In addition to the basics - Math, Reading, Science, etc. - I see several things that seem to be lacking from our childrens' educations. These things are the skills that many middle-class and upper-class parents teach their children, but lower-class parents don't tend to teach. I'm not sure that public school is an appropriate place to teach these skills, but if not taught there, many children will never learn these things. Things like: -Basic money management - budgeting, proper use of credit, etc. -The value of hard work - keeping a job no matter how much it sucks, doing what needs to be done, no matter how you feel, etc. -Persistence - not quitting when things get hard or when you have a setback or failure. -Working smartly - how to decide what work will be valuable and beneficial and what work will be wasted effort. -How money works - principles of compound interest, time-value of money and calculating the trade-offs between purchases and investments. I'm sure there are more things that children need to learn - what do you think should be added to the list? Also, what avenues should be used to teach these things?
Many times these things are taught by their absence. A child will learn from the hardships their parent and family go through and will strive to not make the same mistakes. Experience is another teacher; every time someone succeeds by using these values they learn a lesson. The problem is that everyone has different goals in life, so while it might seem apparent that some do not understand these things they may actually be using them in a different manner towards goals the observer does not understand or empathize with. I have seen workers avoid obeying orders when simple obedience would have been the easier course just for the sake of fighting authority. People are strange. I think it would be a wasted effort to try to teach these things in a educational setting. I think these are things only learned through experience.
Perhaps in a few schools, but I didn't and don't see it. With the huge number of people whining about the haves, the 1%, etc, with the massive amount of debt most Americans live under, with the number of people just waiting around for a job instead of seeking other means of income, with people thinking that they should be able to raise a family working fast-food, and many other examples, I just can't see that these concepts are actually getting taught.
You cannot determine what needs to be taught without knowing the goals of public education. When you can clearly and concisely define the goals of public education, then you can determine what needs to be done. Until then, this is just subjective banter...
That would be hilarious if the results weren't so pitiful. The value of hard work? How about the value of extortion in setting wages and benefits? That would be something teachers actually know about. The critical teaching has to take place at home. When I started talking to me son about sex we strted with honor and responsiblity and not oral ex and anal blocking. Left to the schools, enither of my children would read. Oh, they might know how to struggle along and say the words but they wouldn't be reading. My children got all the liberal progoganda the schools generate. That what schools are for. Human-caused global warming was presented as a fact. Diversity was a lesson in who to hate. My personal favorite were the lessons on why the U.S. should be hated. The goal was to turn out Michelle Obama's who are proud only when a member of the family is nominated for president. If you have children, you have to home school even, or especially, if your children attend public schools. Good parents never go on strike.
Children in the USA should be taught and made to perform as leaders and in team environments. But that will never happen. No elite people want the masses wise to their manipulation, and have the ability to retalitate. So, as the status quo, keep them stupid, dumb, fearfull, and obedient. Break their will, and make them feel like crap. Because you got tenure, and there is nothing the world can do to a public school teacher in the USA.
that would be a nice thing. But in real world education. things will remain the same. The world (real world) will just pass the USA by. Who in education realy cares about the next generation. If they did, they would send their kids to private school.
When I was at uni a few years ago I read one of the US's PISA reports. It was basically a brag about how they beat Mexico. MEXICO. Canada and Australia's reports made it seem like the sky was falling in both countries and something must be done to stop it. Funnily enough the US was in the bottom half of the countries involved in the test and Canada and Australia were in the top 5 for many of the areas tested.
I dont think raising education budget would work, we need more imposing education formations, better teachers, better (*)(*)(*)(*).
The US vastly outspends, per student, the countries that beat it in the PISA tests, so it's not money, it's pedagogy. We had a few American lecturers at my university. They had "escaped" the US and come to Australia to teach and had eventually become university lecturers teaching how to teach. They all complained that in the US education is traditional. Students sit down at their desks, they're expected to shut up and the teacher throws boring information at them. The average US student never conducts a scientific experiment in their years at school, they either watch the teacher do it or they watch a vid of someone do it. Elsewhere in countries which are beating the US liberal education pedagogy (not to be mistaken for teaching political liberal values) is used where the students create the knowledge in themselves instead of being told. The teacher guides the students.
In bold above is one explanation why our public education system fails. It's because you believe in forcing personal behavior into the education process that simply does not exist for millions of kids! That you ignore the fact that millions of kids DO NOT have perfect education parents means you are on the wrong path. It's stupid for you to expect something that simply DOES NOT exist! Forget about the parents...figure out how public education should be designed based on the kids and between the hours of 8am to 4PM Mon through Fri which also means no home work...
Critical thinking today does not need to mean analytical process; critical thinking today is relative to the desired outcome...not the mathematical or scientific outcome...but the outcome which best supports the personal bias du jour. Religion is a great example as you point out. Political bias is another example. And there's cultural bias...which is probably just a hybrid of religious and political bias with a dash of ignorance. Our self-serving needs will never allow us to find consensus...
Both last year in a group meeting with Obama, and again in the authorized biography of Jobs, Steve Jobs made it clear the reason for all Apple manufacturing being off-shore WAS NOT about cheaper labor...but that other cultures offered much better workers; from their education to their work skills to their personal focus. Jobs also told Obama point blank that those jobs are never coming back to the USA. Between Apple and it's contractors there is something like 800,000 workers on Apple products. I also know that Microsoft and other high tech companies are off-shore for these same reasons of having access to better workers. And this includes these same companies lobbying the government to allow more green card workers into the USA each year because they can't find qualified workers in the USA. Even with this face-smack of information, I have not seen a single indication from Obama, or anyone in the administration, about approaching this problem with viable and timely solutions...many of which begin with the public education system and followed by access to college...
How about this scenario; If we need better teachers, then we need to demand higher qualifications and much higher compensation. So, one result of having better qualified teachers will be higher budget costs. BUT, and here's the rub on this, which actually parallels Apple's problems finding workers in the USA, if we demand higher qualified teachers...where are we going to find them?? How long will it take the USA to develop a core of highly qualified teachers? And if we install highly qualified teachers, then the rest of the education system must support their endeavors! Sadly, I believe public education is like so many other issues in the USA; it requires paradigm shifts, redesign, sacrifices, a (*)(*)(*)(*)load of money...and I just don't see the American public supporting this level of effort...
If we truly elevated the qualifications for teachers, including the compensation, which is tantamount to what has happened in the high-tech sector, I wouldn't be surprised if 25% of the teachers come from off-shore...
You can demand all the qualifications you want, but that does not stop the lazy and criminal minded malingerers from infecting the eduction system. In fact that is what is going on today. The protectors of tenure want eductors to have many so called "qualifications" like a degree, certificates, and other BS that do not add up to performance. All the statistics and BS propaganda studies data does not show that leadership and performance is the key. Leadership to command a class, and performance to involve the students in the task. that is what is needed, and it is never used to evaluate a educator. Stuff like amout of students going to college, dropout rate, test scores, and other BS marks of qualifiactions are just secondary to what an educator should be doing. As long as kids are kept stupid and have their spirit broken after the 6th or 7th grade, they will become failures. The educators in US public schools want it that way. They do not want competition for their kids who go to private schools. Capitalism education, that is what the USA has, it is not a national or socialist system. It is all about self profit, and how to make profit off someone who is making profit. The USA should be proud that they have created a education system that has created the best consumer class in the world.
