Your education

[Black Dog]

To fill the interminably long hours I have between lectures I was reading a half decent viewpoint in the Times yesterday over the failings of our education system and for once I thought about it afterwards.

I agree that the government are moving away from core subjects towards the introduction of half-baked modules such as citizenship to fill their targets at GCSE (5 A-C's etc) and A-level. They are acknowledging far easier subjects in the curriculum - general studies being an obvious example at A-level for example which involved a comprehension exercise a 12-year-old could have done.

I went to a grammar school and had a pretty decent education with the exception of a few teachers here and there, yet I've found that I've come away with little experience which actually helps at university other than the ability to write essays - no decent public speaking skills for example.

What I'm getting at is how successful do you think your education was, did it just focus on getting you the necessary grades or take a skills based approach. Which one is better?

[NEWSBOT3]

Originally posted by Black Dog

Education should not just be about getting qualifications, as it is entirely focused right now.

Education, should prepare you for life, academic qualifications are only a part of that.

[Cochese]

The US public education system is a cookie-cutter operation, designed to stamp out as many mindless, gullible drones as humanly possible.

[Ragnarak]

to be fair they did try to teach us stuff like public speaking, essay writing skills, etc it's just that i thought they were a waste of time and didn't count as 'proper' work

tho having to write proper essays at uni i generally end up asking you lot for advise on stuff that i should easily know myself

:/

[Ragnarak]

Originally posted by Iniluki
insert random GWB comment here

i was about to

now you spoilt it

spoiler :/

[Scoot951]

You can get a lot out of a public education, if you push yourself and make full use of everything they offer.

But how many 15-year olds want to do that? Offer them an easier class and most will take it, 'careers' seem like a million years away. So blame the schools on looking for an easy way out to meet the stupid new government regulations popping up all over the place, and blame the parents/kids for taking it.

[Texan]

I attended Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas and finished at Trinity High School in Euless, Texas. I found that what you put into it was what you got out of the school. I had a friend who graduated and was barely literate. On the other hand, I graduated from high school and then later took tests so that I did not need to attend classes for my first year and a half of college. That meant when I took my first classes, I was already almost finished with my second year of college. It still took me a long time to get my bachelor's degree because I was taking night classes while serving in the Army.

I got a lot of my real experience from being employed full time from when I was 13 to 18 at a restaurant. Then I worked from 18 to 22 in a paint factory. When I was 22 I joined the Army and served for five years on active duty as a Public Relations Specialist. Now I'm 37-years old and working as a Public Relations Specialist as a civilian. The whole thing is a growing process.

[Phang]

Speaking of which.

I have large biology coursework for Herr Nazi teacher #5. It's in for Thursday.


Toodles.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally posted by Black Dog
What I'm getting at is how successful do you think your education was, did it just focus on getting you the necessary grades or take a skills based approach. Which one is better?

I think my education was OK, not brilliant. My primary education (say upto 11) was fairly good, although we were forced to do lots of random stuff which didn't interest me in the slightest (music, art, PE, etc.) I was just interested in Maths and computers.

My secondary education (11-16) was at first appallingly. For a start the school was far too large (although not big by English standards - probably about 1k students with 180 students per year, 30 per class.) Once again, far too many pointless classes, too long hours completley petty rules. In other words, not enough liberty. Meeting my friends (whom I still know/live with after ten years) made this experience infinitely more bearable. Was suspended from school for various computer "offences" with a friend of mine (who was later expelled and is now a coder at Sony) and repeatedly threatened with suspension for similar idiotic acts.

"Post 16" was taken in the same school and was better, a drastic reduction in hours (down to about 18 from 35 odd) and only subjects which I showed an interest in. Still stupid rules although these were slightly relaxed (no uniforms for instance).

University (QMW in the East End of London) was a total breathe of fresh air. A good environment for learning, realising that I wasn't the only leftist-anarchist-Marxist-libertarian-wacko out there was nice. Access to excellent library facilities (Senate House, etc) and basically being left to get on with it during generous holidays to read whatever I felt like (one week cognitive science, one week Hegelian dialectics). Eventually though I grew tired of "directed learning" and was glad when my BA finished.

I started my MA part-time at Birkbeck (part of University of London) but quit due to the lectures being boring, it being too directed and cost.

Overall, the one lesson I gained from all of this was that forcing people to do anything isn't an effective way of teaching, and the best results can be gained from just supporting people's learning. Furthermore, writing death threats to the School Sysadmin just isn't cool.

