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[i2amroy]

Fourth, graphic imaging really should be counted as an arts class.  It isn't where I live, despite it being, y'know, artistic.

A lot of colleges have graphic design programs, but high schools tend to lump it in with "art" classes where it suffers along with the rest of the fine art programs, sadly.

[Thecard]

Fourth, graphic imaging really should be counted as an arts class.  It isn't where I live, despite it being, y'know, artistic.

A lot of colleges have graphic design programs, but high schools tend to lump it in with "art" classes where it suffers along with the rest of the fine art programs, sadly.

My school suffers from an opposite problem.  You have to take at least one 'fine arts' class, but Graphic Imaging doesn't count as one.  It's a damn shame, because it means I'm going to have to give up one level of GI so I can get a fucking diploma.  I am seriously thinking about talking to the principal and my teacher about it.

[FearfulJesuit]

I'll make a longer post on this in the morning, but for now I'll just make a few quick notes.

Busywork kills good education. As a smart kid who's failed classes because of busywork, I can attest to this. School needs to be more like college: if the kid can pass the test, who cares how they studied to pass it? There's a big roadblock to this, and it's related to the inability to fire bad teachers. Busywork makes it much easier for a bad teacher to cover their tracks. Time spent on busywork is time not actually teaching.

If you took away the ability for teachers to assign worksheets and make-work, it'd be much easier to find the good teachers because the bad ones would suddenly be up a creek without a paddle. It's certainly true that you can test knowledge, of a sort, by making the kids write it a hundred times before the test. It's much better if you tell teachers "Alright, here's the test, it will test their reasoning. Now figure out how to get them to pass it." And if you actually make them teach it, because if they don't the kids won't pass, it's easier to point fingers at who needs to be fired.

I've also wondered how much needs to be changed in regards to parents. Education, I think, is a triangle: you have the kids, their teachers and their parents. I grew up in a small, rural town, and there were a lot of kids who flunked out because their parents didn't give a damn. I have no idea what action, if any, could or should be taken against such parents, or what action should be taken to reward parents who play their part well, but, well, if we accept that parents need to be involved, and there's serious flaws in education, it may well be worth our while to take a look at the parents.

[Thecard]

That was quick?  I'm dreading the 'morn!   
But yeah, I know what you mean and I've been there often.

[XXSockXX]

I find it interesting that despite the systems in the US and Germany being vastly different, a lot of the issues are similiar.
There are more standardized tests in Germany now that are nowhere near as bad as NCLB but still result in "teaching for the test".
There is never enough money to actually do all the well-intended concepts properly, no matter how much politicians claim that we need to spend more on education.
Literacy is also a problem, not only among immigrants and lower classes.
While teachers are extremely well off financially compared to the US, they are also subject to budget cuts.


What I really liked about the german school system compared to other countrys was that there used to be no school in the afternoon. Most states have cut schooltime by a year, so this applies less today. School was just a thing you did before lunch and the rest of the day (except for homework) you were free to pursue your own interests and watch TV hopefully learn something that you both liked and were good at.

[Strife26]

Doing busywork's a perfectly valuable thing to learn. Here's the thing, a lot of the real world isn't what you've learn, and it isn't even all that much reasoning. It's your ability to deal with stupid shit. I bombed the *fuck* out of some classes that I could 100 percent sweep tests on, just because people get lazy if they're not challenge. However, that's what the world's like, so might as well learn it in school writing out sentences for vocabulary words rather than on the first job, getting your ass kicked out the door.



Also, I'd argue that beginning and moderate levels of geometry are both really useful things to know. Everyone in the world should have at least the baseline skills in woodshop and geometry to be able to at least design, measure, and build their own rough tables.

[Zrk2]

Fourth, graphic imaging really should be counted as an arts class.  It isn't where I live, despite it being, y'know, artistic.

A lot of colleges have graphic design programs, but high schools tend to lump it in with "art" classes where it suffers along with the rest of the fine art programs, sadly.

My school suffers from an opposite problem.  You have to take at least one 'fine arts' class, but Graphic Imaging doesn't count as one.  It's a damn shame, because it means I'm going to have to give up one level of GI so I can get a fucking diploma.  I am seriously thinking about talking to the principal and my teacher about it.

Do it. Sometimes the administration can work with you (if they aren't idiots), sometimes their hands are tied (hopefully they have the balls to admit it) or they are idiots and won't work with you (then at least you know who you're dealing with).

