Teaching in the USA these days

[Solace]

You know why teachers get pissed? The bureaucracy that is "teaching to the test". School isn't meant to teach children how to use their brains, to give them critical thinking and analytical skills, to encourage them to pursue their interests or dreams, etc.

No. It's designed to crush their souls and turn them into mindless workers. The reason why employers want your Facebook, and your credit report, and your DNA profile, and your collection of porn, is because everything has been turned into a credential for hiring or firing someone. Test scores are yet another "measure" of "value", despite the fact that it really tells you nothing except that you wasted money learning useless junk for a job that you'll have to learn as you do it anyway. Statistics have overwhelmed reason - note the next time you watch the news, how often they refer to a poll, for example.

You also have colleges emphasize crap like "well rounded education", which is basically code for "milk the student for more money with pointless classes that have nothing to do with the degree". While it is a good thing for kids to have a nice foundation of general skills and knowledge, many schools push this to ridiculous levels of money grabbing. Plus, as Vexx noted, they've been consistently dumbing down the curriculum. Not because they need more kids to graduate, but because they don't want to discourage kids from dropping out because the classes might be to difficult to complete after a weekend of binge drinking and free for all sex (in short, the longer the kids are taking classes, the more money the school makes). Who goes to college to learn stuff? It's all about the social experience!

There are a myriad of problems with the educational system in America, but the root cause is that education itself is nowhere near the top of the list of things to accomplish. Bright eyed teachers with the dream of enlightening future children are quickly chewed up and spit out just as quickly as the students themselves are when they finally realize the system is nothing more than an assembly line to produce forever indebted worker bees.

If they even get that far.

YouTube

http://youtu.be/e9yUXVzs0Qw

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[SaintessHeart]

Cargo cult science anyone?

I have been a fan of Feynman works, because of his ability to insert humour and be serious at the same time when it comes to teaching science. Rote learning may be the fastest way to teach science to a bunch of kids, but what is the use of that knowledge if they don't understand it?

Here is an inspiring interview by the man himself :

[Kakashi]

Originally Posted by Solace

You know why teachers get pissed? The bureaucracy that is "teaching to the test". School isn't meant to teach children how to use their brains, to give them critical thinking and analytical skills, to encourage them to pursue their interests or dreams, etc.

No. It's designed to crush their souls and turn them into mindless workers. The reason why employers want your Facebook, and your credit report, and your DNA profile, and your collection of porn, is because everything has been turned into a credential for hiring or firing someone. Test scores are yet another "measure" of "value", despite the fact that it really tells you nothing except that you wasted money learning useless junk for a job that you'll have to learn as you do it anyway. Statistics have overwhelmed reason - note the next time you watch the news, how often they refer to a poll, for example.

I think tests scores say something, because good scores require certain desirable personality traits. For example it's unlikely you will score highly without good time management, dedication, and so on. Also, you'll probably need to analyse and think critically to get a good score. This is what employers want in any field. Sure they're not an ideal way to measure employability, but they save time for the employer. It's much easier to filter out candidates in this way than to ask about dreams and interests for everyone who applies.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Kakashi

I think tests scores say something, because good scores require certain desirable personality traits. For example it's unlikely you will score highly without good time management, dedication, and so on. Also, you'll probably need to analyse and think critically to get a good score. This is what employers want in any field. Sure they're not an ideal way to measure employability, but they save time for the employer. It's much easier to filter out candidates in this way than to ask about dreams and interests for everyone who applies.

You're just reinforcing his argument. Of course employers like test scores. As you said, it's an easy metric for which to filter potential applicants. That doesn't mean we should be happy about it.

The education system in the modern world seems to be largely designed to remove the humanity from the humans it educates.

[Kakashi]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

You're just reinforcing his argument. Of course employers like test scores. As you said, it's an easy metric for which to filter potential applicants. That doesn't mean we should be happy about it.

The education system in the modern world seems to be largely designed to remove the humanity from the humans it educates.