[Black Dog]

Originally posted by Dante Hicks
one week Hegelian dialectics

Why bother when they're nonsense? Even Marx's attempt to twist them into a materialist form is rubbish. The American legal realists are 'where it's at'.

Though I do agree that supporting people's learning, most people won't take advantage of that option at all, it's naive to think that most people would choose to learn rather than play. If I hadn't been forced to work at times, I think I would have regressed quite rapidly.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally posted by Black Dog
Why bother when they're nonsense? Even Marx's attempt to twist them into a materialist form is rubbish. The American legal realists are 'where it's at'.

Hegel does talk a fair amount of bollocks, but it's still interesting to get some kind of historical grounding. And I disagree with the Marx point, I kind of like historical materialism although nowdays I don't really find my philosophy flowing from there that much.

But anyway, I don't assume most people would pick work over play. I know from my own experience that most people would pick play, especially in our current social climate. Indeed, probably about 50% of my school (generally the poorer or blacker side of the school sadly) would have probably quit at 14 if they could. However, I don't see the need for enforcing education on people who don't want to learn.

Most (90% I'd estimate) of the people who dropped out during "post-16" (16-18) did so because they randomly started missing classes and were then chastised for not attending which led to a cycle of bitterness, recrimination, blah, blah. In other words, completley self-defeating policies on abscence.

For the people who dropped out even earlier (at 16) it was usually either (a) the need for money or (b) association with school being a pit of enforced misery. By trying to keep a leash on kids we eventually make them want to leave school and never return to education.

Our entire culture seems to be anti-freedom. The constant fear that if we give people the slightest option to do as they please then society will immediately go to ruin. Some denial of liberty is necessary of course - a parent of a young child is entirely entitled to stop (physically) his or her child running into a busy street. That's something that can be logically justified. But pretty much everything else needs to be re-examined.

Forcing 16 year olds to play football because we think our country is unfit is utterly stupid. My friends and I constantly "bunked"/failed to do PE through our education. But as soon as we left school we started voluntarily playing football in the local park, squash at the local authority leisure centre. Perhaps I'm weird - perhaps everyone performs better if they're being forced to do things against their will.

[Cyp]

Originally posted by Cochese
The US public education system is a cookie-cutter operation, designed to stamp out as many mindless, gullible drones as humanly possible.

I can confirm this. School psychiatrist attempted (but failed, due to family lack of blind faith in the psychiatric institution) to administer normalising drugs.

To a lesser, drug-free, extent, applies to all schools I have been to, actually.

Fortunately, I've almost recovered. Entire school held a party when I left.

[Gayle29uk]

School...all those years ago...let's see if I can remember...

Various military schools till age 9, then private school till age 17 (I hit the upper sixth at 16) and I think I got a fairly good deal. I certainly managed a broad education covering everything from the finer points of ettiquette to raising a spinnaker without submarining via a detour through the world of genetics. I did pretty well out of it but it does leave me pretty much unable to comment on the general state of education in this country as I never experienced a state school. Simple observation isn't really enough, that little bastard outside the shops acting all hard could be a genius pianist or a budding Rodin so I'm reserving my judgement. I'll make my report in 20 years or so

[Sarina_Joy]

It's strange. At the time I thought my (High School) education was excellent. I thought the majority of my teachers were good at their jobs, I thought the curriculum was decent enough, and I thought my school did a fairly good job all in all.

Looking back now, I think my education was poor at best. The school system (bear in mind I left high school 8 years ago, things might be very different now) seems designed only to teach you those specific parts of a subject which you need to pass a specific exam. Yes, I do realise that perhaps the 'main purpose' of schooling is to help people to pass exams, and as such this would seem to be a good thing. But there seems to be no broad schooling, no life education, no encouragement to learn outside of school, not even the slightest hint that learning could be 'fun'.

In my experience this is what is lacking. It may sound a rather old fashioned idea, but school should not only be about teaching the subject at hand. It should be about preparing people for the life ahead of them. This does not mean sitting in class for half an hour pre week while the teacher passes round condoms. That's the problem. I can't define exactly what I mean, I just know that our schools need it.

[pablissimo]

Originally posted by NEWSBOT3
Education should not just be about getting qualifications, as it is entirely focused right now.

Education, should prepare you for life, academic qualifications are only a part of that.

Bingo. Though in my opinion non-academic subjects should be focussed more at the pre-GCSE level as opposed to the A-level 'general studies' level.

Citizenship is a gimmick. But teaching things like Politics, Public Speaking, Finance, even things like First-Aid as short, intensive courses would be very beneficial, especially since with those skills you gain confidence and are much better prepared for when you're spat out the other end of the system.

