Eh, tbh, I believe much of what is wrong about youth education complex is not just mismodeling, it is parenting that sees their children as either problems to overindulge, or abstractions to be ignored. -reading -diet, the crap children, especially poor children are fed, is simply mind boggling horrible. -perhaps to many sports, nothing wrong with sports per se, however when the parents have 3 children, each playing 3 different sports at any one time, it is difficult for the parent to do much but shuttle them around and hand them off to coaches.
Another funny thing about the school system is they constantly tell you lies, in order to simplify things. Then you get to the next level of education and they say, "well, when we told you about (insert this) it was a lie, this is the ACTUAL way." I can't tell you how many times this has happened throughout my school career. Another funny thing is the higher you go in the education system the more encouraged you are to "open your mind" and see multiple ways to an answer or multiple answers all together. When you get to Organic Chemistry that is when they start opening it up...
Another one is the "I'm not teaching you what to think, but how to think" Gee, that is much better since I couldn't possibly think for myself. How did I get here again?
What is even funnier when you get to college and you SEE the students that major in education.... They are literally the biggest jokes on campus. They most likely are education because they couldn't get through a tougher degree. Most of the ones I know are also huge stoners/partiers.
Heh, it is conformity over content in business curriculiums, which is sad, but explains an awful lot about why things work the way they do. A couple of things that do cause me to smdh: -people wearing shirts that basically put themselves down, simply put, that's stupid -cheat codes on video games, isn't the point...you learn those things for yourself? -APA formatting, of all of the colossal wastes of time, this goes right to the top of the list, why oh why are Psychologist style papers suddenly required in areas outside of their field? -M$ owns the educational establishment, lock stock and barrel -schools that self publish their own books, with no new content in them, but students are required to purchase them at massively inflated prices. That last one..I wound up buying the book, but when I mentioned only because I did not want to take the time to photocopy the pages then return it to the college book store, the Dean of the Business Department...was not amused.
If people think about what a school day "is", one will come away surprised anyone even learns how to read at one of those places. Here is what I mean: -in real life, do you ever sit in one place, for an hour, and listen to a person you may not like drone on about something you really do not care about? -for 4 hours? -how about 6 hours? And yet, that is a typical school day, for 180 days out of the yr. Why not shorten classes and school hours? Half an hour should do it for most classes at that level. If a school day were compared to a business meeting, no one would attend as no one has that much time to waste on people who are are not pertinent.
I don't know about you padre, but I go to school four times a week and for two hours on M-W and 1 hour on T-Th, yet I don't listen to the professor for the full hour.
Those who listen, retain, and spit it back, despite the fact that it isn't fun, succeed. The rest fail. Very like life.
Interesting idea, but I doubt anyone would go for that. I think school in general is designed to make students listen and obey in order to conform them into what the government thinks is a "successful society entity." Basically, they want you to all think the same way in order to conform to society. That's what a lot of education is. Additionally, school could be thought of/considered as free day-care to a lot of working parents. Doubt they would go for the new school change you proposed even if it was proven to be more beneficial.
I couldn't disagree more. I go to every single Biochemistry lecture and couldn't tell you a single thing that I have learned from my Serbian professor... I just go because I morally feel bad skipping class, I mean, I am paying to take these classes. Most of my learning comes from just sitting down by myself and or some friends and going over the material ourselves.
Oh I do, in fact if you que'd me up with the topic I could probably tell you what they said even two months ago, I really enjoy college..writing a grinch of a paper as I post here and am just taking a break from the grind. What is really fun is lookng around at your fellow collegians and see who is doing what..cannot imagine what professors think when they look around their classrooms..
Not so much, read and regurgitate v actually learning, there is a huge difference. IMO the future belongs to those who listen, take what they can use, discard the rest, then actually you know, implement their ideas.
Well see the problem with school is just that its not fun. Yet Americans spend less time in school then any other first world country. Nowhere else in the world do they only spend 180 days a year in school and get entire summers off. I hated school but I feel find of gipped because they dont compete on a global scale academically with japan and much of europe. Say what you will about hating school, but we need more of it. And more focus on creativity and fitness as part of that
Hmm, the day figure is off of the top of my head, not sure what the actual numbers are, however 180 days x 7 hrs, how much more time is required, and is that simply evidence that the system does not work? And the other issue is, Japan is a small country population wise, and especially youth wise, to compare the two outcomes compare apples to apples, same sample size and see what the real outcome is. The other thing that should be pointed out is the American custom of having children, then finding ways to hand them off to other people as often as possible, School sports, locked in a room with a game console, seems a bit odd. And let me ask you B14, how many times in real life, now that you are in the real world, do you allot 7 hrs a day to listening to someone?
