Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane

i thought since this person sounds like they might not know any five-year olds, i interviewed my son and here's the results:

"founding fathers"

him: "i already found my father. luke skywalker's father is darth vader. he cut off his hand!!! darth vader's not going to come get me, is he?"
me: "no, remember, the moon is NOT the death star."

"toward our elected officials"

him: "what? who?"

"toward his parents"

him: "dad, can i have a snack?"

"toward a belief in a supernatural being"

"um, God created the ground, and the trees, and most of the bears."

"toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity."

him: "hey dad, let me ask you something first, okay?"
me: "sure."
him: "guess what?"
me: "what?"
him: "chicken butt!"

i mean, my kids are crazy. no doubt about it. but not for any of those reasons. sheesh.

Most of the bears!

Glad to see someone's still out there repping for Chicken Butt. Keep up the good work, kids.

http://www.mercuras.com/1107/PB_static_control.jpg

Glad to see someone's still out there repping for Chicken Butt. Keep up the good work, kids.

Last week one of my wife's first grader's complained to her that "Jared told Bianca 'Butt'"

Since then my wife and I have been making sure to tell each other "Butt" once in a while

that map makes martha's vineyard's club foot look huge. way out of proportion, i think.

A lot of the skipping class & other transgressions I did (ie calling teachers out in class for doing this bullshit) was bcz the teachers were so lazy and pandering. My sophomore year biology class, we spent half the class fucking COLORING. And we were graded on how well we colored!

Can we talk about this? Why is school so unchallenging? I'm not sure I ever really felt challenged in school until I got to university. (There were a couple good classes though.) I'm intelligent but I'm not a genius so I don't really know why this should have been the case. (I didn't even know that RI isn't a real island.) I can't buy arguments that this would require streaming, which would cost too much, because I was in a Gifted programme in high school. The streaming system was already there (it's not anymore in ON) but, with a couple of exceptions, what we did in the Gifted classes was barely different from what went on in the Advanced (regular) classes. In English classes, we read three books in 10 months (compared to a book per week in the first semester of 1-st yr undergrad 20th century lit.) And Shakespeare was taught by having every word read aloud in class over the course of months.

(While my undergrad experience was very good, I'm not sure that even undergrad is always better, judging by some courses here.)

Yeah I know! I hated MacBeth for a long time bcz we took FOUR FUCKING MONTHS to read it. In the 'honors' class.

I do not know a definitive why, but here are some ideas:
- Some teachers are lazy and/or dumb (that biol teacher for example). What gets me is, even today in college, if you aren't prepared/don't have lesson plans/can't answer half my questions, why should you expect me to turn in my homework/read/come prepared do well on tests & essays? I mean, I do those things, but there's a contract here.

- NB there are plenty of non-lazy, clever, creative and/or brilliant teachers who have made my life far better so the above is not some all-encompassing thing

- But it seems not near as many good ones as there are mediocre + the truly terrible combined

- The patronizing idea all across the board (in varying degrees depending on the individual situation) that children or students need to be talked to "at their level": school, media, parents, church etc can all do this. I certainly tolerated my fair share of it. Maybe this is the biggest one! Someone could be a great teacher/parent/mentor/church leader/etc BUT if they are not trying to challenge the student, it's kind of selling everyone short!

Yeah, we certainly had our share of bad teachers but teachers don't set the curriculum. Somehow, it's been decided that this is the best system for teaching kids and it seems bizarre. I also kind of suspect that teachers become burnt out from having to work within this system for so long.

wait, i'm confused. abbott, sundar - the educational system failed you exactly how? you both seem fairly literate & well-adjusted adults.

http://www.republicanvoices.org/indoctrination_center.jpg

While I wouldn't say it FAILED me, I got a fair amount of my konwledge/"life skills" in spite of school, not because of. Maybe half-half? I don't want to discredit my good teachers,,,,,that is a good point, tho, moonship.