I very much wish we were given political teaching in school, even if it would have been hard to get an unbiased view from a teacher/ coursewriter.

[MrPeach]

My continuing "education" is poor. I go to school everyday (monday to friday) and am bored by teachers, who's methods are bland and non-effective.

I see the purpose of my official education to be to give me career oppertunities, and experience and preperation for life should be built around this, public speaking, key skills, social activity etc. My school provides none of these things, it care pretty much about one thing and that is "giving me career oppertunities", ie. teaching me to enable me to pass exams. But as a result of such an abismal schooling system, this simple task is left to me...

Schools need to change techniques, get pupils involved, and most importantly try and create a good healthy learning enviroment; something that my school lacks completely for various reasons ("tradition", suits, old fasion teachers who if they still had the authority would undoubtedly want to cane me! etc.).

I am lucky as i have the ability to survive without the guidence of my school, and with some work I'm sure I'll achieve good grades, but there are so many less fortunate who just waste away and fade into the backgroud and settleing for less.

However I do enjoy school... for the simple reason I have realised how utterly pointless it is in its current state so I can put in effort elsewhere, ie. my social life! I'm not sure if i have made the point I was trying to make, or in fact made any points at all as i am feeling really ill and tired so just started typing...

[Black Dog]

Originally posted by pablissimo
I very much wish we were given political teaching in school, even if it would have been hard to get an unbiased view from a teacher/ coursewriter.

I agree, but it doesn't matter that much about the bias. I did Government and Politics at A-level with a ex-Conservative councillor as teacher, every other lesson degenerated into a pro-Thatcher rant and every single lesson there was an argument with the member of the Lib-Dem party in the class. It was fantastic.

I think every single person came out of the class with their own opinions further developed and not by simply following the viewpoint of the teacher, it encouraged debate and for you to form your own opinions on every single issue rather than being prompted by a stale objective opinion without any controversy.

[pablissimo]

Originally posted by Black Dog
I agree, but it doesn't matter that much about the bias. I did Government and Politics at A-level with a ex-Conservative councillor as teacher, every other lesson degenerated into a pro-Thatcher rant and every single lesson there was an argument with the member of the Lib-Dem party in the class. It was fantastic.

I think every single person came out of the class with their own opinions further developed and not by simply following the viewpoint of the teacher, it encouraged debate and for you to form your own opinions on every single issue rather than being prompted by a stale objective opinion without any controversy.

Our econonimcs teacher used to try and get us to form opinions about world affairs, probably one in 8 or so lessons had nothing to do with economics, that was the only formal teaching we had in the area.

Christ, having someone go through the papers with you once a week for an hour and have a discussion would have been better than the current provisioning.

[Black Dog]

Originally posted by pablissimo
Christ, having someone go through the papers with you once a week for an hour and have a discussion would have been better than the current provisioning.

True, it's so important and doing constitutional law at university as a module shows me just how little fundamental information people actually know on their own account.

Then again people would argue that the papers are available to everyone in their library so they shouldn't be forced to read them.

[pablissimo]

Originally posted by Black Dog
Then again people would argue that the papers are available to everyone in their library so they shouldn't be forced to read them.

IMO they damned well should, or at least be forced to think for themselves about the world around them in a neatly timed one-hour session per week.

[Scoot951]

Originally posted by MrPeach
However I do enjoy school... for the simple reason I have realised how utterly pointless it is in its current state so I can put in effort elsewhere, ie. my social life!

I have a feeling that's how most school-age kids feel. I, on the other hand, having no social life, got a good SAT score and now have a full scholarship

[Helveticus]

The resources and teaching that were available to me in my preferred subjects were fairly good, however I never took advantage of them.

Up until college, the teaching concentrated more on passing the exams (2/3 weeks of taking practice exams etc) rather than learning something useful.

[Xillah]

Originally posted by Black Dog
To fill the interminably long hours I have between lectures I was reading a half decent viewpoint in the Times yesterday over the failings of our education system and for once I thought about it afterwards.

I agree that the government are moving away from core subjects towards the introduction of half-baked modules such as citizenship to fill their targets at GCSE (5 A-C's etc) and A-level. They are acknowledging far easier subjects in the curriculum - general studies being an obvious example at A-level for example which involved a comprehension exercise a 12-year-old could have done.

I think that its a disgrace that a 16 year old cant get a c in English at GCSE, if you cant read and write at 16 you should be shot, along with your parents and english teacher (they have to be responsible for your idiocy too). They've spoke the ****ing language most of thier lives ffs, theres just no excuse.

