2009-08-19, 06:25 AM
Just to throw this topic a little off base:
Sure the american educational system is flawed, in many aspects, but how in the heck does one go about to fix said problems?
Force the ideas/knowledge down their throats - Sure they may score well on tests if they only have to regurgitate the info... But pose them with a change on topic and people only complain that it wasn't taught and fail anyway. I.E. Teaching 1+1=2 and 2-1=1 and testing only 1+1=? but test it with multiple addends and you'll lose probably half of the (hopefully these are kindergardeners/1st graders) class.
Offer the experience - by offering the experience the offerer has to assume that the offeree has an inherent drive to experience said experience. Trouble with that? very few actually posess this drive or have alternative goals to distract from the experience. I.E. Show people the usefulness of a wooden toolbox and then tell them you can have one too if you follow my teachings!, but only people that found the toolbox useful will want to learn how to make one....
And a thought along all these lines: Look around the world at different societies and what is taught in their schools... Mostly you'll find that a country's educational system is geared towards pumping out copies of idealistic citizens. If your contry is based around farmers why the heck would you teach about the theory of relativity? You wouldn't. the proper citizen of said society would be a farmer, not just any farmer but a farmer thats better than the farmers before him/her. If we only applied that idea to schooling, focused more on strengths while maintaining a well rounded education, weeding out those that feel they aren't playing to their strengths along the way, and offering ulimited chances to better oneself maybe we could improve. But with the current state of society as a whole (too focused on outdoing eachother be it monetarily or in terms of military might etc.) my ideas would be too idealistic to ever come to fruition...
tl;dr Ignore my post cause you've just been weeded out of life...
(too bad its not that simple)
Sure the american educational system is flawed, in many aspects, but how in the heck does one go about to fix said problems?
Force the ideas/knowledge down their throats - Sure they may score well on tests if they only have to regurgitate the info... But pose them with a change on topic and people only complain that it wasn't taught and fail anyway. I.E. Teaching 1+1=2 and 2-1=1 and testing only 1+1=? but test it with multiple addends and you'll lose probably half of the (hopefully these are kindergardeners/1st graders) class.
Offer the experience - by offering the experience the offerer has to assume that the offeree has an inherent drive to experience said experience. Trouble with that? very few actually posess this drive or have alternative goals to distract from the experience. I.E. Show people the usefulness of a wooden toolbox and then tell them you can have one too if you follow my teachings!, but only people that found the toolbox useful will want to learn how to make one....
And a thought along all these lines: Look around the world at different societies and what is taught in their schools... Mostly you'll find that a country's educational system is geared towards pumping out copies of idealistic citizens. If your contry is based around farmers why the heck would you teach about the theory of relativity? You wouldn't. the proper citizen of said society would be a farmer, not just any farmer but a farmer thats better than the farmers before him/her. If we only applied that idea to schooling, focused more on strengths while maintaining a well rounded education, weeding out those that feel they aren't playing to their strengths along the way, and offering ulimited chances to better oneself maybe we could improve. But with the current state of society as a whole (too focused on outdoing eachother be it monetarily or in terms of military might etc.) my ideas would be too idealistic to ever come to fruition...
tl;dr Ignore my post cause you've just been weeded out of life...
(too bad its not that simple)