I wanted to be a teacher bcz I know I'd be ace at it but I was having like severe panic attacks about it every day a year before I was to gradate. I don't think I could swing it in the current system – I would get burnt out, in my classic way of burning out: feeling highly ineffectual bcz I have almost no chance of changing anything from within, esp under NCLB. I am sure it's not bad in EVERY state but the procedures/rules were painfully ridic in Idaho (where I was at the time) and here. Blahhhhhhhhh

what is yr opinion on the modern public ed system, moonship?

I was thinking today of how I wanted to open up my own Summerhill (Summerhays?) school or "Experiment House" ala Lewis someday (even tho his was a parody (I mean an interesting failure that tries hard will be better than a dull, lazy failure)).

i don't have any opinions that aren't said better in this utterly classick piece of scholarly writing

"A School is a Lousy Place To Learn Anything In"
Authors: Becker, Howard S.
Source: American Behavioral Scientist, 16, 1, 85-105, Sep/Oct 72

Abstract: In a summary of the studies presented in this theme issue, it is suggested that educational mythology presents an unrealistic picture of the efficacy of schooling. It should be considered that organization of schools contributes to their ineffectiveness. on-the-job training, if incorporated into present educational structures, could produce educational success.

Obviously the answer depends on what you think a school is for - job training? A more general *life preparedness*? Learning to *think for oneself*? Civic values? Socialization?

I'm sure others are aware that American schools were largely designed to ready people for industrial society, and thus they are largely about organization, structure, learning to follow directions, learning to respect authority and to behave in a docile manner. Obviously numerous reforms have taken place since the advent of public schooling for most Americans, but I think public school still retain a lot of that vestigial quality, which makes them not only depressing, but less tailored to the modern economy (though some of the aforementioned discipline remains useful to that economy).

A classroom of 15-30 students and a teacher will probably never be the ideal place to learn to think no matter how education is reformed.

thank you john dewey

lol

in a lot of ways though your post is wrong

Also I think American schools struggle with the paradox of "equality," - not so much in the racial sense as just in the idea that every student should get the same education, so we make sure each student is just as half-assedly prepared for an engineering program as for a creative writing program, regardless of interest (magnet programs notwithstanding)

^^ this OTOH is quite OTM

What did you think was wrong in the first post?

"american schools were largely designed to ready people for industrial society"

not true, even if you presuppose that american school were designed top-down (they weren't), that they were designed all at once (they weren't, the classroom structure is from the mid-1800s and the school structure is from the early 1900s), and that "industrial society" means the same thing in 1850, 1880, 1920, 1950, 1970 (it didn't, and schools changed to match that each time)

"they are largely about organization, structure, learning to follow directions"

modern comprehensive schools are about this, but then again so are apprenticeships, sports teams, militaries, musical groups, and other very effective non-school learning environments.

"learning to respect authority and to behave in a docile manner"

more or less at different times and places and not always in one direction (toward more or less docility). i take more issue w/ the second part than the first. have you been to a HS pep rally, homecoming or a football game lately? not much docility there.

but the BIGGER leap that i totally take issue with is that "respect authority and behave in a docile manner" is part of a industrial-society indoctrination plan. believe it or not business leaders and military-industrial complex dudes have been arguing since the late 19th century that less teacher-centered instruction is what's needed to keep the industrial base strong. for example all of the "discovery science" stuff for elementary schoolers do these days came at the recommendation of defense industry scientists afraid of the US falling behind the soviet union right after WWII.

