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[JoshuaFH]

I've been reading a book, The Underachieving School by John Holt, so forgive me for just regurgitating what I've read: He notes that even with proper funding, schools do more harm than good, a modern school views his student as a product and a good student adds to the school's prestige and attracting funding; the student serves the school more than the other way around in this capacity. You can say that schools are the victim here as well, for being forcefully incentivized to treat their students as you would products on an assembly, continually having to test and hassle students, not for their benefit but for the school's, to show society that they are doing their job. In this way, the child's natural curiosity, drive, and confidence is slowly crushed beneath the wheel at a young age, instead inadvertently encouraging students to turn their brains off, implicitly teaching them that learning is not important, it's answers; that the journey is not important, it's the petty and inconsequential grade that acts as his end reward; that their own desires are irrelevant, so long as they're able to fulfill the misguided desires that society and the school hefts onto their shoulders. In this way, it doesn't matter how much funding schools get, their premise is flawed and they are certain to churn out students that increasingly, over generations, value more and more the inconsequential skills of test taking & seat warming rather than healthy, confident adults.

And obviously underfunding means that schools can't even accomplish the misguided goal that they do have, doing damage ontop of damage.

Holt advises a total reformation of school as a concept, as a voluntary place for the education of the whole community, constructed to be places that students want to go to rather than being compelled to go to, filled with people to helpfully guide students towards a personal education & future rather than enforce a standardized curriculum onto them. This is a pretty radical idea so I doubt my ability to really argue it, but it does sound Utopian to me; not unrealistic, definitely possible, but it sounds unrealistic.

[smjjames]

Well, we could look into how other countries do it successfully, Asian countries too (going to have to take cultural differences into account though) I know we Americans are all like “No! We must have our own solution!", which is fine, but nothing wrong with learning (irony intended) from others. Though obviously if you don’t find them, it won’t do any good.

Going off of frumples comment on the US being more like 50 countries than one (which is true in many ways), what about looking at countries with similar levels of federalization as ours if they have better education systems than ours?

[nenjin]

That comes down in large part to culture, I believe. Lower Middle Class and up Asian families push their kids pretty hard in school, and there is the whole Asian collectivism thing that keeps kids more obedient to their families. Versus the US where we value independence and revere the "maverick." I'd argue that many American families don't push their kids very hard to do well in school, or just get frustrated with them and don't know how to support them. And many kids do not care about their schooling and resent being told they should.

For me, I hated school as a social construct but my parents instilled a love of learning in me early on by getting me to read as early as possible, so I devoured most lessons and worked ahead of the assignments. And when I struggled, my parents responded, by getting me a tutor outside of school. And I went to that tutor and stuck with it to the point I could actually pass. (I fucking suck at math.)

Holt advises a total reformation of school as a concept, as a voluntary place for the education of the whole community, constructed to be places that students want to go to rather than being compelled to go to, filled with people to helpfully guide students towards a personal education & future rather than enforce a standardized curriculum onto them. This is a pretty radical idea so I doubt my ability to really argue it, but it does sound Utopian to me; not unrealistic, definitely possible, but it sounds unrealistic.

I feel like this would take us backward, honestly. It'd be like shifting the education system back to the agrarian model, where taking care of the family farm was usually more important than education. Except we have an entire sector of the population that lives in cities. We'd help create a for real, voluntary peasant class instead of the pseudo one we have now.

TBH, I think it really comes down to the values we instill in kids before they get to school that matters a lot. There are plenty of capable, smart kids out there that are just apathetic. They don't take pride in having an education and they doubt the usefulness of it in their lives down the road. That was already true when I was in school 20 fucking years ago. It speaks to a fundamental lack of respect for knowledge in my mind. Not wanting to know things is, frankly, absurd. But that's kinda where we're at. People only want to know the shit they care about, and place little to no value on the things they don't care about (and don't know about.) They don't feel accomplished just for knowing shit, failing to realize that knowing is a large part of succeeding in doing.