RE: Gifted Programs

I was in one from fourth grade through grade 11 (the full extent of its' availability in Ontario) and I don't know what I think of it. On one hand it got me out of my shitty first school, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure it fucked over my interpersonal skills. The big thing with most primary schools is all the students in one grade get swapped amongst classes every year to they never have the same class twice. In the gifted program I had the same class every year from grade 4-8, and essentially the same class for grades 9 and 10 because our schedules were pretty much identical due to the number of classes we took together, and due to some residual time-table relations I always had at least a couple "gifties" (our term) in every class I had. Thus we became a clique just as much as any sports team becomes a clique. I never had to get better at talking to new people, because my social life was almost without exception built around other gifties. Furthermore I think some sort of meta-group think was involved. We all had similar outlooks, and thus said outlook built upon itself and became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've talked to several teachers who all admitted every year of gifties has its own "flavour." Furthermore our disregard for school (even the gifted program was still quite easy for most of us. For example I can count on one hand the number of exams I actually studied for in highschool, and I averaged over 85% every semester in high school) built upon itself as well, and now my study habits are shot to fuck. I don't think that's the fault of the gifted program actually, but anyway. As I was saying we were a clique. For every group project the gifties would always form a group (generally known as "supergroup" because it was) and thus my ability to work with new people has been compromised because I always worked with the same people, and knew how they worked, and thus never had to adapt. For instance in grade 11 and 12 chemistry I always had several otehr gifties in my class. We would all sit together, finish our worksheets in half the alloted time, dick around, do all the labs together and get 90-100% on them, and generally amuse ourselves. Furthermore by grouping us apart from everyone else we became rather elitist. And by rather I mean extremely. We didn't want to work with the normal kids because we found they weren't a productive, and our self-fulfilling outlook "proved" to us that they were, so we never got to know them, and it grew from there.

Now, as to gifties themselves we are, without exception, eccemtric, at best. To a man (and woman, but there were actually only 2 that were really gifties) we are lazy, dismissive, elitist, intelligence, jackasses. I could list the ways if you want. Over time our humour became ever more vicious and sarcastic, but I think that was beginning to end in 12th grade as we matured. Anyway we were always very dark people. Generally we are condescending and rude to people who don't understand something right away. If you want to know more ask me, I'm happy to share.

Hell, I haven't even gotten to what we learned yet. honestly I can't comment on this at all as the best comparison I have is what my sisters have learned at a different school at least 5 years later than I did, so I honestly can't say if we were actually challenged, or just segregated. So I have no comment on that.

I'm not sure what I think of the gifted program. On one hand I am undeniably a product of it, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. It certainly wasn't the worst program to be in, but I'm not sure if it was the best for me either. I honestly can't decide how I feel about this major contribution to who I am now. The more I think about it the more I realize I might identify as a gifty before I identify as anything else. Well, this has been quite the introspective journey.

I have some thoughts on education in general, but most of those are just me blowing smoke out my ass, so they can wait.

If you want to know anything about the gifted program please ask me.

[Frumple]

I'll make a longer post on this in the morning, but for now I'll just make a few quick notes. [snip]

There are certain areas of study were repetition really is the most effective method of instruction, though. A lot of mathematics and stuff like formal logic, as well as languages (Hey go figure! Hint: Math and logic are languages, too.) are best learned and even better retained through constant and regular repetition, i.e. "busywork." Doesn't apply to everything and in an ideal world the importance of repetition for learning would have its place in a sort of "meta-education" class where you're taught learning methodology and ideology -- how to learn and why those methods work -- and the actual effort of it would be left to the students own desire, but it has its place.

There's more going on here than bad teachers, though. Part of the issue is the whole "~6-7 hour school day" thing (varies... iirc, here, it's 6:45 'till two something or other, or around seven hours), as well as fairly strict rules on graduation ages. Filler material becomes sort of necessary if the goal is to keep the kids in school for the period allotted to school, and even more stretching is needed if you're going to keep 'em in there until they're 17-18 years old. From what I've seen, even in the pretty un-ideal situation we've got in the states, we could probably compress the material we're trying to impart... noticeably. If we were actually encouraging good educational methodology in a systematic manner, even moreso. Better time management all around would probably work miracles, but... yeah, good luck with that. Probably entail massive societal change to make possible

On the personal level, I'm entirely certain I would have been forced to graduate years early if days were themed instead of having math/science/english/other all stuffed in hour+ blocks on a daily basis. There were points in highschool I basically had goddamn whiplash at the end of the day, and when I hit post general education in college and was largely dealing with a single subject per day... freaking bliss, and both my enjoyment, retention, and performance all saw noticeable improvement.

[i2amroy]

On the personal level, I'm entirely certain I would have been forced to graduate years early if days were themed instead of having math/science/english/other all stuffed in hour+ blocks on a daily basis. There were points in highschool I basically had goddamn whiplash at the end of the day, and when I hit post general education in college and was largely dealing with a single subject per day... freaking bliss, and both my enjoyment, retention, and performance all saw noticeable improvement.

(Sadly) the big problem with having themed days is that many people who are in high school and lower just don't have the maturity needed to work on things that aren't due "right then". As a result the more difficult classes (such as AP courses) and the classes that require constant practice (like band or choir) end up suffering immensely under that type of schedule. Studies have shown that for core classes (math, science, english, social studies) if teachers are willing to make class interesting and engaging, rather then just lecturing for 3 hours, then at the high school level themed days can work. The problem is that if even one of your teachers isn't making it work then everything in that particular field suffers greatly. Really the best schedule type would be a themed schedule where certain classes that needed daily work (such as music) meet every single day.