I'm more literate than I am well-adjusted but I don't think "producing literate, well-adjusted adults" is a very ambitious goal for a public education system. (Would I need to be an illiterate sociopath in order to legitimately find weaknesses in my high school experience?) I didn't say it was completely worthless, just that it was unchallenging. And in that respect, it failed me in that it bored me to death through my formative years and left me with an attitude that was totally lazy, overconfident, and cynical towards formal education. I don't feel at all that it prepared me for higher education (though, as I said, I was in a Gifted programme.) (I'd come into this programme in Gr 9 totally eager to learn and be challenged BTW.) Yeah, I picked up the needed skills when I needed to but they didn't need to come that late. None of these strike me as trivial points. As an educator, it fails me in that 20-year-olds who are paying to be in an academic institution often need to have their spelling and grammar corrected or have things like logical argumentation, organized writing, and citation format explained to them. (Some profs just give up. TBH, I did find that if I was clear that I valued these things, I would start to get them but even that shows that students don't feel expected to write well unless they're specifically told to.) I don't mind teaching these things - I'm happy to do it - but I don't know, again, that they should come so late. (AFAICT the Ontario and New York schools seem roughly similar enough to generalize.) I don't necessarily feel that the citizenry is as aware as it should be.

I don't really have a major problem with the teacher-in-a-classroom format per se. I just don't see why 10 months need to be spent on three books in a Grade 12 Gifted class. It is patronizing, like Abbott says. What harm would be done by raising that to 5 or 6 books and expecting people to read some of the stuff on their own? I do think really major concepts like Marx's theory of alienation (which has had a huge influence on the world) or the basics of Saussure could be taught to academic-track students in required history/social science courses. Certainly something like MLA citation format could be taught. (Also, I'm not sure I agree that schools do emphasize the arts as much as they emphasize math and science.)

(Music education in public schools is generally terrible, I can say with some certainty. And in that sense, I probably was failed as well. People come out of European and East Asian schools able to actually, like identify intervals - which I'm still not great at!

I don't know much at all about what's good in terms of more occupational-training-oriented education FWIW.)

(Also, I drop "like" like a Valley Girl when I critique public education.)

logical argumentation, organized writing, and citation format

why would you learn citation format in high school, if only college-level academics use it?

I don't necessarily feel that the citizenry is as aware as it should be

again, of logical argumentation, organized academic writing and citation format? or marx's theory of alienation? saussure?

the major question at hand here is not "how should we formulate schools" but "what are schools FOR," right?

lol not "formulate"--"construct," or, uh, "design"

why would you learn citation format in high school, if only college-level academics use it?

I sort of see your point. But I think it could make some sense for academic-track students to learn it as preparation in higher grades. (It's a circular point, in a way too: Only college-level academics use it because only they are taught to.) That was the least of the things I mentioned though.

Citizenry: My writing was possibly a bit disorganized and unclear here. I meant things like: aware of major domestic and world issues, of the basics of Canadian government, of different perspectives on these things (which could include a minimal awareness of Marx, yes.)

And in that respect, it failed me in that it bored me to death through my formative years and left me with an attitude that was totally lazy, overconfident, and cynical towards formal education.

I hear ya. I had an initial surprise in college learning that, unlike in high school, I couldn't just doodle and vaguely osmosize the information, not read or do the homework, and still get Bs from just my test grades.

I suppose that was the one nice thing in high school, I had plenty of in class time to draw in and paste pictures into these wonderful book things.

Actually, I'm going to stand my ground on citation format. Advanced-level Gr 11 or 12 students are certainly expected to do research for papers as it is. I don't think it's too unreasonable to want sources cited with more specificity than a bibliography at the end would give (given that using someone's ideas or information without citing them directly isn't too far away from stealing.)

gabbneb-in-kindergarden.jpg

maybe if you had graduated from kindergarten, you could spell it :D

Only college-level academics use it because only they are taught to

only college-level academics use it because MLA/APA citation format isn't much use to a plumber, an exterminator, a hairstylist, a football coach, a newscaster, a doctor, a helicopter pilot, etc etc

a SPACEMAN

or a COWBOY!!