I couldn't agree more. What is funny is I majored in entrepreneurship and they actually had a couple lectures in certain classes about how to be "creative." I thought it was paradoxical that we are born these creative "monsters", lose creativity as we grow older and mature, and then must be taught how to be "creative." Their ideas of creative weren't even that good though; basically they were think of ways to solve problems, fill gaps/niches in the market by adapted ideas from solutions to previous problems. Essentially, it was take different solutions and apply them to a problem/gap/niche you have identified.... So you aren't even being creative even though that's what they call it lol.
That's funny UCF, I have a similar class this semester and basically here is the narrative: "Fill out a proper business plan, go hat in hand to banks to seek funding they have to give a percentage of govt business to women and minorities, oh sorry, you are a white male, none of these programs apply to you" Meanwhile, I purchased used laptops in bulk, found hard drives and caddies for the lowest possible prices, installed linux on them, and have just about sold out.. Thousands of students on campus, looking to save some $$$$, with wifi available everywhere, they talk about being creative, I'm out there actually doing so...hmm..maybe I'm doing it wrong? To me, this is maybe not B's point of view, but this is what I think is misfiring: -lack of time discipline do notice my posting has dropped off this offseason, been busy -lack of prioritization ability people waste time on some dumb tasks and avoid high value tasks -lack of personal networking skills, seriously, how can you be in school and not know anyone? -lack of appreciation for "free", if you are a student, you have access to the gym, yet..ghost town -lack of thrift, holy crap do people blow money on garbage -lack of what I'd call "true" drive, lots of lip service, very very little action
Its not how much more time is required, its how much time other countries kids are getting that ours arent. That means theyre doing 4th grade work in 3rd, 8th grade work in 6th and so on. Ask yourself how that puts our kids on a level playing field when they get out in the real world? You want to know why people can come over here and get jobs, its because at the k-12 levels theyre educated better. They invest heavily in infrastructure that education provides and helps stabilize a country with. Population size has NOTHING to do with it. It would take a bigger investment in our teachers and students. Believe it or not, the idea of of some of those things like school sports is a great thing IMO. School sports doesnt function as a babysitter. Thats a crazy concept. Its there to teach competitiveness, drive kids, and have fun. Video games imo are a good thing. They use the left side, creative side of your brain. That requires creative thinking and situational thinking in certain games like war games or sporting games. I dont think theyre really designed as babysitters so much as they are desgned to be fun. As for how many hours I spend listening to people I dont want to...humans only retain about 10% of what they hear. Maybe thats why we are locked in a room from 815AM-3PM growing up? For the record though, Im in sales. I spend 8 hours every day listening to people. Its my job. If I dont listen, I miss buying signals and cues that I cant capitalize on. I completely agree. Part of it is because we dont spend a lot of time of teaching arts and athletics which would be good for them. Focus on letting them compete a bit and re-learn to be creative when we spend the rest of the day thinking quantitatively. The irony is that much of the great literature of the last century was from american writers and we are unrivaled in pop music and athletics the last 50 years.
Heh, or their best and brightest come here for opportunities to excel? Nah..couldn't be.. And with H1-B visas, they can be hired for less as well..nothing to do with I'm sure. For me, the issue is to much time, and not enough efficiency, the ideal currently is to chain students to desks in different classrooms for hours a day, whose to say the same amount of learning, if not more can occur in half of the time? It does, and sucks the parents into the sports orbit as well, and underlaying it all is the idea that maybe little Tom or Jane is good enough to go professional? Or be offered a full ride scholarship? Reality is, nope, 99% of high school football players never play again. As for creativity being generated by video games, do tell why there are cheat codes? To me, massive WOT, you could learn foreign languages in the time it takes to master playing whichever game console, only to replace it with another one and more need to learn a new skillset to play the next game. Reagan liked the Atari craze in the early 80's, thought it would generate astronauts and doctors etc..uhm..not so much, literacy and language skills have declined for decades. A. you have true self interest involved, it makes you money B. no one is going to waste hours on a sales pitch of low value, yet schools ask students to this everyday C. you do not listen to the same 6 people, each day, every day, for a year Unless of course you are married and have children...