At the middle school level and below you would still need to stick with the "daily" schedule however, since at that point the students just aren't mature enough to handle themed days.

[Thecard]

Yeah, I think tomorrow I am definitely going to talk with my teacher about GI being counted as an arts class.

[darkrider2]

I slept in my AP calculus course almost every day, and often neglected my homework, and got a poor final grade. I scored a 5 on the AP calc exam, my best friend the sudodictorian scored a 1 on that same test.

As a teacher, if a majority of your kids do poorly in your class, you get fired, but you set the grades assignments, is that a conflict of interests?
Then tests, if kids to poorly on the major tests, same dealio, so yeah they could foster the top 20 percent of the school, or they could try to raise the other 80 percent up to some acceptable standard, guess which works better as self protection for the school system.

I really don't know how to fix a system like that. I would suggest more concentrated educations, like the trades that were mentioned. When I heard students complain about school it was always "I'm never going to use this", and half the time its right, academia isn't mean for most people. I think if they saw more immediate results there'd be a greater incentive.

[Skyrunner]

Spoiler: Unordered Rant From Korea (click to show/hide)

Oh boy, teaching to the test ;_;
Korea has absolutely no busywork, and the classes are taught to the test, in a way. The classe are 50 minute long lectures, and pretty easy, but the tests are brutal. So brutal. Dx
Couple that with at minimum thirty to forty, fifty people a class, and the tyranny of private education (hakwons) ...
The system is a carbon copy of Japan—all grades decided by four tests a year, and by a big 'enter college' test—with relative grading added in for the giggles. Whoever designed the grading scale decided a bell curve would be just perfect, and had 1 be the top 4%, and 4-6 one standard deviation. This isn't a big problem, except:
College is seen to be the least education you need to have to get a job, and thus about 90-95% of people have a diploma. Because of historical events, and a culture that emphasized knowledge as a good way to succeed, the name of the college you graduated from is crucial. The top five or so universities (Seoul, Koryu, Yonsei, POSTEC, KAIST) and the twenty or so colleges located inside Seoul are the only ones that give you a benefit from their name. It's telling that when for a job, say, marketing, that a person with a diploma in some marketing discipline is turned down in favor of a person with a diploma in Agriculture from Seoul University. Anyways, these top colleges don't accept anything under a 3, and more often than not you need a 1. But the bell curve ensures only 23% have 3s or higher, and 4% have 1s. This wasn't always the case, as Dictator Park banned hakwons. But as soon as these bans were lifted?  Cue private businesses jumping in and farming the system, raising the standard of the test-takers and forcing people who don't go to any hakwon to work even harder, or submit and shell out hundreds of dollars' worth of money a month for those institutions; since everyone does more or less well, math tests are created to be harder, and the bar keeps rising. >_<

Anyways, once started it became a positive feedback cycle, with no-one able to stop it. The sole goal for all teenagers in Korea is 'get into good college'. As a result, there are no electives offered at all. Since we have to measure everyone against the same scale, people who can't keep up are taught the same things as those who barely can, and class behavior is outstandingly bad. The teachers, faced with a stew of good and bad students, have to teach somewhere between hard an easy. The tests are hard.

[RedKing]

Primary education is the US varies wildly from locale to locale. Some places have great schools, some have schools that would be sub-par for Somalia. Best you can do is hope you get a school district that isn't completely dysfunctional and politicized, a school that has a principal who isn't purely an administrative bureaucrat, and a teacher that isn't either burned out or completely fish-out-of-water.

I've several friends who were at one time planning to become teachers. They ALL bailed on the idea, in part because of the stress, but also in part because they looked around at their classmates and saw too many people who were barely competent with facts and ideas to begin with, and now those people were going to be the next generation of teachers??

At the university level, it's over-saturated. Simply put, we've pushed this idea that "everyone deserves to go to college" when in fact that is not the case. As a result, you get a significant number of people in college who don't really want to be there, and wind up wasting time and resources. And you crank out tens of thousands of people with Bachelor's Degrees who spent their four years learning more about how to operate a keggerator than whatever they were studying.

Thus, the real-world value of a Bachelor's Degree has gone to shit. It's basically about as useful (and unfortunately, as necessary) as a high school diploma used to be. Which in turn, increases the pressure for everyone to send their kids to college. Vicious cycle.

Above that, you have people getting Master's Degrees which are often useless (and expensive) because there's no surplus of jobs to take advantage of that increased education. Most jobs that are truly advanced are going to need a Ph.D. Otherwise, employers are going to go with the freshly-graduated noob with a BA, because they're cheaper.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's an all-or-nothing system, IMHO. Either stay in and get your Doctorate, or save your money and get the hell out early and build real-world experience.

[Cheeetar]

Whats the state of it, how could it be improved, what are the thoughts of those within the profession and what are your own experiences?

In what country?

[i2amroy]

Whats the state of it, how could it be improved, what are the thoughts of those within the profession and what are your own experiences?

In what country?

In general the thread has been about U.S. schools, but we are happy to listen to you rant about your country (even better if it has similar problems as what we have in the U.S., since then we can compare and contrast).