This is because the Blue Social Model of the 1940's-50's required people to move en masse at the sound of a horn, take a break at a certain time, live in the same cracker jack house, etc. To basically be the drones in a State Capitalist model similar to what China is now. Our educational system was specifically designed for what you complain about, and people are so stuck on that sort of thinking and cultural training they refuse to do what needs to be done to change it. "Progressives" are, except for a couple narrow social issues, actually the worst of economic regressives. They refuse to give up the dying blue social model our society was based on and are defending a crumbling social model that is unsustainable in the 21st century onslaught of technology. They are the true conservatives. They want 20th Century solutions to 21st century problems and to change that would destroy both their power base and their income streams. The truth is "Progressives" are not socialists, but State Capitalists and State Capitalism is pretty much just as evil as Socialism.
They should probably be taught that over-reaching Government/Big Business/Big Banking (or as I should probably call it, GovNessKing, GNK) are our worst enemies and should be destroyed, and that you have to FIGHT for what you believe in rather than hope that things go your way.
My quick and dirty education: 1. Logic. it's importand because if you can do logic, you can reason out most things just by grasping the relevent facts of the case. It's the cornerstone of all other learning. 2. Mathematics. This is how the world is run. Finanance is math, science is math, physics is math, cooking is math. There's just no way a person should be considered educated unless he does well in mathematics. It's basicly a survival skill at this point anyway. 3. Sciences. This is how we know the difference between true and false. It's where we get modern society. 4. History. Real history, not the flaky feel good stuff. An educated person should be able to explain the causes and effects of any event in history. 5. English. I don't care where you live, the language of commerce and science are both essentially English, so you should be able to read and write grammatically correct English. 6. Arts/Literature. I think the decline of the arts (AKA pisschrist and other stupid art) is because we've lost any sense of what good art looks like. We accept a lot of garbage because we've never been exposed to the real thing. Do you really think that modern art holds a candle to Shakespeare or Da Vinci? absolutely not. Modern art is what happens when artists lack any technical skills and thus resort to making "statements" mostly by telling stories about their art. No educated person is going to pay thousands of dollars for a green swatch that looks like a paint swatch from Lowes. The benefits of studying real art as opposed to fake art is also that a person learns the technical skills that allow him to express himself in a way that communicates to others, rather than art that requires an explanation. 7. Business. I don't know why business isn't really taught from grade school up. MOst people work for companies, yet the level of ignorance about how companies work and what they actually do is pretty scary. The number of people here who literally think that the boss only exists to hold down the workers is rediculous. Yes they do hold down wages among other costs, but it's more about staying competitive in the industry rather than simply to make as much cash as possible. I know most schools have a gym class, however, I think given the state of American education, that should be curtailed until the average HS grad can compete at a reasonable level on the world stage. As it stands, our kids are basicly illiterate and innumerate, and thus any time not spent getting them up to snuff is time wasted.
I agree with the first three, and also with teaching english,however i think it would help to teach other language classes as well, art is really a free thing, you shouldnt be able to grade what a child wants to draw if he wants to, language is good. However the cutting gym is bull, most of the nation is literate, we have a bigger problem with childhood obesity. We should really just motivate them to listen and learn more, discipline them to a higher degree, get better spending plans, and get better teaching plans(so that they arent as bored and learn more useful stuff).
I agree to some extent. The USA is a broke system that is the demise of the USA and is responsible for the USA's slow but sure deterioration. If Kids are taught accountability, leadership, and teamwork at an early age, they will be competitive and progressive as adults. But we know the owners of the USA will not let that happen. And the owners of the USA like the current public education system just the way it is. So no change can be expected. The US schools are just fine for the elite. After all, the elite do not want competition for the money they hoard.
Granny says children should be taught right from wrong... ... an' good from bad... ... an' not to be puddin'-headed lib'rals."
Well, I disagree. There is a technical side to art as well as a creative side. If you want to see a well-crafted story, read any of the great authors, there IS a craft to learning to use language to communicate well to readers. Pacing and dialog and characterization and discription require a lot of technical skill to pull off. It's the difference between what published writers and poets do and what amateurs do. It's the same with painting. Most modern artists are woefully ignorant of proportion and design principles. Half of the modern art out there looks like it was done by a four-year-old. There's a lot of skill needed to paint or draw a proportional human face, and a lot of practice to use the canvas space to create a pleasing picture. Music, again, chords, beat, tempo, etc. All of these things are technical skills which can be taught. And the thing is that without the technical skills you CANNOT expect to communicate with you art. And art exists as a form of communication. No one should have to explain the point of a piece of art -- that's the job of the artwork created by the artist. Remove the "skills" and the end result is that you have no reason to say that the rejects of American Idol are poor singers. They are just expressing their art. My ears bleed for their lack of skill, but since we're getting rid of all standards of technical artcraft, I suppose that we have no reason to suggest that they are bad singers.