As for Maths some people dont have a head for it which makes it hard for them, the higher paper isnt for everyone. I took it and did well but a lot of peolple cant get their head arround the more advanced stuff (I used to be really good at math but i doubt i could do a lot of the advanced stuff I did at gcse now).
However, with a good teacher a C through the intermediate level shouldnt be out of reach for ppl.

Nobody should do foundation maths - It should be abolished. The highest grade you can recieve is a D. A D at GCSE is nothing, you might as well not bother going to the exam. A-C is all that counts.

As for General studies... well lets put it this way i went to 4 lectures and got a B... Its a waste of an hour. the exams are a joke and as for the course work a google search and 20 minutes will get you a good grade.



I havent had the pressure of doing a degree course yet so i dont know about uni stuff (If taking a couple of years out and working - saving up some cash so i dont come out of my degree in a **** lad of debt)

[G_frog]

My schooling kept interfering with my education.

( I agree, GS is a complete joke. Someone I know cut the classes and got one of the five highest marks in the country.)

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by G_frog
My schooling kept interfering with my education.

Always remember to credit your sources

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Mark Twain

[Nodrog]

It was awful. Too many stupid compulsory subjects, too much emphasis on forced learning in classrooms rather than giving students lots of free time to learn in, too much homework (I never understood the point of homework - if you like something, youll do it voluntarily), too authoritarian, too many people in the school who werent worth speaking to (round about 99%) and generally crap allround.

High school english is enough to put someone off literature for life ("and what do you think the writer meant by his use of the word "of" on the seventh line of this poem?"), and I dont understand why they teach foreign languages rather than linguistic theory, science without science philsophy, mathematics without arithmetic ("hey, you can use a calcutor to do basic arithmetic such as 23x36, why bother learning how to do it in your head?!? Lets learn something useful in day to day life like calculus instead!") or PE/RE/SE in general. Also, not enough focus on subjects that are genuinelly useful, for example everyone should be required to take a class on statistics/probability, logic (as applied to debates and rhetoric, as opposed to formal logic - classic argumentitive fallacies and suchlike), ethical theory, basic principles of law, and other things that are actually important. But hey! why bother when you can just teach geography (glaciers are really kewl!), Brit-centric history (indepth knowledge of WW2 is definitely more important than an actual knowledge of the history of civilisation!), technical design (durr, making stuff out of wood is cool!), cooking (no comment) and 'social education' instead?!?

Go go gadget public schooling.

[MrL_JaKiri]

I have done no work ever, so the question is invalid.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by Nodrog
too much homework (I never understood the point of homework - if you like something, youll do it voluntarily)

<snip>

Go go gadget public schooling.

Public schools, where you have compulsory prep on an evening for up to 3 hours (increses from 1 hour as you move up the years). Prep is a BIG part of most public schooling.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by Iniluki
Work done = Force x Distance.


So by typing you have actually done work!


</badtroll>

I'm taking myself as the rest frame, so whilst I have done no work, the rest of the world has.

[Nusselt]

i realised that it was all madness when i was 12 (yr 8) and had to spend my time in history learning about fcking crop rotation in the middle ages


Why on earth would i care about crop rotation in the middle ages?!?!?!

[[GAP]Obiwan]

Textiles: alcoholic 40-sumfin 'lady' who tried to stab me.
Music: Paedophile who looked up girls skirts.
Maths: old codger who could reach orgasm by looking at various statistics.
German: Crazy woman who'd start crying shouting "JONNY, JONNY!!!"
Art: Lovely lady who was the only one in the entire school who believed in me, a good friend, and a really nice set of 'eyes' (0)(0)
w00t w00t
RS: Woman who looked like splinter (TMHT) (smelt like a rat too) told me i was a failure in life and wouldn't achieve anything, never turned up for lessons, (unless intoxicated) never did ANY work when i was there, got an 'A' for GCSE
PE: Half human-half monkey, facial hair that looked like a toilet brush, raised by gorillas, (probably
Chemistry: The sexiest teacher EVER, from South Africa couldn't speak a word of english, dropped a bottle of some chemical and the sch0ol had to be evacuated \o/\o/\o/

and NO i'm not exaggerating!