I'm saying that employers have a good reason to trust test scores. I also don't see a better alternative for filitering applicants.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Kakashi

I'm saying that employers have a good reason to trust test scores. I also don't see a better alternative for filitering applicants.

What I (and Solace, I believe) are both getting at is that education should not exist to crush our souls and turn us into mindless automatons for the gigantic corporations to use to further their power and influence. The fact that tests are used as a metric for "hiring and firing" is illustrative of his point and my own.

The modern education system is built around creating a docile and malleable workforce, not around educating the next generation with the knowledge, skills, creativity and intellectual curiosity necessary to further advance humanity.

[Dhomochevsky]

That is not a problem with grading however.

The basic starting point has to be, that the things that get taught, are the right things to teach. From the examples above, the names of all kinds of birds and minerals are not the things you should teach. It makes no sense, it has little use (or no use if you don't teach the important parts too). If that is not the case, the whole exercise is doomed anyway.

But assuming you have a bunch of things you want to teach and you think these are things kids absolutely need to know. How do you do that?
Without grading, or any other motavation the kid will pick the things that interest it and ignore the rest (read my post on page 1, I did the exact thing for the same reason).

At some point the child will get stuck if it never learns the 'hard parts'. Those may be requirements for further understanding down the line, but the child does not see this yet. So in this case, there has to be some kind of intervention by the teacher who can oversee things.
You may call this 'forcing kids to learn all kinds of stuff they don't want to learn', but it just does not work any other way. Education can not be all happy and playful, it requires real effort at some point too.
Grading is a motivational tool amongst others.

I too am someone who learns concepts but ignores names and dates. So questions like 'who invented the xyz theory and when?' really brought down my grades. I could've explained the theory in great detail, but where did it come from? No idea... I just didn't care to memorize that when studying.
But this was a failure on the examiner to focus on the useless bits, not the examining method in principle. If he had asked the right, meaningful questions and I didn't know the answer to that, then the bad grade would've motivated me to learn the right things.
Instead it motivated me to go around and waste time learning the name of some guy who did something at some time.

[Kakashi]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

What I (and Solace, I believe) are both getting at is that education should not exist to crush our souls and turn us into mindless automatons for the gigantic corporations to use to further their power and influence. The fact that tests are used as a metric for "hiring and firing" is illustrative of his point and my own.

The modern education system is built around creating a docile and malleable workforce, not around educating the next generation with the knowledge, skills, creativity and intellectual curiosity necessary to further advance humanity.

I don't disagree with that aspect of what you guys are saying, it shouldn't exist for that purpose. I'm just putting foward that test scores are a good tangible measure when it comes to employability. Things like intellectual curiosity are very difficult to measure and compare.

Now...the content of those tests may be dire, but since we all take them that's all the employers have to work with.

[synaesthetic]

I'm not saying anything about grading. I'm saying that when you take certain standardized tests, make the aggregate test scores a metric for whether or not the school gets funding, then the predictable result is that the school throws all of its effort into making sure the students pass the test.

Nobody said anything about education being happy and playful. What I'm saying about education is it should educate, not indoctrinate.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Kakashi

Also, you'll probably need to analyse and think critically to get a good score.

Utter bull. Just do enough TYS questions, memorise all the formula and you can get full marks if you want - all the questions are the same.

No understanding required.

[Dhomochevsky]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Utter bull. Just do enough TYS questions, memorise all the formula and you can get full marks if you want - all the questions are the same.

No understanding required.

Careful, you are coming from different points here.
After all, asian countries are famous for that kind of teaching.

On the other hand, at least for the european school systems I know about, the written goal actually is to enforce critical thinking.
That is what they say they want to do. Some may be more successful than others, but tests and learning material are actually designed with that goal in mind around here.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I'm not saying anything about grading. I'm saying that when you take certain standardized tests,

They just have set the right standards. Obviously if you try to set standards for a huge portion of children at once, no matter their background, this becomes an impossible task that no central authority will ever be able to solve. So they aim for the lowest common denominator instead...

make the aggregate test scores a metric for whether or not the school gets funding, then the predictable result is that the school throws all of its effort into making sure the students pass the test.

