Education systems

[Noivy]

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Edited September 14, 2016 by Noivy

[AveMatic]

Disclaimer: This is my current point of view on the educational system

Being out of high school for almost 2 years gives me time to reflect on how my grade school experience has been and who is to blame for any spot of education that I may have missed out on. As I now go at my third attempt at beginning a college journey (the other two attempts are a long story, the result of today's historic black colleges in Georgia, USA) I look back and spread the blame between the students (not all) for being fuck nuggets, teachers (not all) for being abusive and foolish in some shape or form and the un-written laws of the US government for forcing its citizens to do what a the government deems right to everyone. Lets start with the students.

The students that currently walk the walls of we have code-named "schools" acting like the would out on the streets or at home without their parents around to beat their asses. 75% of the students in high school don't want to be there and when they leave (however that may be) will either start and never finish any post-secondary education or will forget everything they've been force fed for the past 12 years. If you don't want to be in school, then look for an alternative that doesn't include interrupting the teaching of those who want to teach and the learning of those who want to learn.

The teaches only fuel student behavior by trying to be the parents that they cannot be to these kids, not caring who gets past their class by being lackadaisical and unreliable with grading or in some cases give off the same flirtatious demeanor as they do with adults in their personal lives (vice versa with students to teachers). Trying to make their way through a class of kids (or a schedule of teachers) by means of attraction. Maybe if so many teachers would stop searching for ways to achieve some kind of self-satisfaction or an easy way out by becoming a teacher of all things, then things would be different.

Lastly lets not forget the government who tries to keep kids stuck in a prison for 6-8 hours a day, 180 days a year, when they legally aren't obligated to, but get treated like they committed murder (though some kids are and that's another issue). I' am obviously by NO MEANS saying that school isn't worth it, but honestly if you aren't going to try and further you education after grade school then what is the point of wasting 12+ years there? I understand that you need general education to do anything in this world, but what's the point if the institution meant to teach and inform isn't doing any of those things? If a growing young adult simply wants to work and nothing else through out their life, then why should we stop them? Our parents have told us at one time or another that we're too young to make our own decisions, but if the choice is already made, then why try to force change to it?

I know a lot of people will disagree with this, hell maybe I'll disagree with this in 20 years, but this is my opinion right now so I'm gonna voice it. I don't know how it is in other countries, but I hope that somewhere it is 100 times better than it is here so that I can move there and give my future child the education they want (if they want it).

[Maelstrom]

The teaches only fuel student behavior by trying to be the parents that they cannot be to these kids, not caring who gets past their class by being lackadaisical and unreliable with grading

Contradictory. 'They're trying to be second parents but they don't care how they scrape by.' What? if students don't pass one way or another, teachers alone are punished under the no child left behind act passed into law by George Bush, so if they like to keep eating and sleep under a roof of some sort, they have to abandon their integrity to survive

Trying to make their way through a class of kids (or a schedule of teachers) by means of attraction

I don't understand this. Explain this to me. This non sequitur eludes me. Which is probably why it doesn't work, but I have no idea how a teacher would use attraction to try to teach a class. WTH is this?

Maybe if so many teachers would stop searching for ways to achieve some kind of self-satisfaction or an easy way out by becoming a teacher of all things, then things would be different

So you're saying every teacher should reach out to every student and teach far beyond what the curriculum strictly states they are supposed to learn. After you just argued that most of them give no shits and would rather not be there at all. What? Teachers are human, not miracle workers. You can't reason with a two year old and if they never grew out of their "no" phase, so how is a teacher supposed to undo a lifetime of conditioning for each and every student they have for but a fraction of a single year? If the 70% aren't going to give fucks every year no matter what, and the other 30% are going to pay attention every year... Whose behavior needs the most changing?

Lastly lets not forget the government who tries to keep kids stuck in a prison for 6-8 hours a day, 180 days a year, when they legally aren't obligated to

pretty sure they're legally obligated to unless they can prove a hardship case. And it's kind of a good idea to make it mandatory if no employer in their right mind would choose to hire somebody with the attitude that the extremely basic skills they're supposed to learn by the end of high school is a waste of time. If they really wanted to opt out of 'that nonsense' they could take the GED and graduate from public education ahead of time.

know a lot of people will disagree with this, hell maybe I'll disagree with this in 20 years, but this is my opinion right now so I'm gonna voice it.

This is the basis of peer review, and I'm glad you chose to voice this. What I mean by this is that you gave your perspective and allowed others the chance to say that they hadn't though of it in in those terms and you widened their point of view, or to say that they think that you might have missed X, Y, and Z. The very basic principle of discussion is to hone your thought processes against those whom have take some time to contemplate the same issue. I salute you for putting your ideas out there and await others to point out things I may or may not have noticed or mentioned within my own rebuttal.