I want to be a MICROWAVE.

youll NEVER be a microwave

an INTERWEBNERD

I'm sure others are aware that American schools were largely designed to ready people for industrial society, and thus they are largely about organization, structure, learning to follow directions, learning to respect authority and to behave in a docile manner.

hurting, check out walter karp's classic essay "why johnny can't think," from harper's circa 1985. he basically says what you said, only with a great deal more bile and indignation.

furthermore, he spells it all out: the only defensible purpose of public schools in america is to - in thomas jefferson's words - teach every citizen how to decide "what will secure or endanger his freedom." giving every person a well-rounded education is the only reason not to privatize education - if we just want to train industrial workers, then we might as well turn school over to the corporations.

compare:

"we want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific manual tasks." - woodrow wilson, 1909

"(primary education should) be chiefly historical. history, by apprising (students) of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views." - thomas jefferson, 1782

judging from the fact that history has largely been replaced in schools by "social studies," which teaches students absolutely nothing worth knowing, looks like wilson won out over jefferson.

BTW more than criticizing the way schools are designed, I'm just questioning the efficacy of any school at teaching "independent thinking," because anything you do in school is, by definition, not really independent. In some senses I didn't really learn to think until I had to support myself, although specific things I learned in school came in handy at that point.

Also I just wonder about the very fact of being stuck under the same system of what comes to seem like highly arbitrary authority well into one's biological adulthood. I mean the brain and the body are ready to be out hunting or building a shelter but you're stuck doing more advanced versions of the same crap you did in 2nd grade and with very little say in your own life. School is babyfying.

only college-level academics use it because MLA/APA citation format isn't much use to a plumber, an exterminator, a hairstylist, a football coach, a newscaster, a doctor, a helicopter pilot, etc etc

Are you arguing that writing papers in advanced-level high school literature and social studies classes is relevant to these people but citing sources when doing so isn't? My point was strictly about those types of classes, whose stated purpose in Ontario was (and I'm guessing still is) to prepare students for a university education. If they're to be offered at all, I think there are a lot (of very do-able things) they could do to come closer to this goal. I am not saying that every teenager needs to learn MLA/APA citation format. (And again, the other things I mentioned concern me a little more.)

I wouldn't really have a problem with making school a little more specialized after Gr 10 or so. Quebec does this to an extent.

(Proper citation format is surely relevant to students in medical sciences?)

(You never found high school unchallenging to the point of mind-numbing?)

Are you arguing that writing papers in advanced-level high school literature and social studies classes is relevant to these people but citing sources when doing so isn't?

yes

J.D. are you actually roger adultery?

judging from the fact that history has largely been replaced in schools by "social studies," which teaches students absolutely nothing worth knowing, looks like wilson won out over jefferson.

-- J.D., Wednesday, November 14, 2007 2:41 AM

at least they're teaching kids rhetoric, ey?

you're right, moonship. clearly thomas jefferson had nothing to tell us about education, and anyone who thinks his opinion might be more worth listening to than some academic who comes out with reactionary anti-democratic bilge like "on-the-job training, if incorporated into present educational structures, could produce educational success" is just being silly. and clearly our public schools are in fine shape, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a right-wing nutjob.

im going to go ahead and say that yeah, the opinion of a 20th-century academic for whom schooling and school systems are a major interest is probably "more worth listening to" on this topic than an 18th-century politician who lived a century before compulsory schooling was free and widespread.

http://www.fys.uio.no/~hkippe/gifer/crazy_mouse.gif

and chances are they'll respond "to get a better job." if this were actually the purpose of school, any private company could do it better

is this actually true, though? don't a lot of jobs presuppose that you come prepared with things you learned in high school? i mean, "to get a better job" you could teach kids how to talk, how to present themselves, how to dress, some job skills, etc etc

there's a lot of stuff that goes into getting a job, but school works one part (basic cognitive skills) and i wonder whether a private company could do a better job of it.

I was SO BORED with the insane easiness and busywork in fourth grade that I would spend hours trying to pull out my remaining teeth for a reason to get out of class for 15 minutes.