Schools in America: how to fix our education system.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
It's also a pride issue, Vagabond. If we can improve our education system, we will be the best in everything. The Euros will be left with nothing to cling to in their desperate struggle to avoid acknowledging their glaring inferiority in comparison to the U.S.A. Life will be good.

By the way, Drake, the Euros are so educated (should I say "overeducated"? ) that no one of them wants to fill any kind of dirty and low-skill jobs that are still (unfortunately) required for the human society to function. They have to mass-import Arabs and Turks for that.

[mrmitchell]

I saw that coming.

EDIT: I saw Drake's link coming. Your post was filthy.

[Giant_Squid]

I think I'll take the opposite of the standard view and say "More standing up and lecturing and less discussion and trying to do cute creative things". I was talking to my cousin who was in junior high school the other day and the discussion went something like this:

Me: "What are you learning in school these days?"
Cousin: "We've been learning about the Civil War the past month"
Me: "So you studied Lee and Grant and the battles and everything?"
Cousin: "Lee? Grant? Who are they?"
Me: "Wait...you're learning about the Civil War and you didn't learn about Lee or Grant? What exactly are you doing?"
Cousin: "Well, first we heard a story about women in the war, then we all made and turned in models of ironclads, then we dressed up and did a mock Civil War battle, then we memorized the Gettysburg Address and recited it to the entire class, then..."

Now, I'm all for little gimmicks to get people interested in what they're learning, but there has to be something they're learning beyond the little gimmicks for that to work out, and from my experience in school and the experience of people like my cousin who I talk to, in ninety percent of classes there really isn't. My high school day would go something like make a paper-mache model of a regular solid for math, draw a picture of a character from a book in English, color in a picture of a cell in science, and then I'd go to history, the only class which had a decent teacher, where I'd sit for a good hour and listen to an hour's worth of lecturing on exactly what Holy Roman Emperor had what dispute with what Pope. And I know it defies all conventional theories of learning, but I became a lot more interested in those Holy Roman Emperors who had no gimmicks or cutesy projects whatsoever to their names than to the latest English "activity" where we had act out the feelings of some author. A bit more standing up and giving material and less trying to do "progressive child-oriented interactive insertnewbuzzwordhere education" wouldn't hurt anyone.

[Dis]

I hear you.

But that's the way modern schools are these days. The kids expect teachers to entertain them. They don't want lectures.

I would have preferred my history classes to be more involved. Our teachers didn't even require us to learn dates events occurred.

I had 2 female history teachers. I would have preferred male teachers. Yes that sounds sexist. But the women weren't really that interested in history. They taugh as if it was any old job, they weren't empassioned about it.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Dissident
You touched on a very important point in the U.S. society. Many people have no desire to get an education. You can pour all the money into the schools you want, but if the kids don't want to learn, they won't learn.

The real problem is the society's perception that being smart is geeky and uncool. When I was in high school most people could care less about learning and reading and such. Yes even all the white kids wanted to be dumb and act like gangsters.

This is the real problem. I'm getting so tired of people saying more money will fix the problem. It just isn't true.

Exactly!!! we need to make learning cool, but how? One problem is that for many people science is boring, we need to make it more fun. Last year in history class we made small classroom plays of the different wars of Classical Greece. My part as Darius at Themopylae was hilarious, I was acting ticked off because my army couldn't beat 300 Spartan hoplites.

[Al B. Sure!]

well damn i agree completely with Giant Squid... this touchy feely creative progressive interactive or whatever the hell else new education may have seemed like a good idea twenty years ago and a good change from more strict, memorization, and fact oriented classes but it has gone too far...

i have graduated high school and i am yet to have a history class where we are taught anything about battles or generals. according to the philly public school curriculum, the only thing that happened in the civil war was the emancipation proclaimation and the world wars are complete blurs... what happened in world war II? pearl harbour was bombed and we dropped two nukes on japan... how was Hitler defeated? i dont know... some armies invaded Germany and apparently won... how? who knows...

fortunately, tv and movies have made up for some of this loss

[Al B. Sure!]

My part as Darius at Themopylae was hilarious, I was acting ticked off because my army couldn't beat 300 Spartan hoplites.

it's so hard to resist blocking Odin...

[Al B. Sure!]

and by the way, apparently the play didn't teach you about ancient greece because Xerxes was the Persian emperor at the time of Thermopylae and the persians DID beat the Spartan hoplites and killed every single one of them...

thats your interactive education at work... mis-educating...

[Odin]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
and by the way, apparently the play didn't teach you about ancient greece because Xerxes was the Persian emperor at the time of Thermopylae and the persians DID beat the Spartan hoplites and killed every single one of them...

thats your interactive education at work... mis-educating...

Excuse me, I havent't played civ in a while, I always get those 2 mixed up. I am more of a Science geek than a history nut.

the Persians did win but not before loosing 1000s of soildiers to the Spartan meatgrinder. He might of lost a lot more men if he wouldn't of found the path around the beach when a greek traitor told Xerxes.

BTW: A Spartan hoplite is my school's sports mascot.
Go Ulen-Hitterdal Spartans.

[Al B. Sure!]

is anyone else getting nauseous everytime they read one of Odin's posts?

[mrmitchell]

No, but I have to run to the toilet every time I see a cheap troll...by whom I won't mention.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
is anyone else getting nauseous everytime they read one of Odin's posts?

Smart@ss!

[Dis]

nothing wrong with his posts. except maybe the overuse of smilies

[mrmitchell]

Odin does not use too many smileys.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Dissident
nothing wrong with his posts. except maybe the overuse of smilies