Hello all, Today I'd like to get your opinions on the most effective education system, I am currently writing a short paper on it and I thought it would be interesting to see what all of you think. Overview In the United States we have a public schooling system, these schools are tax funded and free to attend. However these schools (from my personal observation) fall short in comparison to private school system and I think the reasons fall into a two main categories I'd like to address. These are as follows: •Centralized Curriculum •Lack of choice Centralized Curriculum Common Core I feel this is part of the problem because it regulates education through blanket statements by in effect saying something such as ____ is the best way of learning say history. The problem with this and my fundamental problem with it, is that it if teachers were allowed to choose how to teach then they would be able to adapt their teaching style for a particular class. There are further problems with this but I am only going to address the basic issue. As far as I am aware only public schools or government funded schools have to follow these regulations. Lack of choice Now this is the crux of the problem in my opinion the reason being is that not only is choice in public schools almost no existent but this doesn't allow for any competition. To understand this issue I feel it important to know the benefits of competition such as, continuous improvement and the ability to pick the best possible school. The problem is that because you may only attend public schools depending on your location parents choose a better school for their children and there is less of an incentive to continuously improve. My solution I would personally promote a system where you may choose any public school within a certain area and I would also leave the curriculum up to the teachers with the requirement that they cover a few very broad things i.e. you should be beginning algebra in 8th grade. My reason for this is that by being able to choose you may choose the best possible education available, and for these schools that lose students they are given an incentive to improve always allowing for the best possible education for the greatest number of people. I apologize for any grammatical errors I wrote this rather quickly. Tell me what you think problems our education system faces, your solutions, reasons I'm a jackass. I'd love to see it all!
I think one of the main problems is too much focus on STEM education. We need more humanities and arts classes.
My biggest objection to public schools is their rigidity. Life doesn't happen in lock-step phases. It makes no sense that everyone should be on the same level based on no other factors other than your age. And I don't agree with the arguments that support common core. Why should a student spend time learning things that don't interest them? Being a "jack of all trades" makes you an expert at nothing. I say let kids choose what they wanna learn and let them go at their own pace. This has been tried in some progressive charter schools and you'd be amazed by how effective it is.
See, I agree with that to some extent, but I believe that some rigidity in education is good. High school and below is for someone to gain knowledge about every field, so they know what field they are interested in and want to study further in and pursue a career in. I think taking what you want beyond the required courses is something that is best left to college. Look, when I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be a BMX rider. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a rockstar. If I had only taken classes I wanted to take, I would probably living in a van down by the river. (Anyone?!) All I am saying is, leave the choosing of subjects to college. But that is only my two cents.
By the time a kid reaches college age, they've wasted years of time they could have been learning their career of choice. So what if they change their path multiple times? It'll be no worse than learning a little bit about a bunch of crap they're not gonna ever use in their lives anyway. Like why isn't there a required class for balancing a checkbook or applying for a mortgage or negotiating in a new car purchase or retirement planning? All way more useful life skills than geology and art history, yet those are required.
I think schools do a decent basis compared on what you need to know in the real world, now I understand that you won't need algebra to work in a drive-through or chemistry to own a business, but they give a strong basis of most fields in the world and such.
In other countries you start taking career related courses at a young age so that you continually build up your expertise throughout your life rather than in the first four or more years of adulthood.
The class for balancing a checkbook is called "Economics and Personal Finance" and is required in the state of Virginia, but I don't know about the other states.
I very much agree with the last part of your statement, as there is little to none of that in our society. However, I think there is something to be said for learning "useless crap". History has taught me to think about things from many different perspectives, and not just my own. English has taught me valuable writing skills that I utilize to this day. Math has taught me to analyze a problem, and to employ a strategy to tackle it. Science has continued to teach me that curiosity is never a bad thing, and to always strive for knowledge. While the subjects themselves taught in American schools may not be relevant, the classes are about more than just the material they teach.
I very much agree with the last part of your statement, as there is little to none of that in our society. However, I think there is something to be said for learning "useless crap". History has taught me to think about things from many different perspectives, and not just my own. English has taught me valuable writing skills that I utilize to this day. Math has taught me to analyze a problem, and to employ a strategy to tackle it. Science has continued to teach me that curiosity is never a bad thing, and to always strive for knowledge. While the subjects themselves taught in American schools may not be relevant, the classes are about more than just the material they teach.
Those are all fair points. How many years do you think kids should have to study those subjects? And at what ages?
Just as a comparison. The UK has literally just decided to introduce exams for 7 year olds covering maths and English at a level that two months ago was the core level being taught to 9-10 year olds. The idea being they can force children to miraculously learn two years of extra lessons in the two weeks prior to the exams happening. They are also imposing exams next year on 5 year olds. Reception year here. To say this is insanity is an understatement. It will produce the highest failure rate of any system I can imagine. Teachers, headmasters/mistresses and parents are all threatening to boycott the exams. We also have new sat exams for 12 year olds. All set by some professor that breezed through school forgetting that the vast majority of students are normal human beings. So what I am basically saying is. Any time the government runs something. It's incompetently run at best. Whilst private schools would be the ideal in many ways though. The exclusion rates due to costs would be extreme. State schools are needed. But thus far. I haven't seen a single model for education that I can fully support. Changes need to be slowly phased in and if anything aimed towards a more Asian model that have a more successful track record than our state schools. In the meantime. Yet more children will grow disenfranchised with education and their lives wasted as a result.
In my country, you slowly whittle down what subjects you take from the age of 12, until by the time you are 18 you have a few qualifications in exactly what you want.
In my country up to 9th grade children are taught lot of useless crap. But is it really useless? You can't ask a 10 years old kid (5th grade) to chose his career. When he's going to highschool he can chose between an IT, math-physics, philology, chemistry, art, coregraphy, etc. highschool. That "useless" crap taught in primary and gymnasium helps the child to be able to perform no matter what he chose for highschool.
3 things I can add: no more standardized tests, secularization in school curriculum, and alternatives to simply failing a kid when he's in grades K-4. I agree very much about the standardized testing. It's bad and every student is at a different level. Teachers should be given more freedom (but also be required to havr a better education on how to set up a curriculum) It should also be known I'm from Canada (same fundamental system, but the state is de facto secularized and doesnt teach creationism). So USA could improve if they stopped turning their schools into churches. I was actually thinking about schools today... I think it would also be better with a better system if there was a better way of handling "problem kids". In my school (during grades K-5) if a kid was having problems at home and misbehaved in class or skipped class too often due to family reasons, they would fail their class and become isolated (all their friends would be in a different grade) which would only serve to further lower their self esteem and make them hate school more. These kids would "fall through the cracks" and end up not graduating. I think the current system fails these kids (who are disproportionately minorities such as natives) and should be changed. These kids are getting held back a grade not because they don't know the material, but because they are having problems at home, which is an incredibly regressive system.
One more thing: a little while ago a student on social media at my university was advocating for a system based on homework and assignments rather than by a heavy stress on examination. Exam-weighted (50%+ from final exam) courses cause heavy stress on student and promotes cramming at the last minute instead of steadily learning throughout the course of the semester. I think the UK is moving backwards by making the assumption that exams lead to better results (what studies, if any, are they basing these policies off of? It seems they're blindly making reforms in order to make it look like "improvements in the education system" are taking place)
I agree completely, I don't like rigidity either, and I think that's why college tends to be motivating for some because you can take courses that interest you, this was even the case on a small scale in my highschool. But I think letting the teachers teach, without being told what methods to teach or how to teach something, along with a competitive schooling system would make the difference.