Hey, Teenagers Are Right After All: School *Is* Pointless

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Jake

You can say that of any academic qualification (instead of training qualification). The point of it (like university) is to develop the ability to learn, think and innovate. Grasping concepts that you've forgotten by the end of the summer holiday after your exams is a bad part of that, but it does identify students who are university material.

The REAL problem with the education system in my country, as I see it, is that non-university level students are seen as an unsavable generation, you either have 'it' or you're finished. It couldn't be further from the truth. This is plain social snobbery that has been generated by the middle classes and frankly by short-sighted government policy. Policy that has led to too many people being in the univeristy system, watering down what it actually means to be academicly minded. There was a time where having a university degree at any level meant something; although a 2:2 or higher were really the only sign of anything other than rich daddy's little angel getting spoon fed by the well-to-do brigade. These days frankly unless you're in the top 8%, what's the differentiator?

As a result of that I agree that there is no point in most students having to learn this, but I also feel that it is necessary to provide opportunities for young people to identify themselves as being of the academic stream at several opportunities; we all grow up at different rates.
What is more important is that the system cater sooner and more effectively for those who aren't without any hint or suggestion that they will have worse life chances are someway inferior to someone in an academic stream.

I would argue that America is just as classist as the UK--at least some people in the UK admit there's a problem; Americans rarely do that, even.

And I agree that much of what we learn isn't important in itself but important because we *could* learn it.

But I also believe we can have it both ways: we can teach our students things that they will probably forget, but could serve *some* purpose if the students do remember.

The salient word in that article, for me, is "accountable." The people who design textbooks in America also design these tests and these people are accountable to no one, so what they say goes, and woe to the administrator who says, "Hey, wait a minute."

In today's IB program, students have to a) read Oedipus Rex, a complete waste of time for students that young and b) discuss its Marxist angles.

Huh? Marxism in a piece written thousands of years before he was even born? It all comes clear when you google "Oedipus" and "Marxism." Most of the first-page hits are from the factories, the academic stores that have set themselves up to sell this crap-line of thinking to the schools because the teachers are just as confused and bored as the students.

Textbooks, especially in the soft sciences, are self-propelling. The IB classes are still teaching The Crucible and Raisin in the Sun, the same boring pieces I had to read long before this fascination with IB--not because the work is relevant, but because everybody involved makes money on these determinations.

You can tell that I have a daughter in high school, can't you

Jake

Anyone who sincerely believes that school is pointless is either a uniquely gifted genius in their own right, or is physically handicapped to the point that they are unable to learn. Those are the extremes.

The majority of others who feel that way are simply misguided or in error for other reasons.

I agree with the premise of the article in the fact that academic achievement is not a reliable measurement in individual potential. Great testing scores, high grades do not guarantee success in the real world. But school is not pointless, it has a very important purpose...

It provides a world for exposure to varying thoughts and beliefs, it provides a foundation for basic skills leading to higher learning. And at the very least, it provides a standard for personal self-growth and measurement, a time for individuals to hone their skills, learn competition, deal with life's daily stresses, and to simply allow time for maturing from childhood to adulthood.

But most importantly, it provides me with a nice retirement pension.

The problem with accountability for those who design the tests is, whom else can you hold accountable? Who else can claim expertise? Accountability is generally a government function, but politicians aren't known to be experts on education. (Maybe if more teachers were elected to public office.) We're seeing right now in the US what happens when politicians try to claim expertise over the experts in education. Teachers used to teach students how to think critically and find answers rather than memorize them. Now they "teach to the test" under pressure from administrators who are in turn under pressure from politicians who threaten to withhold funding from "underperforming" schools - which are overwhelmingly in, yes, you guessed it, poorer neighborhoods (and have the highest class sizes).

Amen to class sizes. That was a major consideration in my retirement this past summer. Because of budget cuts, the administrators decided that the only way to make ends meet was to increase class sizes. They went from an averate of 23 students per class last year to 36 students per class this year.

I can remember years back having class sizes of 18 students. Now you could really teach the kids and get into the problems and issues back then. Now with double that, all you have time for is worksheets and rote memorization skills. Forget individualized instruction entirely!

Sad sad sad....

What makes it worse is Michigan has a state cirriculum standards where, you said it CE Geek, politicians and a board of experts (most who have never really spent any real time in the classroom) dictate what must be taught at each school grade level. Everything from the course content to the level they must be taught. And with interstate competition between state departments of education to show they are the best, they have crammed everything in there except for the kitchen sink.

That means in order to meet those annual state testing requirments, teacher are forced to "teach the test" in order to show they have complied with the standards as prescribed.

I went to an educational conference a few years ago in Japan. It was very comprehensive and lasted 14 days. The Japanese textbooks were about 1/4 as thick as ours and included about 1/4 the content as ours. Theirs is a highly focused cirriculum. They don't teach useless facts and trivia, they don't focus so much on useless fodder or examinations.

In the USA, any grade may have 2-3 English classes. A basic skills for those who need extra help. An expanded course that may include vast generalities, and an honors course that goes into depth and specifics. In Japan, they may have 15 courses for any particular school grade, and the student themselves may select which they attend for that year. There is no dishonor in being in the "dummy's" class, and no honor in being in the "smart kids" class. Because each person realizes that they may be weak in one area and excel in another. Competition is often one competing with themselves to be better than before.

By the time a student accumulates enough education to graduate, they tend to be highly specialized in an area that they themselves enjoy. They turn out wonderful technicians and specialist, and those that go on to higher education normally know what it is they are pursuing and why. Not like the American system where a kid goes to college for 2 years and changes his major several times in order to pass his classes, and then ends up with a BS in Business Management and goes out and trys to get a job at McDonalds....

I could stand on a soap box and preach for hours and hours my thoughts and experiences on the decline of the American education system...but I would be preaching to either deaf ears or the choir. As long as politicians control the purse strings and set the standards, nothing will ever change.

I wouldn't say school is pointless, but the current system is just utterly a mess and corrupt.

Based upon current headlines I can see why you say corrupt, but why do you say it's a mess? Just curious.