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Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

thesunmagazine.org

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Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#21

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

grendelt wrote: post #10
Spivak wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing more sure to kill your love of anything than to have it be taught at school. Like come on, we were stuck in the boredom cube for 6ish hours a day, the alternative is nothing and most of us still didn't pay attention.

> than to have it be taught at school. than to have it be taught IN A BORING WAY WITHOUT CONTEXT Learning my multiplication tables was fun when it was turned into a race with my friends. Memorizing the state capitals and abbreviations was fun when it was turned into a game. You can turn most anything into a fun way of learning it with just a modicum of effort. One problem is too many teachers get beat down to only te…

Yes. I think the first time I learned about proportions is when me and my buddy applied formula we learned in chemistry class and we used it to estimate speed % increase of CPU OC from 100 to 120. It was something I really wanted to know so even though it was math, I wanted to understand it ( edit: obviously it was a rough estimate, but for our purposes it was sufficient ).

That said, some things have to be boring. The fun comes later with application:>

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#22

Post by jollybean »

hourago wrote: post #4

> But our society is disintegrating, and in such a society, the only successful people are self-reliant, confident, and individualistic — because the community life that protects the dependent and the weak is dead. Too many people has apocalyptic views of the world. And to push for individualistic behavior when you think that your society is disintegrating seems to just accelerate any problems that may exists. 30 yea…

I think they mean to see children are not curious in a concientious and applied way.

All kids are a bit curious, but it's hard to get them to 'stick' to something.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#23

Post by fiftyfifty »

I just don't think I can agree with Gatto's main premise that schools aren't educating students or that a formal education serves no purpose in the modern world. We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. We also see that the countries with the best schools are dominating the world economy. There are also plenty of counter examples we can find: entire countries without well organized compulsory education systems that have incredibly high rates of illiteracy and poverty.

Here we are 25 years after Gatto gave this speech, our society has not "disintegrated" yet, Well-schooled people are far from irrelevant, in fact they have given us nearly every single modern comfort and technological breakthrough in modern history and they have continued to do so over the last 25 years.

What Gatto is proposing would just create even more inequality and social injustice, where only parents with the means to see their children get a good education can do so, either by having the background and time to homeschool or the money to provide private schooling or tutors for their own children.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#24

Post by Test0129 »

I have nothing of value to add to this. This speech encapsulates my experience in school growing up America and my experience now watching the children in my family grow up. It sums up the cause and effect of all of it exactly as I had supposed and hearing it from a person with actual authority makes it all the more meaningful. Schools, especially K-12, have always felt like a prison and this author put it in a way I couldn't even begin to write.

More people should read this. It may be the most important document on the state of the American education system in it's history and it's a full 3 decades old.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#25

Post by hitpointdrew »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #23

I just don't think I can agree with Gatto's main premise that schools aren't educating students or that a formal education serves no purpose in the modern world. We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. We also see that the countries with the best schools are dominating the world economy. There are also plenty of counter examples we can find: entire countries…

> We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty.

This is false. Schooling has had nothing to do with it, capitalism is what has lifted the most people out of poverty, not schooling.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#26

Post by Test0129 »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #23

I just don't think I can agree with Gatto's main premise that schools aren't educating students or that a formal education serves no purpose in the modern world. We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. We also see that the countries with the best schools are dominating the world economy. There are also plenty of counter examples we can find: entire countries…

> Here we are 25 years after Gatto gave this speech, our society has not "disintegrated" yet

It really depends on how you define disintegrated. What he mentioned has manifested over the last 30 years. Slowly, and quietly. Now, it has come to a head. The lunatics actively arguing parents should have no place in schooling, the obsession of children with transient media figures, the state of school bells determining the bounds of one's life, and the general lack of society to embrace the creativity and novelty of a kid's wild imagination. It was present when I was a kid but much more muted. These days, watching the children in my family grow up, they are far more interested in becoming someone they aren't, rather than the something they want to be.

I would consider this disintegration.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#27

Post by notch656a »

kansface wrote: post #17
grendelt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> than to have it be taught at school. than to have it be taught IN A BORING WAY WITHOUT CONTEXT Learning my multiplication tables was fun when it was turned into a race with my friends. Memorizing the state capitals and abbreviations was fun when it was turned into a game. You can turn most anything into a fun way of learning it with just a modicum of effort. One problem is too many teachers get beat down to only te…

Is fixing the stifling bureaucracy is out of the question?

>Is fixing the stifling bureaucracy is out of the question?

I mean no but the issue is the system has to be changed as to not encourage stifling bureaucracy. Unfortunately a monopolized school system with a captive customer ('pay up to this exact single school district or you know just sell your house and uproot yourself and move') is anti-thetical to the kind of free-market competition that aids in rooting out inefficient bureaucracy.

I love the responses I often get when suggesting to let the parents use their own discretion to pay directly for their children's education using the per-child tax allocation. Somehow striking teachers are simultaneously people we're supposed to listen to as people who know how to fix the system when things go wrong, but god forbid we allow a system that allows the parent to pay the teachers directly and privately to bypass the broken public school administrators.

Somehow teachers are simultaneously the source we can listen to about how to fix things when they strike, but suddenly become distrustful evil capitalists if we're allowed to let them privately educate on the free market in lieu of public school system. I wish the public would make up their mind.

Re: Why Schools Don’t Educate (1990)

#28

Post by zozbot234 »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #23

I just don't think I can agree with Gatto's main premise that schools aren't educating students or that a formal education serves no purpose in the modern world. We have seen world wide that schools are THE most effective tool for lifting people out of poverty. We also see that the countries with the best schools are dominating the world economy. There are also plenty of counter examples we can find: entire countries…

Gatto is specifically discussing public K-12 education in the U.S. And it's absolutely correct to describe that as a dismal failure, compared to other developed countries. Especially so when you look at outcomes for the most vulnerable sub-groups, which should arguably be the highest priority given that their family and social milieus cannot pick up the slack to anything near the same extent.
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