Well, this is just a completely moronic political decission. As you say, the result is predictable, so why did they do it? It's the 'well... doh' thing Mr. Kaku was describing up there.

Nobody said anything about education being happy and playful. What I'm saying about education is it should educate, not indoctrinate.

I was refering to 'teaching to the test' , which if the test is testing for the right things, is not a bad thing.
Even though the childen may see this otherwise for now (which depends on the teacher skills too).

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

That is not a problem with grading however.

The basic starting point has to be, that the things that get taught, are the right things to teach. From the examples above, the names of all kinds of birds and minerals are not the things you should teach. It makes no sense, it has little use (or no use if you don't teach the important parts too). If that is not the case, the whole exercise is doomed anyway.

I agree. Grading is the closest thing to an "objective" measurement of academic ability that we have. To argue against it would be as futile as arguing against the use of Sabermetrics in baseball, for example.

The question, though, is whether such measurements of academic ability are useful for predicting a person's potential for any given job. That's bearing in mind that the modern primary and secondary-school system, with its heavy emphasis on science and mathematics, is geared towards producing pliant workers for manufacturing/engineering-focused industries, which some may argue are relics of a bygone era.

[warita]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

You're just reinforcing his argument. Of course employers like test scores. As you said, it's an easy metric for which to filter potential applicants. That doesn't mean we should be happy about it.

I dont see wats wrong with employers doing that.

You feel it is unfair to you, because test scores dont say what kind of person you are? Then consider this simple idea:

If you are a capable person, you will quickly prove yourself in the working world. Your hard work, flexible, innovative mind and ability to work in a team wont go unnoticed. You will get promoted and work your way up. Then when you change jobs, you can put the results of your hard work on your resume. And guess what? Employers value work experience much more than academic results, believe me.

And as for the argument "but when you are fresh out of school, you dont have any work experience to show". Yes indeed, beginnings are hard for everybody and we all need to start somewhere. And thats why employers look at your grades, because in the end, they have no other hard data to look at.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

Careful, you are coming from different points here.
After all, asian countries are famous for that kind of teaching.

On the other hand, at least for the european school systems I know about, the written goal actually is to enforce critical thinking.
That is what they say they want to do. Some may be more successful than others, but tests and learning material are actually designed with that goal in mind around here.

I am glad you caught my sarcasm. Though I still don't understand why foreigners marvel at our over-inflated education system and attempt to switch to ours instead of taking some of the elements to merge with theirs.

That being said, I find it increasingly difficult to be able to hold a conversation with someone younger :

1. Talk about the Korean culture and they have never heard of the Korean War or Starcraft.
2. Talk about Lee Kuan Yew and they keep calling him a dictator without taking into account the Cold War.
3. Talk about the UK and all they say is about how they left us to die in 1942, and have no idea who Yamashita is.
4. Talk about Japanese culture and the conversation becomes one about fetish porn.
5. Talk about insurance and they started calling them cheats.

And these kids have good grades, and go on to take on important positions in the government and public transport. No wonder our MRT keeps breaking down.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

The question, though, is whether such measurements of academic ability are useful for predicting a person's potential for any given job. That's bearing in mind that the modern primary and secondary-school system, with its heavy emphasis on science and mathematics, is geared towards producing pliant workers for manufacturing/engineering-focused industries, which some may argue are relics of a bygone era.

Engineers will never be relics, we will always need to build something. Financial agents such as remisers, property agents and insurance agents will be in the future. The only two kinds of agents that will never be extinct are secret agents and lawyers, there is always someone to sue or kill.

Originally Posted by warita

If you are a capable person, you will quickly prove yourself in the working world. Your hard work, flexible, innovative mind and ability to work in a team wont go unnoticed. You will get promoted and work your way up. Then when you change jobs, you can put the results of your hard work on your resume. And guess what? Employers value work experience much more than academic results, believe me.

