The role of history lessons in schools

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

If I remember correctly, I took the following-

Maths (compulsory)
English (compulsory)
Geography
French (had to take one foreign language. Was rubbish at it)
Physics
Chemistry
Technical Drawing (for Christ's sake. Like I really find myself needing to draw an orthographic projection of a screw in my adult life. Failed it spectacularly).

[Agathon]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The role of history lessons in schools

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp

Schoolkids don't get taught that, however. Philosophy students might, but not your average Comprehensive school kid taking three years of cursory History tuition. They'll learn that we got conquered by Romans, who had central heating. And that Greeks had democracy at some point.

Yes, and this is part of the problem. It's as if schools were created specifically to produce hard working morons.

[Dauphin]

Lazy philosophiser or hard working moron. Take your pick.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Philosophy is inevitably going to take a distant second place to more practical applications in schools.

[Dauphin]

You said yourself that kids get taught nonsense subjects like technical drawing or business studies, so why not philosophy?

I remember a test in my sixth form that had questions like:

If you have a credit card bill of £100 at 12% APR, how much interest will you be charged that month if you a) pay it all off, or b) pay the minimum balance due?

For how long should you boil an egg?

How much does a pint of milk cost?



You don't get taught some practical stuff at school. Should you? Things like how to manage debt and personal finances may be more useful than learning about igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Being taught how to write a cheque on the other hand is patronising.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Philosophy is inevitably going to take a distant second place to more practical applications in schools.

The problem is that most of what is done in school lacks practical application for most people.

How many people use calculus? How many use technical drawing (I did that too, but I did somewhat better than Laz)?

In a democracy, schools are supposed to be about producing literate and numerate citizens who are capable of casting an informed vote.

They are partially successful at the first, and pretty successful at the second. On the third count they fail dismally.

[dannubis]

That is because most teenagers (when they are teaching you this stuff) unfortunately are not interested in education...

Or they do not have the experience in life needed to fully appreciate the value of the "soft" classes...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Besides, who is teaching you philosophy? I don't think I'd necessarily trust the regular teachers to give it a good background. They may actually know something about compound interest (for their family's sake, I hope so), so that may be useful to make known. Then again, secondary education shouldn't just be that.

[Alexander I]

When I took History 202: World Civilization after 1500, the professor focused mainly on the Ottomans, Safavids, and Ming Chinese, saying that European history of the same time period was overdone. Any references by him to the British, French, Germans, etc. were only in connection with the eastern empires until we reached the World Wars.

Granted, this was back in 2001...

[_BuRjaCi_]

We did a lot of Mesopotamia and the Middle East but almost totally ignored China, India and Africa. That sadly still has a strong influence on the way I think.

Agathon is right however, I sometimes feel that I am barley eligible to vote.
But then I see how some other people think and I realize that my understanding history, philosophy, economy and science easily puts me in the top 1% of my country’s population . It’s that realization that makes me quite pessimistic about the future of democracy and very sad since it goes agains my humanistic ideals.

I remember that as a child I actually had to figure out on my own why we need certain classes. I was about 10 when I realized that the teacher hadn’t given the same amount of thought to the matter as I had.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Agathon


The problem is that most of what is done in school lacks practical application for most people.

How many people use calculus? How many use technical drawing (I did that too, but I did somewhat better than Laz)?

I don't know. The critical and logical thinking abilities that my high school calculus fostered were pretty practical in later life. The drafting I took in college also taught me that there is more than one way to look at most problems.

Originally posted by Agathon

In a democracy, schools are supposed to be about producing literate and numerate citizens who are capable of casting an informed vote.

I disagree. Democracy has no such obligation to the people. Democracy is simply an environment where people may choose to have this if they wish. Apparently many are happy with casting uninformed votes...which is their right.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by PLATO

Originally posted by Agathon


The problem is that most of what is done in school lacks practical application for most people.

How many people use calculus? How many use technical drawing (I did that too, but I did somewhat better than Laz)?