[W]

Originally posted by [GAP]Obiwan
Textiles: alcoholic 40-sumfin 'lady' who tried to stab me.
Music: Paedophile who looked up girls skirts.
Maths: old codger who could reach orgasm by looking at various statistics.
German: Crazy woman who'd start crying shouting "JONNY, JONNY!!!"
Art: Lovely lady who was the only one in the entire school who believed in me, a good friend, and a really nice set of 'eyes' (0)(0)
w00t w00t
RS: Woman who looked like splinter (TMHT) (smelt like a rat too) told me i was a failure in life and wouldn't achieve anything, never turned up for lessons, (unless intoxicated) never did ANY work when i was there, got an 'A' for GCSE
PE: Half human-half monkey, facial hair that looked like a toilet brush, raised by gorillas, (probably
Chemistry: The sexiest teacher EVER, from South Africa couldn't speak a word of english, dropped a bottle of some chemical and the sch0ol had to be evacuated \o/\o/\o/

and NO i'm not exaggerating!

Sounds like any other average school

[ELeeming]

My pet hate about the education system is that you never get taught how to really read a map/atlas. Sure you get all kinds of **** about hills ect. in Geography, but you never get taught how to read a map if you're, for example, hillwalking or the passenger in a car.

To this end,I propose that once a week, the whole class gets dropped off individually in the middle of nowhere with only a map, and left to find their way home. This would also help the government acheive its aim of getting more people to get high grades, as dead people can't fail.

[Not_RIT]

My last School (Denstone College, UK) rawked, apart from having complete and upper arseholes in the upper managment of it. I had quite a few good teachers, unfortunatly my science teachers were utter ****e but the rest were pretty good.

The college im at now is ok and you get out of it what you put in, for instance you can 'pass' the course pretty easy by copying work etc. I prefer to actually work at it instead and hence Im getting 'Distinctions' what annoys me is that the attitude at the college is 'you only need to know it for this unit and then you can forget it'.

I always thought education was meant to teach you things, and if just forget those things after getting the degree then its a waste of an education, you might as well have copied.

[Not_RIT]

Originally posted by Nusselt
i realised that it was all madness when i was 12 (yr 8) and had to spend my time in history learning about fcking crop rotation in the middle ages


Why on earth would i care about crop rotation in the middle ages?!?!?!

When you get old, and find the joys of gardening (every old person does, its compulsory) you will then finaly have a use for crop rotation.

/me shudders about the thought of liking gardening one day....concrete..yes concrete....green concrete.....

[Not_RIT]

Originally posted by Gayle28uk
Public schools, where you have compulsory prep on an evening for up to 3 hours (increses from 1 hour as you move up the years). Prep is a BIG part of most public schooling.

Yes, but it actually consists of throwing paper darts at the teacher. Ah the fun....

Years 1 - 3 I had loads of homework that I had to do in these 'Prep' sessions. Year 4 this dropped slightly, Year 5 I had fk all to do. That rawked. But spending 3 hours doing absolutly fk all, and you HAVE to be there sucks donkey balls.

Now Im at College and have soo much freetime is stupid, for once I actually sleep more hours per day than I spend awake...

[MeridianStar]

Originally posted by Nodrog
It was awful. Too many stupid compulsory subjects, too much emphasis on forced learning in classrooms...

....High school english is enough to put someone off literature for life ("and what do you think the writer meant by his use of the word "of" on the seventh line of this poem?"), and I dont understand why they teach foreign languages rather than linguistic theory

Yeah. A good 50% of my later high school time was sitting being bored in the completely uninspirational maths and english classes. Fair enough, make them compulsory until 16 but, (at least it was 5 years ago) it was still compulsory to take english or maths in some form until final year. I don't feel that Higher Grade in either of these subjects taught me anything other than to loathe calculus and classical literature. They also failed to teach us the application either of these would have for when we left, a big mistake, just adding to my apathetic attitude towards these subjects.

As for languages, in High School they appear to be nothing other than a qualification. After getting an 'A' grade for Higher german I was still entering university conversation classes with the ability to converse on useless topics such as where I was for my last holiday, not day-to-day conversation. The focus is too great on grammar exercises, and there at least needs to be greater emphasis on conversation, rather than the pre-practised speech that is the oral part of Scottish Higher examinations.

University was good, I prefer the system at the university I went to (lo Sarina), whereby emphasis is on coursework and small end-of-term exams, rather than putting the full weight on dreaded "finals" at the end of the semester. Each person has their strong point, but I'm still not convinced that written exams are a true representation of a person's performance in a subject.

[Gayle29uk]

Originally posted by Not_RIT
Yes, but it actually consists of throwing paper darts at the teacher. Ah the fun....

Teacher? Prefect more like! And you can imagine the results of trying a trick like that on a prefect