What's the point of School, really?

I think history is important. Geography is less important and I think if there was a course mandatory that focused on issues and the news internationally, then people would come to understand the world better than coloring and memorizing maps. Geography is a very narrow subject for me if those were to be taken out because whats left is learning about earthquakes and volcanoes and the biomes, which are as strict as biology, really. The only reason why bio isn't mandatory is because half the students wouldn't get it or wouldn't care to try to understand it.

But history is great! Ironic I'm saying this but, Canadian history is boring and I really wish that it would be world history right from the beginning for Canadians, right from grade 7. Since we are talking about highschool here though, my only objection is that the catholic schools probably don't know what the Crusades were for students leaving highschool. I could be wrong though.

That was just an example of someone who would be in highschool. Obviously there are people who like history and geography over math and science. I for one am not like that myself. Shouldn't people like this get to have a more courses in the math and science than having to just general chemistry, biology and physics. What else can they take. They will end up having to take at least one or two courses that didn't want to take in the first place.

[CENTER]Y AHOO[/CENTER]


Whilst searching for the truth of everything, I found something to share. I came across two references to Jonathan Swift's story "Gulliver's Travels." Like any good true searcher, I found, rented, and watched the movie. I also gave it a critic rating of "G," great. The story is a satire, meaning that it negatively abuses the fundamental institutions of humanity. The story is about a person named Gulliver, who goes on a trip, finds unbelievable truth, and comes back to share his discovery. Unfortunately for him, he was measured to be crazy, and locked up. The history of other great discoverers have met with similar discomforts, such as burning them on stakes, something only humans could invent. Gulliver tells a story of the irony of man, the flaws of who we are, even though we think ourselves better. There is one place Gulliver stops on his journey that had particular interest to me. He becomes one with wild horses, and sees freedom for the first time. The horses have given human beings the name "Yahoo," and see us as the savages that we truly are.

Several months before seeing this movie, I thought it a good idea to check out a new elementary school, just to see modern education at work, it also being a part of my current study of everything. I was told due to security reasons, I was not allowed to look, so on my way out I did anyway. I looked into a classroom and saw young children standing neatly at attention, next to computers with thin screen monitors. At the blackboard a teacher wrote "Y A H O O" in large letters for everyone to see. I then questioned the importance of "yahoo," over the teaching of the basics of life, at the elementary level or any other. Mr. Swift saw us as savage ignorant "yahoos," over three hundred years ago. I still cannot believe his insight.

None of us are born "yahoos," we are what we are taught. Do students of any age bring homework home such as "happiness," or is it "yahoo"? Is computer science more important than ourselves? Perhaps geometry, algebra, calculus, computers, biology, science, astronanophysics, materialism, and "yahoo" have taken the valuable space of what is important. Are we being taught the importance of helping others, or the importance of money, and helping ourselves? Can you imagine a school called The Institute of How To Live instead of Technology? The School of Law could be the School of Morality. The department of physics, or in other words the department of measuring the differences in nature, could be the department of the nature of equality. Would the universe be a better place if we studied what we can see, instead of what we can not? I think Mr. Swift knew the foundation of ignorance is education, what about you? The question has often been asked: "Why do we have to study something we will never use?" Would a class on the proper use of a public garbage can be more beneficial than Euclid's geometry on this trashed planet of ours?

Many people over our human history have pointed us to where wisdom is to be found, right in front of us, not further away. We have been micro and macro measuring everything, only to take us further from the truth, something we were unfortunately taught to do. We have a choice to make with the direction of education for our future, which should it be, "yahoo," or the truth. If man has become ignorant and cruel, then perhaps a change in curriculum to what is most important and true, will enlighten, make us wise, and ultimately set us free.


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MJA

Schools is the laudable place wherein thematic obscurities are answered,especially during or before a vital exam.It would be inconsequential after you had done your final exam of the year,but it is not irrevocable,for the next and subsequent years,you are inevitably going to assimilate more things,and ergo the schools is vital anew.

If you failed schooling,people would perceive you are an amateurish and asinine,and you would not be an employee in all companies,consortiums,and the like.

One must be prudent and advocate themselves.

Keep in mind that over 99% (only maybe 1 in 1000 or not even any people at each school) are actually above the point of needing schooling. I like to think of three different kinds of people who hate school:

-The apathetic shallow-life person who is trying to fit in
-The philosopher who is bored with school
-The stoner who is busier smoking weed in the bathroom than caring about biology or math

I'm sure you're the philosopher.

