Writerly News

[lance gt]

And the great dumbing-down continues. They don't want smart, educated young people, they want automatons. Send a text to all of them and they'd respond instantly to command. Not one can think for themselves, if all electronics are taken away and left to their own devices. It's clear that money isn't the issue in teaching, it's what we're teaching and what's expected from the students. My own schoolboard has a policy of, 'Show up, look like you paid attention and you'll pass.'
Give the kids something to learn that will pertain to life and how to live in the real world, because anything they teach after primary school is a waste of time. Core subjects are for the most part, useless to teach after that point, (geog, history, etc.) but they still have them in place, wasting educational time to prepare for a career.

The schools that seem to be turning out the better students, are the trade schools usually filled with the students who can't make it in the normal school system and are considered unteachable. They are entering colleges and trade schools and making better money with a far more stable future, than the four year course students, after only two years.

Secondary teaching has become a farce, since a blanket standardization took effect. Kids learn at an individual pace and can't learn in a 'herd'. Some get it sooner than others, some never do, but each and every one deserves a chance at life, to make something of themselves, instead of being a burden on society.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

And the great dumbing-down continues. They don't want smart, educated young people, they want automatons. Send a text to all of them and they'd respond instantly to command. Not one can think for themselves, if all electronics are taken away and left to their own devices. It's clear that money isn't the issue in teaching, it's what we're teaching and what's expected from the students. My own schoolboard has a policy of, 'Show up, look like you paid attention and you'll pass.'
Give the kids something to learn that will pertain to life and how to live in the real world, because anything they teach after primary school is a waste of time. Core subjects are for the most part, useless to teach after that point, (geog, history, etc.) but they still have them in place, wasting educational time to prepare for a career.

The schools that seem to be turning out the better students, are the trade schools usually filled with the students who can't make it in the normal school system and are considered unteachable. They are entering colleges and trade schools and making better money with a far more stable future, than the four year course students, after only two years.

Secondary teaching has become a farce, since a blanket standardization took effect. Kids learn at an individual pace and can't learn in a 'herd'. Some get it sooner than others, some never do, but each and every one deserves a chance at life, to make something of themselves, instead of being a burden on society.

Youre right. Kids graduate school useless in every way that matters. But there seems to be no help for the problem unless the kid has the maturity to look into the future and grasp their impending doom. They need to graduate with the basic skills to go forward with a trade or professional training.

If I ruled the world every 18 year old would enter the military after graduation, to become physically fit, and remediate their basic skill set, plus learn to function in a work environment. Say two full years.

 

[lance gt]

Youre right. Kids graduate school useless in every way that matters. But there seems to be no help for the problem unless the kid has the maturity to look into the future and grasp their impending doom. They need to graduate with the basic skills to go forward with a trade or professional training.

If I ruled the world every 18 year old would enter the military after graduation, to become physically fit, and remediate their basic skill set, plus learn to function in a work environment. Say two full years.

I remember in Scotland, once you were past primary school, you either entered a trade school, or went to a college for advanced training. It sped up the entire process of educating and put the person in a 'real life' work environment at an early age. They became proficient at a faster rate and worked towards becoming a master in their field.

Education is a farce, if nothing worthwhile is being taught. How can I be happy when my son gets good grades, if what he's learning, has no bearing on his future? It's not a matter of him being a smart person, his marks prove that, but he's smart in useless material that's best used for Trivial Pursuit games.

Throw the Ipods, Ipads, Blackberries and every other piece of electronic gadgetry away and get the kids thinking for themselves. Imagine the kid with the crooked baseball cap and the baggy pants with the crotch down around his knees and less intelligence than your family pet and now picture him in the Oval Office, sitting playing Xbox with his headphones stuck in his ears.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I remember in Scotland, once you were past primary school, you either entered a trade school, or went to a college for advanced training. It sped up the entire process of educating and put the person in a 'real life' work environment at an early age. They became proficient at a faster rate and worked towards becoming a master in their field.

Education is a farce, if nothing worthwhile is being taught. How can I be happy when my son gets good grades, if what he's learning, has no bearing on his future? It's not a matter of him being a smart person, his marks prove that, but he's smart in useless material that's best used for Trivial Pursuit games.

Throw the Ipods, Ipads, Blackberries and every other piece of electronic gadgetry away and get the kids thinking for themselves. Imagine the kid with the crooked baseball cap and the baggy pants with the crotch down around his knees and less intelligence than your family pet and now picture him in the Oval Office, sitting playing Xbox with his headphones stuck in his ears.

I cant fathom why the Scottish strategy isnt used everywhere.

 

[sr71plt]

Last I knew Germany used the same or a similar system. The major problem with this is that it essentially decides what someone can choose to do with their life a long time before they are mature and experienced enough to make their own decisions what they want to work toward becoming.

 

[lance gt]

Last I knew Germany used the same or a similar system. The major problem with this is that it essentially decides what someone can choose to do with their life a long time before they are mature and experienced enough to make their own decisions what they want to work toward becoming.

It's decided by the student, as well as the system, as to where he/she went in life. It was clear with grades and abilities, where a student's strengths and weaknesses were and were pointed in the direction best suited for them. Once the decision for trade or college was made, the student went into the trade of his choice, as long as he/she was capable of, while college students plied their time studying the finer points of law, business, etc.
A person is mature enough at that age to decide what they like and don't like. The system is also geared so that a person can change or upgrade their position at any time. All what this system accomplished, was avoiding a mass of post-educational people sitting around idly, wondering what to do in life.

 

[sr71plt]

I covered that "decision" point in my post, I think. Primary school is much too early to be deciding what you really want to be, IMO.

 

[lance gt]

I covered that "decision" point in my post, I think. Primary school is much too early to be deciding what you really want to be, IMO.

