201–210 of 371 posts
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People think like this because of companies like Apple who make proprietary everything. Confusion is a natural byproduct of this practice
Perhaps somewhat, but I think the main factor is that computers change much faster than these people expect. "No [family member], this Bluetooth mouse isn't going to work with your XP era desktop."
Of course the US does poorly in this survey. The survey measures life skills. We've spent the last decades changing our schools from teaching life skills to pure college prep. A terrible disservice to young people. Here's some sample questions http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/Education%20and%20Skills_onli... .
There's quite simply no easy fix here. The best schools (and yes, that includes many public schools) are teaching a variety of skills that help the students whether they're going on to college, a trade school, or straight into work. And I suspect that those schools would be competitive or even beat Japan and Finland.
But just look at the conditions of some schools. --Detroit is making the news for schools that are falling apart and infested with rats and worse. When the government won't even provide funds to provide a clean, safe space for students to learn, just how much can you expect from the teachers and students?
Most of us don't feel good about going through increasingly intrusive screening at airports. Imagine how students at some of the schools in New York feel having to stand in long lines and go through metal detectors every day before class. Do you really expect them to respect an environment when they're put through that?
In Kansas they're trying to defund the state's Supreme Court because they ruled that the funding of public schools was inadequate and distributed unfairly to the point of being unconstitutional.
Look at the Republican candidates all crowing about how they'll shut down the Department of Education if they're elected. Don't get me wrong, like all government agencies, some reform is needed, but there are plenty of examples to show why the department is necessary!
There are other factors in play as well, of course - as much as people would like to pretend otherwise, there are a lot of people living in poverty in the US, and students living in poverty consistently do worse in school than middle and upper class students.
So really, there are a LOT of reasons for the US scoring this way, and unfortunately our country is not doing a good job of addressing these reasons.
I don't expect the public school system to teach my children anything. Hence why they won't be attending. Most of the schools I attended growing up were completely useless. Filthy, full of drugs and gangs. Sadly I even listened to some of my teachers more than I did my own parents (indoctrination) which I now see lead me down the wrong path. I don't expect the public school to teach my kids any kind of career skills…
As a publicly educated kid who started working when he was 15-1/2 (the legal minimum age in CA for a work permit at the time), I'd encourage you to rethink the importance of child-like innocence. Not that I regret my choices, but that 13 is just a little too young to be career-oriented, and 16 is probably the bare minimum. I was into computers at that age, but if my decisions were based on profitability or profession…
In the grand scheme of things, I don't think it made a huge difference to my life choices either (you can learn a lot about crappy jobs and bad bosses in a couple of weeks' "work experience")
I don't expect the public school system to teach my children anything. Hence why they won't be attending. Most of the schools I attended growing up were completely useless. Filthy, full of drugs and gangs. Sadly I even listened to some of my teachers more than I did my own parents (indoctrination) which I now see lead me down the wrong path. I don't expect the public school to teach my kids any kind of career skills…
The public school system is more about socializing than gaining knowledge. But how could a person like you understand that, when you think that: "I think having them make $60 an hour while their friends make nothing will be a large deciding factor" is a deciding factor.
Also, I've never heard or seen any kid that listens more to their teachers than their parents. That says more about the parents than it says about the teachers or the school system.
You are truly a dangerous person.
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What the hell? "My kids are gonna be web devs by 13 and they're gonna like it!" Is this considered normal with you stylish, American, Silicon Valley types? Do you think children are like Pokemons or Sims or RPG characters who you control from a 3rd person perspective?
Do you think 13 year olds should be treated like 5 year olds who are not suitable to do anything except having people laugh at their reactions?
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Funding doesn't help enough by itself, and the poor school districts get supplemental funds from federal and state governments bringing their total funding on par or higher than richer school districts. I went through poor public schools and richer public schools. Resources were not very different. If anything less competition at poor schools gave me an extra edge.
"the poor school districts get supplemental funds from federal and state governments bringing their total funding on par or higher than richer school districts" Citation needed. Just a casual web search for your claim seems to be yielding the opposite conclusion. My anecdotal experience from moving around a lot (over half a dozen public schools from kindergarten to 12th grade) also contradicts your claim. Competition…
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And what if they don't want to do web dev work, ever?
I agree with not forcing vocations on kids, but I don't think many kids that age really want to do a paper round (or any of the other typical jobs that kids do) either. I certainly didn't want to get a job in a retail store, but it paid me a small amount of disposable money. Web work pays substantially more and could entail graphic design, copy-writing, backend programming, marketing or all sorts of useful skills. I…
Also written by OP, which does suggest they might not have a lot of other options
I don't expect the public school system to teach my children anything. Hence why they won't be attending. Most of the schools I attended growing up were completely useless. Filthy, full of drugs and gangs. Sadly I even listened to some of my teachers more than I did my own parents (indoctrination) which I now see lead me down the wrong path. I don't expect the public school to teach my kids any kind of career skills…
I'm glad that in my country there are laws that prohibit homeschooling to replace regular education. Also I see what problem they solve, to prevent people like you ruining a child's mental health. The public school system is more about socializing than gaining knowledge. But how could a person like you understand that, when you think that: " I think having them make $60 an hour while their friends make nothing will b…