School was originally probably a way to keep young people watched or out of trouble. Since they had them all rounded up, might as well teach them a few things. It just evolved into more topics and became a standard for all children in a community that had enough money to pay for it all.

MJA, I strongly disagree. School should not be the place for morality and ethics to be instilled, it should not presume to teach life lessons, especially since what you are proposing would in reality probably amount to some bumbling bureaucratic attempt at mild brainwashing to 'better' the students, judging by the quality of teaching when it comes to the much easier to pin down subjects that are taught today.

I gained my foundation initially from my parents, and then through introspection. My parents taught me to be open minded(but critical) and that integrity is the most important property that a human being can have aside from empathy. I have further adjusted and customized my moral and ethical foundations, and they are far stronger that some weakminded elementary school teacher would instill.

You have to remember that the average elementary school teacher is bottom rung when it comes to how educated they are(of course there are plenty of exceptions), and many of the education majors I have met are people who I would never let teach my children.

I've been asking myself the same question lately, and I'm currently taking my GCSEs in the UK. These are tests in all subjects taken in Years 10 and 11, when students are 15 and 16. The usual rule is that you need five GCSEs at a pass level (grade C or above) to get into college or sixth form. Then in college or sixth form, you can take up to four or even five A Levels for two years, usually dropping one before the second year to leave you with three or four A level tests with one AS qualification.

I have no real worries about achieving five passes, because that's not exactly hard, and I already have three along with a pretty secure BTEC Media course which is worth four. Over the last year, preparing for the exams and such, I have come to dislike the education system quite a lot, especially when compared to how I used to feel.

Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the few people who sees the large flaws in exams. How can the results of two hours or less of frantic writing truly test a person's ability to understand and function? If anything, Maths and Science tests seem the most justified; answers are pretty much either correct or not, and Maths allows room for people to make silly mistakes: giving marks for correct working as well as the correct answer. I know all of this because of the relentless barrage of 'mock tests' and mark schemes that myself and my peers have been under for the last year or so. I will explain the scenario which has made me think deeply about the education system.

One of our compulsory GCSE subjects, English, is worth two GCSEs: one for language, and one for literature. Language generally seems to look at the more technical aspects of writing; analysing techniques as well as putting them into practise, and literature covers understanding and analysis of a fictional text. Over the last two years, we have been given various coursework tasks, as we are in most subjects. One of these must be performed within school and should be hand written, and for others the student has free roam, usually typing it up at home after planning in lessons. These are marked and often handed back to the student to make improvements, and then the final marks are taken and serve as only a small percentage towards the final grades. These tasks could be a question such as, 'How does Priestly create tension using the character of the Inspector in An Inspector Calls?' or a simple given scenario such as 'Produce a piece of creative writing.' Throughout my coursework, I have achieved mostly consistent results, achieving all A*s apart from the essay handwritten in class for which I received an A.

I enjoy English, and feel I have a rather comprehensive understanding of it. At the end of year 10, we were given a mock test and I achieved A's in both language papers, and so would have probably received an A overall, with a small chance of an A* depending on how my actually marks turned out. Despite this, in year 11, the English department decided to be a bit experimental and drag our summer language tests forward to the beginning of the year, and in these actual tests I only achieved a B, even with my A/A* coursework. This was quite a shock to myself and my English teacher, and we both decided that I should retake the exam in the summer. I was even more shocked to find that, according to my results, I had only 35/80 on Paper 1 and 39/80 on Paper 2. To try and improve my results in the summer tests, I was provided with yet more mock papers to try my hand at, and my teacher regularly seemed stumped for what to tell me because she thought my answers were A/A* grade. She also told me that some of the areas I was discussing were A level material, which obviously confused me further. I have also been told that my 'less than expected' result may simply be due to a 'grumpy' examiner. My thoughts on this need no real explanation.

Anyhow, over the last week I have taken my final summer language tests, and to be completely honest, I wouldn't be surprised if I achieved a B again, despite my efforts. It really does seem as if school is all about jumping through hoops which are probably very subjective.

My annoyance with this system is probably also caused by the way that we are relentlessly burdened with targets and expectations instead of encouragement and ACTUAL TEACHING. I really do think that the focus of British schools should be placed back onto learning useful and interesting information instead of simply forcing students into jumping through pre-determined hoops in an attempt to make their abilities recognised.

Does anyone see my point of view, or is this just facile moaning?

