If I had been able to change my curriculum I would prefer spending more time on subjects such as art, photography, writing. literature and philosophy.
Personally, I haven't had any use for chemistry and if I did, I would have to find my textbook.
posted on February 21, 2004 12:40:30 PM new
Our cookie-cutter approach to education dulls the gifted and talented while not doing anything lasting or meaningful for average or below-average minds. New York has those great high schools specifically designed for kids who excel in the Arts, so that by the time they're fourteen or so, they're able to focus on the one thing they really want to know about and develop further.
School is nothing more than daycare where one learns to parrot rather than to think, and sit quietly rather than engage in dynamic discussions by 'speaking out of turn'.
The fact that I was high as a kite from 7th through 12th grades, got straight A's, and graduated early speaks volumes about just how 'valuable' or 'difficult' our boring curricula is...
posted on February 21, 2004 01:47:54 PM new
I feel exactly the same Pat! Like an industrial daycare for young automatons that grow up into big automatons that know nothing about themselves.
posted on February 21, 2004 02:19:38 PM new
The reasons for making kids take algebra, chemistry or (name your least favorite subject) anything else, is to expose them to a broad variety of subjects and give them at least basic preparation should that be a direction they decide to pursue in the future. Very few 18 year olds, and I daresay no high school freshmen, have decided on a career course that they will actually end up pursuing for very long. The alternative to a liberal educational foundation is to let high school students decide what they want to take. What a disaster that would be!
It has been said that the purpose of a liberal education is to create persons who have the skills and the interest to try to reach agreements on matters of fact, theory, and actions through rational inquiry and discussions, rather than through knee jerk emotional reaction. In other words, to create informed citizens.
I believe that students should be allowed the time and space to pursue subjects they are interested in and demonstrate abilities for. Without exposure to those subjects, how will they ever know?
These days, kids expect to be entertained at school. Their attention spans are so short that they are quickly bored by any subject which requires even a modicum of difficulty or challenge. It's "no fun". This is a situation that the simplistic love to blame on schools and educators. In reality it's more complicated I think. The schools are guilty of trying to entertain kids too much in order to con them into learning something. They're also guilty of dumbing down curriculum in order to make their test scores look better. The culture in general bears as much responsibility though, for sending students to school who are ill fed, undisciplined, genetically damaged by parents' drug use, and disrespectful of the wisdom and experience of age. It's damned hard to make silk purses out of a bunch of sows' ears.
That they should spend more time in school learning how to "survive", I highly agree with. Let's take math for example. How are you going to teach a kid to avoid credit traps or the basics of saving a given amount of money each month when that kid cannot divide two digits, much less figure a percent of a number?
As far as time spent in school goes, I agree. If I didn't have to deal with two recess periods plus a 45 minute lunch hour and assorted out of class activities like P.E., music, computer lab, art etc., I could get the basics into my students by noon and be done with it. That's an idea that will never fly though, because at least half our day is babysitting. Either both parents work, if the kid is lucky enough to actually have two, or the single mom works. Where is junior going to go if he gets out of school at noon every day?
I've always like the Father Guido Sarducci University degree. It's based on studying only what the average college graduate remembers, 5 years after graduation.
posted on February 22, 2004 10:46:45 AM new
Heh, Shoes, it's one of the pitfalls of the Round Table. You should see my blood pressure spike when Twelve posts something I agree with! Fortunately, it doesn't happen all that often...
posted on February 22, 2004 11:23:18 AM new
With you being a teacher, Prof, I really appreciate your post. To be able to teach children, that are so totally unprepared for school, is like trying to build a house on quicksand. I truly sympathize with teachers. What do you do when you know a child is getting no support at home?
posted on February 22, 2004 11:40:48 AM new
I am not a fan of our education system as it stands, and have posted my opinions in past threads on the topic. That being said....
Are the "basics" really all we want for our children?!? Just enough math and reading that they can "survive"? Just enough education that they can get a better paying job, or function within their career parameters?
Why would we narrow our kids' horizons this way? It's like saying only a very few children should ever be taught to play a musical instrument or play a sport because, after all, most kids aren't going to grow up to be musicians or professional athletes. Do those of you with kids see them only as future cogs in a machine?
I, too, believe that the basics should be solidly taught to children. But I also believe that they should be exposed to a variety of other info. Learning expands the mind, exercises the brain, so to speak. Certainly it broadens horizons.
To answer the original question in this thread: yes, it was really necessary. And worth it, too.
******
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on February 22, 2004 12:25:26 PM new
I would just hazard a guess that most people don't see their children as "cogs in a machine". Fortunately, I didn't have to rely on schools alone to educate my children.
posted on February 22, 2004 02:03:41 PM new
"Fortunately, I didn't have to rely on schools alone to educate my children."
No sh!t, Helen. I'd bet you read to your kids from the time they were very young and had them reading at a grade level that never caught up with them before they entered kindergarten. Probably, you talked to them about Art, and exposed them to that wondrous world long before they had occasion to fingerpaint or taste the horse-paste that always accompanied several sheafs of construction paper earmarked for rendering a 'Pilgrims and Indians Feast'. Undoubtedly, you taught your kids to share, so that they'd not become schoolyard bullies when it was not 'their turn'.
I'd imagine you taught them that certain words and derogatory terms were bad, and warned them that, even if they heard other kids using these words, it was wrong to do so.
Surely your kids came to you with difficult questions, about everything from sex to violence to racism. You sat down with them and listened to their concerns, and often watched the nightly news with them and explained what the (sometimes horrifying) images meant.
In short, you were a parent, Helen; one of those whose presence Profe noted above as sorely lacking these days...
Edited to add: Yes, Krafty, I recall Twelvepole being a lot funnier (and a lot less hateful) the last time I was here. Can't cite a specific thread but I *do* remember pointedly replying to his 'Ain't Life Grand' sigline once by saying, 'Yes, it is.' Does that count?
posted on February 22, 2004 02:44:52 PM new No sh!t?
Actually, my remark wasn't addressed to Profe. and it wasn't intended to malign teachers or schools. I'm sorry if it sounded that way. My remark was made in defense of those parents who do not see their kids as a "cogs in a wheel".
I did all those things that you mention and more, as a matter of fact...just as many parents do.
posted on February 22, 2004 03:07:13 PM new
And, for the record, I didn't take your remark as a slight to teachers or one specifically directed to Profe. I was merely pointing out (in a two-birds, one-stone fashion) that you were probably an involved parent, and that Profe's experiences as a teacher reveal just how important such involvement (or lack of it) is.
posted on February 22, 2004 04:18:07 PM new
Kraft:
What do you do when you know a child is getting no support at home?
No teacher can educate a kid who doesn't have the motivation to learn coming from somewhere. Once in a while, a teacher can become a substitute for that home support, but it is emotionally very costly, professionally risky, and often unsuccessful. What can and should be done is encouraging parents. Many (believe it or not) don't realize how important their support is. Many feel like they can't help their kids, having been poor students themselves. They don't have to be able to help with homework. All they need to do is consistently show their kids that they are interested, and willing to go the distance to help their kids learn. Come to school. Stay in touch with the teacher. Ask to see completed work, or weekly progress reports. If grades go down, find out why, not when you have time, now. It's your child for god's sake. Most kids want, and will try their hardest to live up to their parent's expectations. Sadly, at some point, a teacher must turn their energies towards the students who have the best likelihood of success. I know that's a harsh thing to say, but it's the truth. The teacher who would let an entire class do less than it's best in order to "save" one or two kids is not doing the greatest good for the greatest number, and that's what it's all about.
Doesn't mean it isn't necessary.