I don't know. The critical and logical thinking abilities that my high school calculus fostered were pretty practical in later life. The drafting I took in college also taught me that there is more than one way to look at most problems.

Having taught quite a few mathematicians, I would argue that their critical thinking fails once it gets outside of scientific claims. They seem to have real problems analyzing things like political theories, or ethical claims for consistency. It's as if they think that these are non-rational areas of human endeavour. They might be right, but they are wrong if they think that reason cannot nevertheless be applied to them.

Originally posted by Agathon

In a democracy, schools are supposed to be about producing literate and numerate citizens who are capable of casting an informed vote.

I disagree. Democracy has no such obligation to the people. Democracy is simply an environment where people may choose to have this if they wish. Apparently many are happy with casting uninformed votes...which is their right.

Then why have a compulsory education system at all?

I think this argument fails, since the obligations in a democracy do not all run one way.

Consider this parallel. In a democracy, literacy is something that people may choose to have (or choose for their children to have) if they wish.

So the argument would go thus: people may choose not to be literate, but that is simply their problem and they deserve whatever happens to them. The problem is that the basis of this argument is false. Illiteracy has significant externalities. One person's illiteracy may harm them, but it also harms other people, in that they now have to pick up the slack because that person cannot read. Imagine being a public official trying to deal with someone who cannot read. Or trying to get them to sign something. Or the problems created because the person cannot read signs and does the wrong thing. Illiteracy is like alcoholism: it confers a disadvantage on the person who suffers from it, but also on non-consenting parties as well.

That's why reading is compulsory in modern societies: because it's a massive pain in the arse for everyone else if a number of people cannot read.

Political literacy is exactly the same. Your vote does not merely affect you, but affects everyone else as well. If your vote only affected you, we wouldn't need a democracy, since anarchism would be the natural political system. But we have to make many collective decisions, and voting is the obvious way of going about it. The decisions that ignorant people make are much more likely to be poor decisions than those that informed people make.

The moral of this story is that ignorance harms others. While people in modern societies agree that what affects only you is your business, there is an almost universal conviction that what affects non-consenting others is subject to the law.

It's because voting is a public act with public consequences that you have an obligation to be informed. Similarly, in a modern society, you have an obligation to be able to read. There is nothing wrong with the state enforcing obligations, particularly when in this case there are many side benefits of doing so.

[Agathon]

That is because most teenagers (when they are teaching you this stuff) unfortunately are not interested in education...

I agree. However, school is not a holiday camp. A lot of the problems with modern schooling began when they stopped punishing the students for not working.

Besides, who is teaching you philosophy? I don't think I'd necessarily trust the regular teachers to give it a good background.

In no way shape or form should high school students be taught Aristotle, or Kant, or the work of any other major philosopher. It would simply be too difficult, and it would lack application.

When I say that high school students should be taught philosophy, I mean two things:

First, they should be taught informal logic (what is often called "critical reasoning"). That means that students should be able to analyze any piece of prose argument and be able to reconstruct its logical form and test it for validity. They should be made to practice this analysis in the way that they are now made to practice mathematical equations. They should also be able to identify all the common informal fallacies.

This needs to be taught at the same time as a renewed focus on English grammar. People really need to know how language works and what its rules are, if they are to be able to use it properly. One of the best ways of teaching grammar is to require all students to take a second language, but it is not the only way.

Secondly, students need to be taught applied ethics. This doesn't mean teaching them what we think is right or wrong, but rather teaching them how to identify and to construct ethical arguments, and to understand what is at stake in contemporary debates and the differing values that inform each position. Ethics is central to our lives – we engage in it all the time, and yet we are so bad at it.

If students spent the time that they do on useless subjects like physics (which are useless for most people) on this, then we would have a better society.

Think how bad society would be if people couldn't do basic math correctly. Well, people can't do basic reasoning correctly. We live in the resulting ****hole.

[Traianvs]

hehe, nice. You're making good sense there
I don't agree on the punishing bit however... You don't want to make school a living hell for some people right? Because it already was a living hell for me even without the severe punishments for not studying :/