The British educational system is quite a bit more standardized than ours in the United States and I would assert that while there are positive aspects of such standardization, the negatives overshadow them. The influence of standardized testing in the US has been grossly negative yet the emphasis on such tests is growing steadily. These tests result in precisely the same problem that you have indicated;they deflect the efforts of the teachers from teaching the subject to teaching how to pass the exam.

I think that this education strategy is absolutely the wrong path to take and it will, and has, resulted in nothing but the degradation of the quality of any education system that has implemented it.

(Sorry if the following seems like a bit of a rant. I have just left school, and have realized more strongly the negative effects that school can have on one)

Okay, so I've read bk-thinkaboom's post and, having been at the same school and experienced very similar situations, I can greatly relate to his feelings. I'm not going to repeat what he has posted already, nor am I going to go through his post one line at a line analysing it and putting it in my own words. I just feel that I need to add a few little points:

The one big problem I have with tests and the certificated results that follow is that you need them to get anywhere. Our society has grown increasingly strict and quite abusive of the fact that you need GCSEs to get into college, and then A levels to get into university, and then a degree to get a specialist/ expert job. If you fall down at the start, then you're pretty much screwed for life.

I am one of those people who feels that they have outgrown school and I am happy that I have finally left (although I still have a couple of exams to go). I have felt ready to move onto the next stage, Sixth Form, for a very long time, and probably would have got the necessary GCSEs if I had taken the exams a year earlier, or perhaps even two. I probably sound rather vain, but I have always been a high achiever and have recently become one of those people who is bored of school, not because I can't be bothered to learn, but rather because there is nothing really left for me to learn.

In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that, by being kept in school for so much longer than I felt necessary, I have been dragged down. You wouldn't believe what I have goen through over the last year: lessons where you go over the same old ideas because somebody didn't understand. Lessons where you're preparing for an exam that you felt ready for months before. Lessons where you finish the work after 10 minutes, but have to wait for everybody else; you cannot leave. Lunchtimes where the younger kids act like... animals, shouting, swearing, throwing food, bullying others. Where even the teachers are too scared to intervene. You're stuck there because... because the government says so. It isn't just 'boring' staying on, it can become almost an obsession with leaving; a hatred of school and the people who make your life a misery every single day.

I suppose I should get back on track now, though. Exams really do not prove anything. You could easily know something; know more than is required, have a knowledge that could help you in so many different situations, yet you have to do the exam to get the little piece of paper that says you know it so that you can actually get a job. What you have learnt, what you have expressed in the exam, may not even be relevant in the job that you go for; it may never be used in real life. In fact, we are encouraged to forget everything we have learnt in a subject after the exams are over, yet you still have to know it to get the paper to say you know a subject. How can showing specific skills in a specific area prove that I am qualified at an entire subject; a vast field of knowledge?

I believe that, often, you can learn more useful and interesting information just by having an interest in a subject, without having even been taught it. This could, in many ways, make you more 'qualified' than somebody who has studied it at school or college, but they will always get the job ahead of you, because they have the piece of paper to prove that they 'know' it. Schooling does not require, or encourage, interest in the fields that you study, but simply that you retain the information for the exam. That is all that is asked of you, before you are shipped off into the big wide world.

When it comes down to it, though, people with equal knowledge of a subject can get very different results in an exam, as that also depends on your ability to cope with pressure, stress, and a time limit on your work.
Surely if you know something, you know it; if you don't, you don't. Therefore I do not understand why they have such strict time limits on exams. An example I use is art, as creativity and ideas and the practice of those can hardly be tamed. Why should you be forced to produce your piece in just a few hours? The point of the exam is to see what you can do, to see what you're capable of. However, you do not get to demonstrate that in such conditions.

Some exams you may finish early, whereas others you may not manage to finish at all. All the required information could be in your head, but if you don't have enough time to implement it in your work, then you cannot get the marks; you cannot get that piece of paper.

You put this perfectly, I feel the same. It is particularly depressing for me to look back on old pieces of work, or simply think back to lessons in the lower years, and remember the enthusiasm and interest that I had for all the subjects, and even the school in general. These last two years, and this final one in particular, have taken many of those interests and turned them into chores. The enthusiasm has become reluctancy. I really hope that the independence reclaimed in sixth form will allow those interests to flourish once again, and then perhaps I won't feel as annoyed when taking exams, even if they are a load of crap.

To learn patience. In Time it may all make sense.