My guess is that your employment application forms do not have the "reasons for leaving" column in the "previous positions held" section.

[warita]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

My guess is that your employment application forms do not have the "reasons for leaving" column in the "previous positions held" section.

I think they dont, but they ask you that question during the interview.

Whats your point? Sure it doesnt look good, when you got fired from your last position. But other than that? It is normal people change jobs when they want to broaden their skills or their old jobs doesnt offer them any possibility of further growth.

And thats what you say in the interview: I felt I need to develop myself more in this area and I hope this job will help me to achieve this aim.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by warita

I think they dont, but they ask you that question during the interview.

Whats your point? Sure it doesnt look good, when you got fired from your last position. But other than that? It is normal people change jobs when they want to broaden their skills or their old jobs doesnt offer them any possibility of further growth.

And thats what you say in the interview: I felt I need to develop myself more in this area and I hope this job will help me to achieve this aim.

I'll ask a few questions to give you some running logic :

If you were an investor, what would you do about an increase in the rate of staff-turnover? And if you are HR, what would you do to placate the investor? How much do you think the HR expends to hire just 1 person?

[Solace]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I'm not saying anything about grading. I'm saying that when you take certain standardized tests, make the aggregate test scores a metric for whether or not the school gets funding, then the predictable result is that the school throws all of its effort into making sure the students pass the test.

Nobody said anything about education being happy and playful. What I'm saying about education is it should educate, not indoctrinate.

This, so much this. I'm not railing on scoring. You do need some way to keep track of and show that the child is "getting it". What I intensely dislike and find as a severe fault in the system is the emphasis on memorizing trivial facts and figures instead of the reasons those things are important. Children should learn to associate one with the other. They don't have to get it all perfect, but they should be able to explain and utilize the basics as needed. What good is all of the statistics if you can't understand their meaning? I have nothing against memorization, but test scores shouldn't rely on how well you've memorized, they should rely on how well you understand the material.

As an old car tuner friend of mine used to say, you can't build a mansion on a trailer park foundation.

As for employers and test scores, most employers don't care about the grades, they care about the credentials. It boils down to the certificate. A certificate will get you in the door faster than experience will (barring someone with some exceptional experience credentials). The huge amount of money to gain what is basically a "workforce membership card" just doesn't seem worth it when you graduate with so much debt and are still living off of ramen. Hard work does get noticed, but connections and luck are what ultimately get you something good. The extra bits - the Facebook, the credit report, etc., are just ways to find excuses to hire and fire. This is an employers market, and with labor fighting hard for anything that gives a paycheck this means employers can be as picky as they want.

The issue isn't employers, so as it relates to the topic I think it's distracting if that is the only focus here. The bigger issue is that schools are churning out kids who lack the capacity to use their brains beyond pushing buttons like a good monkey.

Stupidity (and blatant lying) produces this:

YouTube

http://youtu.be/iO5ReCx0ZhY

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By the way, Santorum pulled a Hermain Cain on this, except instead of referencing Pokemon, he's using the plot from Logan's Run.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Engineers will never be relics, we will always need to build something.

I meant the industries are relics of a bygone era, not the engineers (I do regard many "engineers" to be no more than over-glorified technicians, but that's just me).

The modern pre-university education system was primarily meant to churn out pliant assembly-line workers for the factories of the past. In that respect, schools and their teachers did quite well. But the economies of the developed world have changed dramatically. Even if we were to disregard the burgeoning growth of the services sector, there is no denying the fact that the factories of today are increasingly automated. While they still require engineers, they're looking for engineers with very different sets of skills, for example, the ability to programme machines, understand various engineering concepts and so on.

Somewhere along the way, society has also come to expect schools and teachers to impart moral and civic education, a role that used to be fulfilled by social institutions like family or religion. I have mixed views about this historical development. Teachers ought to be role models but, at the same time, they shouldn't be expected to substitute parents when it comes to a child's character development. In this sense, I do feel that what teachers do in their private time is their business, so long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to teach.