Two things here... First one is more of just some interesting tidbit of knowledge. Your ability to acquire languages is at its peak when you are a baby, or are relatively young (around 3-5). After that your ability to acquire a different language is diminished drastically. This has to do with the way you hear breaks between words as a child, and you gain the ability to recognize different words. If you only speak english and listen to a foreigner speak a crazy language like Chinese or even Spanish to an extent to you it might sound like a bunch of noises together. Two words might sound like one, etc, etc, yet as you are younger you notice the differences which makes you learn languages incredibly fast. Now you may hear: "oihdoiwhpoihjsdf jgojwogjpojsddg owjgpojwgpoj pojwgpojg." yet as a baby the same thing would sound to you like "oihdo iwh poi hjsdf jgojw ogjp ojsd dg ow jgpo jwg poj pojw gpojg." So you would notice differences. By the time you hit your teens your ability to learn a new language is very, very low and it would take a LOT more time. Additionally, if you learn to speak two languages as a child, it is easier to pick up other languages as you age. Another interesting thought is that people that speak two languages can think in only one language.... Think about that. And now to my real point the Doctors part... There are a ton of people that try to get into Medical and Dental schools, but the fact is there are not enough Medical and Dental Schools to take everyone. As the population has increased drastically the Medical and Dental Schools have not caught up... I know from UCF about 300-400 people applied for Dental School this year, only 23 got in (I was one of them ). Medical School was even worse. As far as a numbers games goes, UF takes 83 Dental Students every class, they have 3,500+ students apply for those 83 spots. I think there are plenty of people that not only want to become Doctors, but are qualified to becomes Doctors and they can't get accepted anywhere.
Not relative to the increase in the US's population growth UCF, Reagan's America was closer to maybe 250 million people, today it is 310 million or more, millions of game consoles does not equate to millions of doctors, or astronauts, or accountants or what have you. In fact the hard skills, such as machinist, will suffer a brain drain as the current machinists retire and there are few behind them to take their places. Reagan's Atari revolution never really achieved what he had hoped that it would from the middle of the economy upwards. In current business classes, the reality of a dumbed down American employee is taught along with how to deal with them. As for learning another language, the effect on the brain of going through the steps of learning a different language is fascinating, those portion of the brain responsible for learning the language typically do not get used often by adults. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600795/ Interesting stuff really, and one of the reasons why I brought it up
1. I think you're severely misinformed about cheat codes in video games today as they are very rare occurrences. 2. Cheat codes exist (or rather existed) originally as a debugging and testing tool, so that games could be completed/explored/fixed prior to going gold.
Thing you'd then have to keep in mind is it will take 10 yrs for those who play the consoles w/o codes to cycle through college and graduate then exhibit whatever creativity such games would help to generate.
It's all about giving kids proper balance. IMO, having a kid play a sport is very healthy for all the reason previously mentioned. But I look at my daughters classmates who are enrolled in 3 or 4 different sports during the year and they obviously lack balance. The parents are so friggin busy running their 2 kids around to all the sporting events they lack dedication to their schoolwork and they lack dedication of quality time with their parents. They get their kids home and push them through their homework so quickly that very little of it is absorbed. I have seen a few children that can find that balance with multiple activities going on in their lives and still do really well in school, but it's a rarity. IMO, kids lack imagination much moreso than when I was a kid. their short attention spans from all the activities is coupled with the fact that they read less and get less "blocks" of time to sit their and play using their imagination. video games can help to a small extent, certainly better than nothing, but they are a long way away from books or even comic books.
To me, it burdens the family in many ways, and having 2 children both playing multiple sports all year is unwise imo. Fall=football or soccer Winter=BBall or wrestling Spring=Baseball and spring practices for football Not putting forward that sports are bad per se, like anything else though, to much of a good thing is not good. There is not much opportunity to display creativity imo.
I think that's exaggerating the issue a bit. Just taking your example of organic chemistry. When I taught graduate students, I can explain to them the concept of electrostatic potential around a molecule, but it would be a much more difficult concept to teach someone in 8th grade science class. Keeping it simple for the middle and high school kids allows them to visualize the concept of what an actual molecule looks like. You then build upon the simpler model with a more complex one. All about building a foundation that allows them to visualize what you're trying to teach them.