Execpt no one really cares about art, why? Because its how someone expresses themselfs, they only really get hot over art if it has religious or philisopical meaning. If a millionaire really wants to buy a green streak on a canvas, then let em.
well, I think that since it's a very effective form of communication, it should be taught and studied. There are plenty of books that have changed the way we think about things, or artwork in general that has defined various nations and civilizations. Understanding how and why such things were created would essentially create better artists and thus better art.
I won't address serious reform. I'll just offer 2 suggestions of things to teach. 1)Statistics. High school graduates should know the correlation does not mean causation. They should be able to look at a study and be able to spot selection bias. We are assaulted with statistics every time we turn on the TV, every time we pick up a magazine. Politicians, advertisers, special interest groups. Every where we turn. 2)The importance of failure in growth. The whole that idea Michael Jordan missed more baskets than I ever have. After 13 years of education, too many learn the worst thing you can be is "wrong". This paralyzes creativity and innovation.
How can you and others imagine what the public education should be when you don't know the clear and concise goals of public education? What is the purpose of public education? Why do we have public education? These questions need to be answered first...
The goals of USA public school are not known to the general public. there realy are no goals that they can acheive. they just accept their faith and are divided on opinion as much as the rest of the general public. But the results are just fine for Ameircans. They are dumbed down to accept their condition and be obedient mindless drones who just follow the simplest 5 word sentance they can understand. In fact they all lack to see th big picture. And they have no ability to create goals cohesively. After all, the elite and owners of the USA do not want massis of kids to compete in the capitalistic rat race of the USA with their privilaged children. As long as no physical action is taken against the system, nothing will change and educators can tolerate nothing. Nothing is going to change the public schools in the USA. For a lack of a better term; It is too big to fail.
Maybe it's too big to FIX? But we'll never know if it needs fixing or changed or gutted because without having the clear goals of a public education system, we have no way to analyze the performance of the system. Just think how many millions of kids are getting short-changed...
I think there are generations of kids that were short changed. Only the ones who can see the macro scope of how things in culture and society work ever come to that understanding. And those are the ones that can speak up about it. But As I stated. Leadership, and teamwork. All the other small stuff will come. But if you get their work ethic and characters to work togeather, you will see a less divided nation. But as you can see, that is not what the owners of the USA want. That would mean competion and difficult times for the privilaged who neven need to work.
This is no theory, it happens and is going on. You just got to see it to know it is happening. Not everyone has the ability to see how things work, for them, religion is a good answer.
When you make statements like this one..."But as you can see, that is not what the owners of the USA want. That would mean competion and difficult times for the privilaged who neven need to work."...this is conspiracy and being ill-informed...
Interesting theory, but the hisroical facts seem to disagree with the notion that leadership and teamwork must be taught. Schools historically never taught leadership, yet we had lots of good leaders. Schools at the time focused on what could be called a classical education -- memorize the facts, learn how to use those facts and then learn how to turn those theories into coherent action plans. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_education_movement) which produced leaders like George Washington and John Locke and others of the same caliber. Now we teach "fuzzy skills" and pine for the days of Bill Clinton. I don't think teaching leadership produces leadership in the same way that teaching truth does.
Advanced life skills in the USA are learned late in life. According to some neurologist the human child in advanced countries are maturing earlier every 20 or so years. Hence measured by onset of puberty scientis contend that the ability to learn these skills can be taught earlier in life. However, the USA public schools are teaching from a mid 1800 formula so kids in the USA are about 1.5 years latent in learning the real life skills. Another factor, kids of poor environmental factors never get the more important life skills because of their parents, development, environment, and their worst than avarage public schools system that can barely teach them the most basic skills of logic, math, and language. The kinds of skills the OP is talking about is learned via other forms of teaching (not in the classroom), i.e., sports, competition, music, and any for mof team work environment. But one thing the OP did not metion is accountability of ones actions. Accoutability starts at a very early age and needs to be reinforeced daily. A behavior modification if you will. But for any teaching to take place, the subject must have the cognitive capacity to understand the concepts. LOL... go figure.....
Well, that doesn't need to be on the curriculum, we just need to stop coddling and making excuses. As to us having a delayed model -- you have to understand that up til maybe 1930 or so, graduating high school was rare. So much as would have happened in any other era of history, kids usually were living pretty adult lives by the time they were 16. What's changed is that since we no longer teach the basics early, those adults in high school now have 7-8 years to go until they have enough education to survive. As I said many times -- a kid who knows the basics can learn anything. The problem is that kids can get as far as 3rd-4th grade without learning how to read. And by that time, the kid is screwed for life. There's no reason for that to happen when kids 100 years ago attended one-room schools in shacks and every last one of them learned to read. As to subjects Mathematics English Sciences Leave the fluff out. I don't see the need to teach fingerpainting if the kids cannot read in 1st grade.
