What's The Deal With Education?

Does anyone have any faith in public schooling anymore? Was anyone here taught how to critically think, or aristotelian logic? It seems to me all that one needs in order to rise to their potential, is a firm grasp of evidence based argumentation.

Memorizing dates and facts in order to regurgitate them on a piece of paper hardly seems efficacious. Spending inordinate amounts of time on handwriting or spelling falls into the same category.

Khan Academy is the best site for learning in the world as far as I can tell. It's better than any teacher I ever had. From basic arithmetic to calculus, it takes you step by step with plenty of practice problems and instructional videos. I expect other subjects to not be far behind. In the year 2020, the best education in the world will be free and open to all online. There already tons of Harvard and Yale courses available on youtube where you can hear every minute of every lecture.

Where does this leave us going forward with our traditional school system? Most of the people on HF aren't so traditional. Do you want to see more freedom for students to choose their direction or do you think we should keep doing what we've been doing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jZHNjc4Xk0

 

google and youtube have been my best teachers.


but maybe some people need actual teachers there keeping them on track, like a physical trainer at the gym.

 

Public schools are just there to promote serfdom, by equipping children with the bare minimum to ensure that the machines stay running and the paper pushed. The overlords want to return to the dark ages.

 

warning: reptilian thread!

 

They gave me what I needed to have an opportunity to build a decent career. I have everything I need, and a lot of things I want. I'm not complaining.

Of course, there's plenty of room for improvement.

 

I learned most of that by living my life and observing others and reading all kinds of things. No one school or teacher can hand it all to you on a platter.

We all need to keep learning, every day, for life.

 

Public school gave me enough from 1989 to 2001, but schooling is not the same now as it was when I went (Not sure how old you are). Here are some interesting reads.


http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/american-schools-vs-the-world-expensive-unequal-bad-at-math/281983/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/why-students-do-better-overseas.html?pagewanted=all



Here are some videos too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr-IbhT4CUg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX1VdllddRM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWHhLfc0VLg

 

It varies by location, which is not a good thing. In the interests of fairness, a level playing field is very important.

In my mind, I'm also lumping this together with state supported colleges, which I also attended. I had a few very good professors, and some not so good. I learned some critical thinking skills from my psychology and sociology professors, not so much from philosophy class, which disappointed me. Too much emphasis on famous authors, and not enough on what they had to say. Of course, college level English literature class is loaded with works by authors who force you to think on a higher level, or get left in the dust.

 

So do you believe that on a national level that the United States educational system is satisfactory compared to the rest of the world?

 

Who enforces this uniform curriculum? In a perfect world I think as you do, the conservative side of me says "look at our government, look at the psycopaths who always rise to leadership". Considering the rampant corruption that we seem unable to shake, encouraging a uniform education system where all the children are taught to bow to authority seems like a horrible prospect.

Any monopoly, anywhere has always ended in disaster. A monopoly is totalitarian.

 

Education professionals, not politicians.

The rich don't want a level playing field in any aspect of life. They want to give their kids as many competitive advantages as possible.

 

Karen, Karen, Karen. My goodness. You gotta get a grasp on how much of a stranglehold the federal government politicians have on all things government related. House of Cards doesn't even do it justice, but have you seen it?

Our current system, and since WW2 it's been this way, is perfect for producing debt slaves. You learn to obey orders and never question authority. This is the perfect system for these ultra rich assholes, implemented by these ultra rich assholes.

No child left behind, and common core, you seriously think these programs and those like them are going to help the little people? These programs leave no room for exploring, for formal logic, for anything that makes you question the debt slave system. It keeps people busy fitting into the debt slave system.

 

then how are we doing it right now?

in america, american kids have access to any information they want with public libraries, internet, and extracericular activities. if kids want to sit around playing video games and eating mcdonalds all day, i think the parents are to blame.

american kids are gettings dumbed down, but i dont think the reason is a reptilian one, in my opinion it was our previous generations that paved the way for us to live in luxury and comfort, but now these things have distracted us to the point where we are loosing our competetive edge.

 

I mean, I totally agree. All the information is there for the taking, as well as a lot of disinformation. If kids learn to adopt the right filter, to view things skeptically and critically I think it's all there for the taking.

What is it in people, then, that propels them to blame the education system when poor people stay poor? How is it that the education system can "fail" kids. Considering the ease of access to our world library, aren't the parents failing in every case? What do we expect of big government, and its problem solving capacity?

 

Well yea, public education is just a term for keeping people off the streets

If you want to learn something, I suggest reading

 

i think we all can agree that if you dig deep enough, the root of this problem is money.

some universal solution that is good for everyone in our society is too far to do us or our children any good. so you have to focus on how you can fill in the gaps that the public or private schools leave open.

frankly, i hope the masses stay stupid, it makes me feel smarter.

 

The internet has absolutely changed the world, and will continue to do so as technology and innovation evolve. At no other time in history has information on just about any subject been so accessible. You can "take" almost any university class online. It seems that most people still havent fully realizedhow to exploit this vast resource, probably because they lack education.

I agree that some subjects and online education in general can be a bit more challenging (in some ways) to learn this way, because no one is physically right there to hold your hand. I'm actually taking Harvard CS50 online, because its a highly regarded computer science class and cant actually become a Harvard student right now. With that said, I would hate to actually get a four year degree this way .. i simply prefer a little interaction with my classmates and the opportunity to share ideas. Individual classes though are okay, and if no other option exists a person can educate themselves on an almost endless array of subjects, often for free or close enough to it. I guess its worth mentioning that I consider online university classes to be more traditional forms of education (just a different format). There are many ways to educate oneself outside of any institution by just exploiting the resources that are widely avalilable to nearly everyone on the internet. You can access and study bleeding edge scientific papers and discuss with other educated people.

What I seem to notice far too often, is that too many people seem to not know how to formulate a good question, and that counts for a lot.

 

It is much harder to ask the right questions,
than to give the right answers.