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America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

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Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#321

Post by fractallyte »

camelNotation wrote: post #281

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 the…

'Science' is also a method - one that took a long time to develop - and is fundamental in understanding the universe. It should also be included in your list of essentials...

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#322

Post by alanwatts »

izzydata wrote: post #306
camelNotation wrote: post #281

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 the…

This was probably the biggest demotivating factor in school. Trying to force feed me a bunch of biology terms for every species isn't going to help me learn biology. There is little purpose in memorizing a bunch of random subjective names that people named things.

>We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#323

Post by esaym »

vectorjohn wrote: post #185
PKop wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whose judgement do you trust enough that you're willing to outsource this decision to? Would you let esaym teach your children what he thinks is important? What if he was your child's teacher? At the end of the day you're placing your trust in someone. They are just going to teach your kids what they think is important. Are you not willing to have an opinion on whether they are choosing the right things to teach?

No, wrong. They are going to teach what a large association of actual experts in education think they should teach. Of course you should trust the people that put as much or more effort into education as you did in becoming an expert in your field. I think I heard something about how people that get a lot of expertise in one area like doctors, lawyers, programmers, tend to far overestimate their skills in unrelated t…

As my grandfather once said:

  "Those that can work, work. Those that can't, teach."

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#324

Post by learc83 »

breanwangji wrote: post #198

It should not be judged so easily. However I have to say when I was in MBA course in US, I don't know why the teacher needs to teach the students how to calculate a linear equations of two unknowns. In China that is a question in elementary school and less than grade 5. I wonder how they graduated from high school and learning business.

Virtually everyone in your class learned to solve systems of equations in middle school or high school, and again in college math.

The reason the teacher explained it is that for many students in an MBA program it has been many years since they had to use that particular skill.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#325

Post by rapala »

brightball wrote: post #266
gregatragenet3 wrote: post #24

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... .

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.

School choice fixes the wrong problem. Those children who have parents smart enough to select the right school are going to be better of in any case. It is those children that are left behind in the bad schools that need the systemic improvements.

That is, if every child getting a decent schooling is what you want.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#326

Post by jimbokun »

morgante wrote: post #224
vacri wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work support for an agricultural telemetry company, and on helping a user with a laptop-based problem over the phone, he said "lucky we have you smart guys, I'm so dumb". To which I said "I know about computers, but I couldn't concrete in a post. The stuff you find trivial around the farm is stuff I'd struggle with" I meant every word, too. I mean, I could describe the basic actions of concreting in a post,…

The difference, of course, is that the vast majority of the population never has to concrete in a post, but they do have to use computers. It's not like we're expecting people to have a specialized skill in technology. They don't need to program. Basic technical literacy should be treated like basic literacy: treated as a basic requirement of being a functioning adult and as something you would never outsource to oth…

Maybe not "concrete in a post" specifically, but doing basic construction and home maintenance tasks are very useful skills for almost anyone, and I'm totally helpless at them. So I try to have empathy for anyone lacking "basic technical literacy".

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#327

Post by saint_fiasco »

rantanplan wrote: post #211
Wingman4l7 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public school system is not without its flaws. For many, it can be battling constant abuse by their "peers" -- people neither their social nor mental equals, the like of whom they'll never interact with as adults -- under the guise of "learning social skills". Additionally, it's full of outdated, half-false, and irrelevant curriculum & busywork, pandering to the lowest common denominator and increasingly focused…

All of the things you mentioned are true and still homeschooling is worse. You know why? Our society is not without its flaws either. So unless you can provide a full alternative reality experience to your children, I'd say stand back. And by the way, who's preventing you to teach your children to identify(and thus ignore) the flaws of this system? What you're suggesting is the nuclear option and I don't see any reas…

>And by the way, who's preventing you to teach your children to identify(and thus ignore) the flaws of this system?

What do you mean 'ignore'? If children are forced to go to school, they can hardly 'ignore' that they are being bullied or 'just go away' if a teachers is incompetent.

Most children are perfectly capable of identifying the flaws, they are just impotent and can't do anything about it which causes additional misery.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#328

Post by alanwatts »

>when it comes to technology skills, we're dead last compared with other developed countries.

Maybe because the education model in the US (and elsewhere) relies heavily upon Ludditism.

Student's intelligence is measured on a single linear numeric scale based on paper-and-pencil administered examinations and are strictly limited to using computer technology (calculators) that was invented 40 years ago[1] even though they posses in their pockets computers that are millions (billions?) of times more powerful.

"Never memorize something that you can look up."

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_Business_Ana...

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#329

Post by rantanplan »

esaym wrote: post #305
rantanplan wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Also I see what problem they solve, to prevent people like you ruining a child's mental health. Strange comment. I'm thinking of all the girls I knew in public high school that would cut themselves. The boys did other kinds of self harm; severe drug use, and if they couldn't get drugs, they'd go huff gasoline. What I expect from my children is that they do a few hours of work in the morning, a few chores after lunc…

Well if you think that by not hanging out with kids of their age is going to be better, that's even more unfortunate.

We get it, you had some bad experiences and now what? You're going to isolate them from the rest of the world? And when did that ever work?

> As far as socialization, that is a human trait. Some have more of it, and some have less

Well, yeah if you make them anti-social, I suppose they're going to have less of it.

> and then they can do what ever they want the rest of the day (like help me at work if they want since I work from home)

What?!! Why would a child want to help you with your work in their free time? Are you serious? A child must play, play play!! Preferably with other children of their own age. Please talk to a professional about those issues. This is not even remotely a good way to raise your children.

Re: America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts

#330

Post by EliRivers »

pitt1980 wrote: post #300
EliRivers wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I even listened to some of my teachers more than I did my own parents (indoctrination)" Why is being indoctrinated by parents any better?

for one, parents have a different incentive structure than teachers do while parents aren't perfectly incentivized, they have a larger stake in you growing into a happy and healthy adult than teachers do

I believe that this (for want of a better phrase) perfect economist picture of parents is so swamped by culture and superstition and politics and all the rest of it that it's effectively invalid.

Many parents do want their children to be happy and healthy, but I believe the number who do this because they assess what their stake in "Project Children" is and conclude that their expectation value is higher with happy healthy children is vanishingly small.

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