Interesting point. However, in the USA there are masses of people who have not evolved. In this I mean they have no cognitive ability to keep up with the times. They live in an era of long ago. Old fashoned, and outdated. Reason is, most of these kinds of people have no ability or desire to investigat, evaluate and assess their condition as time goes on. And as they get older, they become relics in living. We see this with religion and those who oppose any changes to anything. Reason is, for them they are doing just fine, and profiting greatly, and do not want to upset the balance of who has the money and who is getting screwed. Most of these relics have no cognitive concept of change and adaptation. Hence the social Darwinism and ideas that mold a society. As this will continue (and there is no outlook for change), so will the decline of American culture, society, and intelligence. Just imagine a culture of 22nd century people living and thinking like they were living in the 19th century? Will other cultures and societies around the world be any different. I have a nagging suspition that those asian countries have the formula and ability to evolve more rapidly than the USA will ever evolve. Evidence of this is China's massive cultural and economic evolution of the past 15 years. Korea's steady evolution from 1960 to 1990, And Japan's technical evolution from 1946 to 1980. Grant it, the USA did not have much room for evolution during the 1990s and the 2000s, but that is because the USA was at the top of it's game back 12 years ago. Capitalism as overcapitalied the country with unions, insurance, and the medical industry. As a result, the USA can no longer thrive or evolve. The only direction for the USA is a steady decline. The ones who will succed in the USA are those who step out of the box and learn forigen languages, and move to where the money is. After all, the gurus of monopoly have all ready planted their roots in forigen countries for the futhre. Those who sit around with a 1800s education mentality wanting the American dream will need to wait about 10 to 15 more years for the USA to de-evolve back to 1930. Theory? perhaps. Hypothesis? definetly. Investigate what I say and you too will be able to predict outcomes better.
I too have indulged in the works of antiquated historians and fabled lecture of the past. I see their work as work of their times. And for me it does not apply to today and the future. I seperate my analysis and thinking from these kinds of old way thinking. I also look at the era of the 21st and 22nd century thinking. Because, that is significant, not the past. True, leadership is not needed in grade school, and educators have limited ability and knoledge of leadership. The most significant learning in ones life takes place outside of the classroom of grade school. That is where people define themselves of who they are and what they are capable of, and what their limitations are. For most educators in the USA they still have not left grade school, and have yet to realy explore their abilities and capacity. As a reslut, they do not know their limitations or weaknesses. Only one who goes through the process of becoming a leader will know what I am talking about. If you ever served in the military, particularly the combat arms jobs of a leader, you will know what it takes to be a real leader, and some fail and some succeed. Not everyone can be a leader, and not everyone has the ability to manage people, and direct them. I have seen many great leaders (not famous), who can make groups of people do extraordanry tasks, and acheive great things. And I have seen those who fail, and can't gain respect or make decisive decisions under pressure. And they do not last long in the military. For leadership to be effective, it must be done in a professional environment, by professionals, not those who pose as professionals who fraternize and work with family members and church friends. In the USA the education system fails at evaluating leadership and accountability due to the education system structure. This is due to the fratinization between students and teachers, teachers and admin, working with friends and family members. And their own judicial court system that allows friends and family to "investigate" BS, performance, and corruption. After all, in USA education system, nobody's life is on the line, nobody's safety is at risk, and there is no need for accountability. There is no need for teamwork, or to complete any group task, and all the tasks are created by the education system. Unlike the military where the tasks develop at any time for any reason, and safety or death is a factor. True leadership comes from those who are put through extraordanary enexpected tasks, and are able to make decisions and get the job done. Schools are a failure in the USA, and thus the job is not done.
The key is how money works. That must be added to the curriculum. Because parents either have this knowledge to teach or not, this is the number 1 reason why the poor raise poor people, the middle class raise middle class people, and the rich raise rich. Money education, not handouts, is the true equalizer.
Very good concept if it was applied to adults, and people with intelect who can realy understand economics and culture. However, the public education system in the USA is so dysfunctional that they can barely teach the basics, and kids are so dumbed down they can barley learn the basics. If schools in the USA can't even teach the basics, they will ultimatly fail attempting to teaching economics. Money management is often taught at home. I'm sure the poor kids will accept living on foodstamps their entire lives, and they will never want to sell drugs to make more money. Also, US schools and their educators are wasting their time trying to teach something they can't even understand or learn themselves. US Schools can't even manage their own budgets and they can't even account for the billions they spend failing. It is a failure to spend so much money on a failure of an education system. US public schools trying to teach economics is like a homeless crack addict trying to manage a million bucks. At the end of th day there will be no money and the addict will still be homeless. US Public Schools get free hand outs of billions of dollars from the taxpayer via theeir State Governments. And what do they do, they fail managing the money and fail doing their job. That is teaching kids to make poor investments. I learned this at an early age not in public schools; "Lead by example", all that do as I say and not as I do is for church preachers. Public Schools in the USA would be better off teaching common sense. It's free... Does not cost anything. No taxpayer money demanded.