[AveMatic]

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The teaches only fuel student behavior by trying to be the parents that they cannot be to these kids, not caring who gets past their class by being lackadaisical and unreliable with grading

Contradictory. 'They're trying to be second parents but they don't care how they scrape by.' What? if students don't pass one way or another, teachers alone are punished under the no child left behind act passed into law by George Bush, so if they like to keep eating and sleep under a roof of some sort, they have to abandon their integrity to survive

What I meant by this is that there are teachers out there who try and parent students around, but aren't doing their job grading and evaluating work well enough to have that right. Yes I understand that plenty of students fall behind and teachers have to deal with the same problems as they may have in previous years, but that too is another teacher vs. student discussion.

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Trying to make their way through a class of kids (or a schedule of teachers) by means of attraction

I don't understand this. Explain this to me. This non sequitur eludes me. Which is probably why it doesn't work, but I have no idea how a teacher would use attraction to try to teach a class. WTH is this?

I'm sorry, I was trying to condense some of this down and I did realize that after this was posted something was not properly explained, but I couldn't really find what. What I meant by this is the whole Student-Teacher sexual relations issue that can be found in some schools. I understand now that "means of attraction" was not the right phrase lol.

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Maybe if so many teachers would stop searching for ways to achieve some kind of self-satisfaction or an easy way out by becoming a teacher of all things, then things would be different

So you're saying every teacher should reach out to every student and teach far beyond what the curriculum strictly states they are supposed to learn. After you just argued that most of them give no shits and would rather not be there at all. What? Teachers are human, not miracle workers. You can't reason with a two year old and if they never grew out of their "no" phase, so how is a teacher supposed to undo a lifetime of conditioning for each and every student they have for but a fraction of a single year? If the 70% aren't going to give fucks every year no matter what, and the other 30% are going to pay attention every year... Whose behavior needs the most changing?

This quote goes more along with the last quote. As far as classes go I'm not saying that teachers should go beyond curriculum, that wouldn't help anyone. However I do agree with you that there are students that need behavioral changes, but there are also teachers who need a change in their mentality toward their jobs.

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Lastly lets not forget the government who tries to keep kids stuck in a prison for 6-8 hours a day, 180 days a year, when they legally aren't obligated to

pretty sure they're legally obligated to unless they can prove a hardship case. And it's kind of a good idea to make it mandatory if no employer in their right mind would choose to hire somebody with the attitude that the extremely basic skills they're supposed to learn by the end of high school is a waste of time. If they really wanted to opt out of 'that nonsense' they could take the GED and graduate from public education ahead of time.

Yeah I should have elaborated on my point here. It would make no sense to drop out of school and not get a GED. But as far as "legally obligated" to my knowledge there is no federal law stating that a child has to stay in school for all twelve years.

[Deleted User]

I don't really approve of the Government "bailing out" anyone. Anyone from Joe Schmoe at McDonalds to Donald Trump should be subject to the consequences of their actions. It's like the parent forgiving the child after the other parent just grounded them. All it does is instill bad values and ultimately makes them unproductive later in life.

[Conquest]

These are just personal experiences of mine and don't reflect the entire country, but in my opinion the school system is a joke.

I know its not just the teachers, the parents not properly parenting their kids and constantly blaming the teachers are also apart of the problem. Anyways that wasn't my case, my problem was the teachers themselves.

My Geometry teacher for example since teachers could grade us however they wanted she would refuse to grade my homework and classwork because I didn't show all my work on paper, to me that is a waste of time and lead cause doing the math in my head is much faster. I did the tests and she accused me of cheating, I said put me somewhere else where I can cheat. So she did, I had to sit in the hallway and take my test while she watched me from her desk. She was still unsatisfied when I proved I didn't cheat. Needless to say I was going to be failed just because she wasn't happy with how I worked. There came a day when she showed us how to find the area of a shape using some ten step time wasting formula I cut it down to two steps and shared it with the class, I realized my teacher was useless without her teacher's edition book and started skipping that class.

Other teachers show videos in class and send home all the actual stuff we were suppose to learn as a packet. That is not good for kids who are bad at self study and have no one to help them, didn't bother me so much but for others it was obvious that they needed actual teaching. Also parents complain why is the teacher sending this home instead of teaching it in class which is a valid point, since many of them work late and are tired when they get home.