Long story short, if we're serious about education reform, we ought to first decide what schools are meant to do: build a child's character, or ensure the child's employability in the future?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I meant the industries are relics of a bygone era, not the engineers (I do regard many "engineers" to be no more than over-glorified technicians, but that's just me).

You should do an article while sailing on a cargo ship sometime. Mechanics and technicians may be the ones servicing the engines, but when the ship is stranded off coast with a dead engine, only engineers can save the day; you'd be surprised how a spring from a pen can put a ship through the Suez Canal.

And the bunch of engineers only got close to or below 2.0 GPA in poly.

The modern pre-university education system was primarily meant to churn out pliant assembly-line workers for the factories of the past. In that respect, schools and their teachers did quite well. But the economies of the developed world have changed dramatically. Even if we were to disregard the burgeoning growth of the services sector, there is no denying the fact that the factories of today are increasingly automated. While they still require engineers, they're looking for engineers with very different sets of skills, for example, the ability to programme machines, understand various engineering concepts and so on.

Not exactly true. Most machines are built to last 3 decades or so, when the automation comes, it is usually at high cost, resulting in producers adopting the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality.

Engineers will still exist; machines are built in series, serviced in series, it takes alot of experience to maintain the next generation of the same machine because they are all built on the same concept.

At $1.50 per trade on TOS, I'd say goodbye to the remisers in the near future. Though my industry (insurance) is still clinging onto the "human touch" to market their products, I might be totally unemployable in my 40s and 50s.

Somewhere along the way, society has also come to expect schools and teachers to impart moral and civic education, a role that used to be fulfilled by social institutions like family or religion. I have mixed views about this historical development. Teachers ought to be role models but, at the same time, they shouldn't be expected to substitute parents when it comes to a child's character development. In this sense, I do feel that what teachers do in their private time is their business, so long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to teach.

Long story short, if we're serious about education reform, we ought to first decide what schools are meant to do: build a child's character, or ensure the child's employability in the future?

Being a huge supporter of a B2B state given the size of our country, the focus should not be on employability by someone else, but rather be self-employed. The ability to sell and work ad hoc should be a focus in our education system, rather than all that math and science.

[Kyuu]

And some more reading:

Teachers feel they’re being asked to take a high-speed drill to a “strong slow boring of hard boards” problem just when the long, slow nurture of children has become all the more important to kids’ success. America’s teachers think we’ve got the problem – and the solution – wrong. Here’s what Pew found:

• Kids and families are showing up for school less ready to learn – but schools can’t close the readiness gap anymore. ”Two-thirds (64%) of teachers,” the Pew Report said, “reported that the number of students and families needing health and social support services has increased during the past 12 months.” Yet with budget declines, class sizes are growing, services are shrinking, and facilities and technology are falling down or behind.
• The pedagogy is getting dumbed down to teach to the test – and teachers are losing confidence that they can deliver educated children. “Many teachers,” Pew reports, “are concerned that their classrooms have become so mixed in terms of student learning abilities that they cannot teach them effectively.”
• With schools in crisis, collaboration matters more than ever – but new performance measures reward individual performance. Just when all hands on deck matters most, Pew reports, teachers witness a return to the industrial-age models that “emphasize assessing the effectiveness of teachers individually.”
• And Donald (“You’re fired!”) Trump is heading up HR. In 2006, 8 percent of teachers felt their jobs were insecure. Five years later, Pew reports, that number quadrupled to 34 percent.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debat...cation-crisis/

If you ever listen to plenty of political dialogue -- you'd be hearing things like "personal responsibility" coming out of the Republican side. Yet, it is really hard to accept that talking point when there exists a system garnished to "standardize" the learning process.

Years ago, I remember reading things along the lines of "teaching to the test", where these tests do measure the school and the funding associated with them. High schools in particular, in the back of my head, I've often viewed their programs as "cookie cutter". In this process, individual attention to the student gets lost, and some may not receive the guidance they need.