The purpose of school is to equip students on how to teach themselves, not to spoon feed them facts. For that reason, philosophy, rhetoric, logic, music, literature, and mathematics should be the priorities. Students who are well-versed in those areas WILL figure out the rest of it a million times faster than some kid who drilled on history, science, or other facts. Teach the kids how to study history, don't feed them names and dates. Teach the kids how to research, don't make them regurgitate someone else's results. Teach kids how to comprehend and analyze a text, don't make them read Homer and then regurgitate the events. Modern education is bullshit.
America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
281–290 of 371 posts
Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#282Has anyone ever studied the history of the "school system"? It was invented in Germany to help standardize away individualism and help promote "patriotism".
Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#283I thoguht the article was very positive:
> Americans who went to college and graduate school did well. They scored above their peers with similar degrees in other developed countries.
The problem is that the bottom half does badly. I think this is largely due to poverty, culture and low expectations rather than poorly resourced schools. Maybe its also that its so easy to get a job in America that working classes really dont need to study hard.
Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only way to fix that is with true school choice options. That way when parents realize it's a problem they can send their kids to schools that make a point to include it rather than the ones that leave it out completely.
Yes, but teacher unions and Democrats hate that. The idea of free market competition is contrary to every bone in their bodies. That could lead to actual accountability. Currently the US school system is the Lada, free markets could turn it into a Honda.
This is the thing that I will never understand. I know a lot of teachers, several of whom I was friends with in college.
They complain about the work environment constantly and every single complaint is one that would be resolved by school choice. Every. Single. One. Yet they're all completely opposed to it.
Usually the entire reason for that opposition is fears of religious schools...which doesn't make sense. If there is that much opposition to religious schools that would mean that there's plenty of parents who would choose the non-religious options so again...a system which works itself out.
I have ONE friend who doesn't complain and that's because his teacher career has been at two of the best schools in the entire state.
Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? Relative to who you meet, and what brand you get to slap on your resume at the end of the day? Do you remember anything you learned in AP Calc or APUSH all those years ago? I think it's important to learn how to think. But you can always do that in your 4 years at college, once you get into an ivy league, right? Who needs life skills when you can get…
> One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? When I'd just finished high school, I thought it was irrelevant. Now, many years afterwards, I can see the incredible influence it had over me and I can wholeheartedly say that it does, to an incredible extent. Virtually every single element of the foundation of my profession, views about and understanding of art, science and the human spirit in ge…
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Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#286I always wish these reports would break out the average vs. the distribution. America, more than any other developed country, tolerates a high level of poverty. And poor kids just don't have the resources to do well in school, and bring the average down. The single largest predictor of how well kids will do in school is not any in-school factor, but rather the socioeconomic status of their parents.
Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#287Stats!
See the details on race/social rank and performance of high schoolers that went on to college vs the ones that stopped after hs to fully understand the data.
the US has layers, you have a first world country, a second world country and a third world country intermixed, skewing all these data sets. well-off whites perform as well in the US as everywhere else. Asians too. no need for homeschooling or other panic modes.
if you're poor, you're fucked. just like anywhere else.
Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was at a Walgreens a little while ago, and there was a lady buying some sort of cable for a camera. I remember her literally asking the store clerk, "Will this work with a laptop, or does it have to be a computer?" I bring up this anecdote whenever someone else asserts " is common sense, no one could be confused by it". Help your parents with tech support at least once a year (or your friends' parents if yours are…
> Help your parents with tech support at least once a year I did that for a while, then once, when she had a basic problem with her printer, we spent a rather tense evening while I walked her through how I think through technical problems piece by piece and google stuff I don't know. She ended up figuring out a solution that I was unaware of. She told me several weeks later she'd been able to solve a bunch of (to me)…
> She told me several weeks later she'd been able to solve a bunch of (to me) tiny problems and how proud she was.
My mother does this sometimes too, it's really nice. She'll call me and tell me how she needed to add an additional email to her iPad. "Wait, needed? Past tense?" "Yes, I figured it out. I went into settings, then Mail, then..."
PCs never stuck with her. I still to this day have to explain the difference between left-click, right-click, and double-click. Why you need to double click on the desktop, or in a folder, but only single click from the Start Menu or quick-launch bar. Etc... But since getting her an iPad, she plays with it, and explores it the way I remember doing when we got our first computer with Windows 3.1.
Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#289This study does not surprise me. All four of my grandparents were educators for their entire career. And as a result, my parents decided to unschool my brothers and I. In trying to be as objective and self-aware as possible, it is clear to us that the homeschoolers/unschoolers we built a community with are vastly better prepared for adulthood, regardless of level of general intelligence. There is a reason the accepta…
> There is a reason the acceptance rate at Stanford is ~27% for homeschoolers vs. 5% for those who went to school.
Is it selection bias?
Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
#290I'm also a bit tired about hearing about how great Finland & Japan's schools are.
How many illegal immigrants do these countries have in their school system? How many with minorities who dont speak the main language at home? How many kids in Japan/Finland dont eat properly because their families can't afford food? Of course the American's student's results are going to be worse on average.