Also I noticed some teachers get hired despite not being able to speak English, so that right there is a mess. I only passed Algebra two cause of the fact I was sitting next to a friend who could translate.

Moving on there are the teachers who coach sports and are always giving the sports stars in class free passes and favoring them, in middle school I ended up fighting the schools star soccer player because after class he walked up from behind and punched me in a blind spot, needless to say I beat him and the next day the gym teacher was giving me shit for a fight I didn't even start. I spent the next week walking laps around the school, while everyone else stayed in the air conditioning.

Worst teacher though was in early middle school I was put in gifted classes and was taking pre-algebra and it was great at first had a great teacher didn't give us shit and treated us like people, then he left cause his wife had a baby and he wanted to spend as much time with his child as he could. Then came the replacement who was unbelievable would never write anything out on the board, wouldn't repeat anything he said, and you weren't allowed to ask other students. Needless to say I got fed up with his shit told him "Fuck you, I'm not a copy machine!" Anyways yeah...some people are meant to teach others aren't.

As for mandatory testing, as long as you have basic reading comprehension and basic understanding of algebra then you are pretty much fine, I honestly didn't care since they would make you retake it every year you were in school and had not passed it. So before we took the test someone would list a bunch of useless advice, while I listening I heard them go on about how students shouldn't pick B when they are unsure cause many of them do it and get it wrong. So being bored I marked the entire thing C and passed with an average score higher than the most of the school, I literally face palmed.

What I did learn in the end is that the people in charge are the ones who decide the final outcome. I should have failed my final year in middle school, because me and another student had a disagreement and it ended with us dumping the mustard and ketchup containers on each other. We both got suspended and would miss finals, He failed and I was passed because of my high test scores since it would make the school look good. High School I stopped caring half way through and was failing on purpose, School board yet again makes me a deal for the same exact reason. I had to take a class and turn in a portfolio of all the work I did in it, do forty hours worth of community service, and take an even easier test. I did nothing during those three months they gave me. Final day came I smoked the test, made a portfolio in about half an hour, and had an assistant principle I was friends with give me the forty hours. So I graduated with less than a days worth of work and the only reason I did it was to anger my teachers who kept saying I would fail without passing their class, which it did. I savored their rage and enjoyed the victory.

I know its not a heart warming story about hard work overcoming all, but lets face it not everyone gets to play the hero.

[Zen]

Having been both a teacher and a student - the former up to a pre-varsity level and the latter to an undergraduate level - I would say the problem lies with education system flaws that compound the issues found with both students and teachers, which I have listed below:

Students

- Laziness

- Poor discipline

- Poor work ethic

- Unrealistic expectations

- Lack of drive for success

- Apathy towards themselves as well as others

- Lack of respect towards teachers

- Lack of curiosity

- Entitlement mentality

Teachers

- Laziness

- Poor discipline

- Poor work ethic

- Unrealistic expectations

- Apathy towards students' problems

- Lack of respect for students

- Lack of creativity and flexibility

- Lack of knowledge on their subject(s)

- Lack of passion for their subject(s)

These issues are just listed off the top of my head, and the list is not exhaustive by any means. Notice, however, that I have listed a few things under both teachers as well as students.

The COMPONENTS of an education system - e.g. standardised testing - in themselves may be beneficial to students as well as teachers. However, if the system as a whole is flawed due to antagonism/inhibition between its components as opposed to synergism, then of course the results would be less than optimal.

For example, in my homeland of Malaysia, people complained that the standardised exams were becoming too easy, which was actually due to political interference with public education (politicians reduced the syllabus scope to raise passing statistics, etc.). To remedy this, the government - which was responsible for the problem to begin with - abolished them and replaced them with school-based assessment. The curriculum remained the same.

Our curriculum is weak to begin with, and while standardised testing as well as schoool-based assessments are both equally viable for a fair testing of a student's strengths/weaknesses, this one flawed component screwed the whole system over. OF COURSE you'd find problematic students and teachers wherever you look, so allowing flawed components to remain unchecked is the main problem, in my humble opinion.

That being said, it is naturally impossible to devise a perfect system.

Thus, it is my sincere - some would say harsh - belief that the system which produces the best results should be selected. And by 'best results', I mean the system should produce the most thinking individuals who would be beneficial to society as well as humanity. If along the way there are some failures, well, statistically speaking, there is always a wastage factor. Be it bad teachers, students, or just those anomalies in the system, it is impossible to have zero casualties, so to speak, so the aim in devising an education system should be to minimise wastage rather than please everyone.

The optimal solution hardly needs to be perfect, and mathematical logic is, for the most part, infallible.