There in lies the rub. (look up that one too). The system isn't taking away a person right to choose their destiny, but streamlining it towards what the person is capable of, thereby offering him/her a better chance at success in life. The only reason that person would become unemployed, is because of work shortages, illness, or death, or in some cases, outright laziness.

Most kids know by age 13 what they want to be, or at least have a keen interest in something. Training should begin at that age towards the goal set out, accompanied with upgraded subjects that apply to it. More kids would do better, being involved in a course that is right up their alley, than forcing them to sit through boring lectures and subjects that have no bearing in their lives.

Reaching puberty means an entrance to adulthood. Our forefathers knew what to do, but now we mollycoddle them and hope they turn out alright. I look at all the college and university grads with degrees in fields that there's no work in and wonder why they'd study so hard to do nothing. What a waste of knowledge and a person's time.

 

[sr71plt]

That may be the difference between the Scottish system and the German system when I knew it (it may have drastically changed since I was there). I went to a German school when my dad was assigned there (my parents believed in total emersion), and the system, not the individual, made this choice--and the decision was made for them before they reached 13. (Your primary schools go to 13? We're into middle schools here at that age.)

The German system was making that determination for everyone itself closer to the student being 10. The Germans with money who wanted to keep the academic possibility open for their children, took them out of the German school at that age and sent them to Switzerland for private schooling.

I think it's good to value technical schools as much as academic colleges (and I think that electricians, plumbers, and mechanics are as valuable, if not more so, to society than college professors), but this was the system dictating what the student was going to do in life much earlier than could be called freedom of choice, IMO.

We weren't entirely free of this in the American school systems even when I was going through high school. There was an academic track and a nonacademic track dictated by the classes/teachers assigned and the curriculum they used in separate core courses--and the school, not the student, picked the track. This must have been the case even recently. I have a nephew who was pushed into a trade course track, but he wanted to be a doctor. He had to become a nurse first, though, and push himself through to what he really wanted to be. He's a doctor now (probably a better one, though, having seen what nurses have to face).

 

[lance gt]

That may be the difference between the Scottish system and the German system when I knew it (it may have drastically changed since I was there). I went to a German school when my dad was assigned there (my parents believed in total emersion), and the system, not the individual, made this choice--and the decision was made for them before they reached 13. (Your primary schools go to 13? We're into middle schools here at that age.)

The German system was making that determination for everyone itself closer to the student being 10. The Germans with money who wanted to keep the academic possibility open for their children, took them out of the German school at that age and sent them to Switzerland for private schooling.

I think it's good to value technical schools as much as academic colleges (and I think that electricians, plumbers, and mechanics are as valuable, if not more so, to society than college professors), but this was the system dictating what the student was going to do in life much earlier than could be called freedom of choice, IMO.

We weren't entirely free of this in the American school systems even when I was going through high school. There was an academic track and a nonacademic track dictated by the classes/teachers assigned and the curriculum they used in separate core courses--and the school, not the student, picked the track. This must have been the case even recently. I have a nephew who was pushed into a trade course track, but he wanted to be a doctor. He had to become a nurse first, though, and push himself through to what he really wanted to be. He's a doctor now (probably a better one, though, having seen what nurses have to face).

In Canada, it's termed Public school and High school. There are some distinctions now as Senior Public, grades 7 & 8, but the term primary, isn't used the same way. The idea of an early introduction to a trade or profession, was to expedite schooling and make the person productive to society, as soon as possible. Supporting a student is a great financial burden today, but unheard of for the common family barely a hundred years ago.
We have strived to give our children a better education, yet failed in giving them what they need.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There in lies the rub. (look up that one too). The system isn't taking away a person right to choose their destiny, but streamlining it towards what the person is capable of, thereby offering him/her a better chance at success in life. The only reason that person would become unemployed, is because of work shortages, illness, or death, or in some cases, outright laziness.

Most kids know by age 13 what they want to be, or at least have a keen interest in something. Training should begin at that age towards the goal set out, accompanied with upgraded subjects that apply to it. More kids would do better, being involved in a course that is right up their alley, than forcing them to sit through boring lectures and subjects that have no bearing in their lives.

Reaching puberty means an entrance to adulthood. Our forefathers knew what to do, but now we mollycoddle them and hope they turn out alright. I look at all the college and university grads with degrees in fields that there's no work in and wonder why they'd study so hard to do nothing. What a waste of knowledge and a person's time.

I expect all Hell would erupt if kids were evaluated and their scores exposed fitness for unskilled labor, and little else. It happens, and I suspect such scores are the reason the US Labor Department abandoned the General Aptitude Test Battery.

I took the tests, and my work history correlates highly with the results of my test scores.

 

[topace]

Don't remind me about those hated tests! Thank God I only had to do them in grades 3, 6, and 9! I hated tests in school, but those were timed - far worse!

 

[lance gt]

Don't remind me about those hated tests! Thank God I only had to do them in grades 3, 6, and 9! I hated tests in school, but those were timed - far worse!

That's the point of them though. Hating them means you have an aversion to doing written work and thinking, which would lead former testers to point you towards a career that doesn't invlove that. Today, the tests do nothing to help.

 

[topace]

That's the point of them though. Hating them means you have an aversion to doing written work and thinking, which would lead former testers to point you towards a career that doesn't invlove that. Today, the tests do nothing to help.

Bleh! Guess what? I have to do plenty of writing at my current primary job - filling out boring sweep logs and bathroom cleaning logs, besides the occasional paperwork that my superiors need me to complete!

My secondary job is all writing - managing websites requires a lot of it.

I also love both of my jobs right now, though I wish my primary job would give me more hours as my secondary job right now doesn't pay me anything.