Culturally we value knowledge and being knowledgeable less. Some people take pride in being ignorant, straight up. "I'd rather be rich and stupid and poor and smart" as the thinking goes. Media and entertainment, and Republicans in particular with them denying science while not actually having a fucking clue what the science is, has just reinforced this perception. You don't need to be smart or know things to get rich in America. You just need to be entertaining, be hot, play sports, make music, be controversial, play video games on youtube, sell drugs, steal, get in to politics (), OR ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Arrayed against all that, who wants to take the risk that they're dumb?

[redwallzyl]

Well, we could look into how other countries do it successfully, Asian countries too (going to have to take cultural differences into account though) I know we Americans are all like “No! We must have our own solution!", which is fine, but nothing wrong with learning (irony intended) from others. Though obviously if you don’t find them, it won’t do any good.

Going off of frumples comment on the US being more like 50 countries than one (which is true in many ways), what about looking at countries with similar levels of federalization as ours if they have better education systems than ours?

I would be wary of using Asian countries as an example. They go so far to the rote memorization direction they totally lack actual problem solving skills. It produces great test results and people that can memorize anything but cant solve anything outside of there narrow memorized area.

[Dunamisdeos]

I think both are true. We do have a problem in our society with a lack of respect for knowledge, and I think our schools are meant to treat that symptom by making sure that kids come away with functional knowledge no matter what their interest is.

I don't see us as a culture having any chance of making an at-will education system work. Not to be a downer, but I don't really see us as a species changing in that regard. We have an ingrained belief that only the things we want to know matter. The human way of doing things is "If I ignore knowledge that I find unpleasant, it ceases to matter".

@redwallzyl
I've known folks that have taught in Chinese schools, and they describe it as "an utter and complete lack of critical thinking".

[smjjames]

I think both are true. We do have a problem in our society with a lack of respect for knowledge, and I think our schools are meant to treat that symptom by making sure that kids come away with functional knowledge no matter what their interest is.

I don't see us as a culture having any chance of making an at-will education system work. Not to be a downer, but I don't really see us as a species changing in that regard. We have an ingrained belief that only the things we want to know matter. The human way of doing things is "If I ignore knowledge that I find unpleasant, it ceases to matter".

@redwallzyl
I've known folks that have taught in Chinese schools, and they describe it as "an utter and complete lack of critical thinking".

Probably exactly the way the Chinese government wants it. It also kind of sounds like the end result that the focus on test taking might have, so, you do have a point redwall.

I wonder when they’ll start having problems because of the lack of critical thinking and problem solving skills.

What about looking into budgeting methods, but then again, that relies on politicians who want to fund schools.

[Trekkin]

I think both are true. We do have a problem in our society with a lack of respect for knowledge, and I think our schools are meant to treat that symptom by making sure that kids come away with functional knowledge no matter what their interest is.

Most of which they promptly forget and the rest they spend the rest of their life resenting. Education is vital to our society in a tiny number of cases and mostly pointless for everyone else, but there's not a way to isolate those cases a priori that is both fair and effective.

[MrRoboto75]

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

[smjjames]

What does that have to do with education policy?

[Trekkin]

What does that have to do with education policy?

It's the standard shitpost about how education is useless/misguided/not about what really matters.

[MrRoboto75]

What does that have to do with education policy?

#45 on next month's state standardized test.  Memorize it so our school's score is high enough to get that extra 5 bucks we aren't spending on the students.

[Egan_BW]

What was the mitochondria again?

[smjjames]

What does that have to do with education policy?

#45 on next month's state standardized test.  Memorize it so our school's score is high enough to get that extra 5 bucks we aren't spending on the students.

That’s certainly shitposty.

Making school funding not depend on test scores would certainly go a ways towards helping fix things.

[MrRoboto75]

What was the mitochondria again?

Don't worry about it you already passed the test.

[McTraveller]

Making school funding not depend on test scores would certainly go a ways towards helping fix things.

I don't think I've ever met anyone involved in teaching* that actually thinks NCLB was a good idea, and that's one of the huge reasons why.  The second is that it incorrectly assumes that all children learn at the same rate so long as you "teach them correctly."

*I almost said "involved in education" but that would be false; there are a lot of politics in education, and some of the politicians really love NCLB.