[CENTER]Nature loves to hide itself.
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[CENTER]Heraclitus

Rich



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Outstanding question. IMO, it not schooling, it's culling. It is a way power and the status quo power created to cull out what will best serve their purposes. :a-ok:

William

What in the world are you talking about? The social climate of public school is artificial in the same way that the one in prison is. Public schooling (in America at least) was developed on the ideology that is would make better worker bees that fit into society and function as new cogs to replace the old ones. It is a method of standardizing citizens as goods so that there is some level of quality control.

The most important thing to learn, is unease in what other people tell you. Patience will only lead to disappointment. The point is to seize the moment and learn through questioning. Patience will lead students to be little more than drones. By guiding people to question the status quo, and actually speak against stupid ideas, then the education system my put more into the system than in bleeds out.

Hi there,

As I said, it demands patience. Give it time.

Rich

I've been out of high school for a couple of years. I've had teachers/professors admit as much as I've said, and it seems to me a fairly obvious judgment. It is historical fact that the public school system was not intended to develop men of letters, but rather to produce a standard pool of employees.

A simple, but reasonably accurate source(in this case):

History of education in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the section entitled The 'High School Movement'.

University study is very different, but an undergraduate degree is no longer as respected and rigorous as it once was. As a mathematics student, I have experienced some of the bright side of what school can be. High school rarely(if ever) reflects this potential.

In my opinion it depends which area you live in. I have a not-so-good school. I self-study a lot because my school isn't very adequate on a lot of areas. Reacquisition secures you in the aspect if you want to get advanced, which i do.

I agree that that the function of the modern day school is not to fulfill some ideal epistemological principle ... the role of education in the modern age is to equip an individual with a pre-determined set of subject knowledge which are adjudged by society to be essential. Your 'proficiency' with these subjects is an indication of your competency in the workplace.

But in principle, the Government shouldn't pass any kind of judgement on which form of knowledge is more legitimate - for instance the understanding of physics shouldn't be more legitimate than the study of music - because all knowledge is equal, at least in theory.

As someone whose interest in knowledge is vastly different from the current curriculum I'm studying, I feel extremely annoyed when my own personal pursuit of knowledge in other areas is not reflected in my educational qualifications. I understand that's where the whole higher education thing comes into play - you go to the university to learn what you want to, but once again the admission criteria is based on your 'knowledgeableness' which is based on examination results ... which is basically how much syllabus content/model answers you can regurgitate on a piece of paper.

How is that a gauge of how 'educated' a person is?

Isn't it right for everyone to have equal access to education, equal educational opportunities to pursue the kind of knowledge that interests them?

I'm sorry for the ranting, I've got examinations next week, but I'm wondering why do I have to force myself to memorize definitions, models and structures when I want to LEARN something else, when I have a whole stack of books and periodicals that I'm way behind on and I so desperately want to read?

There is so much more in the world that interests me, but I'm forced to study what society DEEMS I should. I have no choice, it's compulsory!

I know the simple solution is to buckle down and work hard etc. but isn't there something wrong with this scenario?

Why does knowledge have to be forced and limited? Why is there no avenue whereby someone can fulfill their own interests without jeopardizing their future?

There's no in between. People who do decide to pursue their own stuff does so at the expense of studying time, project time etc.

Even if an argument is to be made that you just have to allocate time better, isn't it fundamentally wrong for someone who wants to pursue other kinds of knowledge to actually have to work harder than someone who doesn't, just to get the same kind of results?

Formal education, on a practical level has helped facilitate the economy, but at what cost? It has disincentivised regular students from the pursuit of other kinds of knowledge; simply because they can't cope with the added workload. Most people already cannot manage school, what chance do they have of learning another language or reading up on current affairs, medical breakthroughs, the food and energy crisis?

We are turning young minds away from pursuing knowledge, turning them away from a culture of self-initiated learning, inquisitiveness and curiosity.

But the system will never change. It's far too entrenched in every society, and people would rather do the 'easy' thing of just keep with the S.Q., rather than trying to change it to make it easier for people to pursue their own interests without jeopardizing their future.

It's human nature. We'd rather carry on with the harmful more easier thing rather than do something that's better for everyone. Too much effort is involved.

A thought. Schooling is a mechanism that has been devised to measure the competency of an individual and their ability to interpret the knowledge that supports the status quo. . It will use that individual until they become incompetent and "drained". Just a thought, for what it's worth. IMO. The more competent you are the more money you make, or so it is undestood. Hmmm?

william