Changes to school plan

[poxpower]

I'm a big proponent of the whole "schools teach retarded things no one cares about" line of thought that I just made up right now.

School is structured so that you can go on to the next level of school. That's basically how it is. You get in school to get into high school to get to college to get a BA, then a master's then a doctorate and after you've spent 30 years of your life doing nothing, get a job teaching other future doctorates in college. Meanwhile everyone is still fat, stupid, sick and ignorant.

Here's what I propose. You can choose to either be right and agree with me or be wrong. :D
:D :D :D :D

=======

1. Nutrition. All the classes we had in our time on nutrition were based around the 50s "food guide" which was put together by agricultural lobbies. Here's the total amount of dairy you need in one day: none. People don't know much about nutrition these days. I say, let's make nutrition classes where kids can EAT DELICIOUS FOOD and learn good dietary habits.

2. Non-team physical education. I was pretty fat in high school and the last thing I wanted to do was play in sports with the athletic thin kids. And once school is over, no one plays team sports anyway unless they get into a league. You'll see the ex-jocks stack on the pounds as their metabolism slows down and they no longer have the time and capability to play basketball with 20 people on weekdays. I say: make people learn to enjoy physical activities they can do on their own. Biking, swimming, hiking, jogging etc.

3. Critical thinking classes. Schools are just facts, facts, facts, facts. Here's some facts, I don't care what you think about it, just digest it and write it back on a piece of paper in 2 weeks so you move on to the next level of fact class. Result? People are fucking morons. You can know all about the civil war but have no idea how a pyramid scheme is run or how people sell you divine magic crystals that do nothing because you were educated to take what any supposed authority says as fact. Critical thinking classes would be AWESOME. You'd look at fallacies, look at why particular types of reasonings are stupid, learn how to shape morals, ethics etc.

4. Less litterature. Shakepeare is BULLSHIT. I'm sorry, there is no call for this. Reading literature is the exact same thing as watching movies in the classroom. They just didn't have movies when they started. Replace reading with WRITING. Make kids write more reports on current events, politics, science or even entertainment. Ask them what they think. Make them shape ideas. Don't force them to mentally masturbate over how great Edgar Allan Poe supposedly is based on totally arbitrary standards set by people who died 100 years ago.

5. More politics, less history. Specifically: how the system works. We barely had any classes on this in high school. No one votes because no one knows how the fuck it works anymore. It's so complicated and there's so many things to know that people just get paralyzed and stop caring. Sure we spent 100 hours talking about the history of how people with giant boats came here to kick the Indian's asses, but what good does THAT do? Am I now more qualified to vote on a Prime Minister? No, I'm just more of an idiot who knows the equivalent of what happened in the Lord of the Rings books. Things that happened 400 years ago hold the same place in our minds as fiction. There's no difference to us.

6. No more french. French sucks. No one should learn it anymore. Let it die already. Kids spend a ridiculous amount of time learning french and lose a stupid amount of points on tests and essays making mistakes. Why? Because FRENCH IS A BADLY DESIGNED LANGUAGE. Oops tough shit, there is such a thing. English is far superior in written form. People complain a lot about how English is hard to pronounce well. So what? Who gives a shit? Do you get graded on that? No. You don't. With the internet and spell check programs, learning how to write any language properly when a computer can correct it for you is pure stupidity and a waste of everyone's time.

Spellcheckers cannot correct mistakes in French by the way, since it's so twisted and shitty. But they correct 99.9% of the ones in English. I could go on for my english should be the language everyone uses but ... it's just too obvious.

==

I'll stop there before your mind explodes.

[SteveGuzzi]

At 9/23/09 11:32 AM, poxpower wrote: 1. Nutrition.

I remember the old 'Food Pyramid' (or is that still in use?) and the even older 'Four Basic Food Groups' but for the life of me I can't remember being taught "proper nutrition" in either Home Ec. OR Health class. I'm sure they covered it briefly but nothing in-depth.

The thing about this is that kids aren't even the ones responsible for the food purchases at home so it's not like they have a whole lot of options as far as what they get to eat to begin with. Besides, it doesn't take a whole ton of schooling to know that fruits and veggies are better for you than cookies and chips and to eat appropriate foods in their right amounts, it just takes good parenting. You might say that learning proper nutrition will help them be better parents when they have kids to feed but do you really think they'll a) hold on to that information for that long or b) that there won't be newer food studies and products that invalidates some or all of that information anyway?

2. Non-team physical education.

Sounds like a maybe-decent idea but there are several problems. Biking? That means they have to buy enough bikes for all the students as well as perform constant maintenance for their brakes, chains, and tires so some kid doesn't bust his ass on faulty equipment and start a lawsuit. Swimming? Not every school has a pool and for those that don't, that's just another thing to buy and constantly maintain. Hiking? Jogging? Walking/running in circles is boring as shit so the school has to be around a scenic area or whatever... and even then they'd get bored just by always being in the same place all the time. Most people seem to prefer to jog with music players and headphones and that's just the type of thing that schools love to confiscate from students.

Also, It seems like you're suggesting it as a way just to avoid competition (e.g. fat kid getting crapped on by the athletes) but what makes even 'solo' things like swimming or biking or running is competition (or at least SOME sort of involvement) with other people. Besides, team sports are good in that they teach teamwork, co-operation, fair play, good sportsmanship, et cetera.

3. Critical thinking classes.

Well... this is actually directly related to --

4. Less litterature.

We NEVER read just for the sake of reading or to go "oh hey isn't this such a good OLD book! wow, it's GREAT! and OLD! yay!"... we read to actually discuss the material. So even though you say Shakespeare and books in general are B.S. ... they aren't. I agree that having to read stuff in Ye Olde English can be aggravating and boring, but good literature presents various situations and scenarios that DO deal with morals, ethics, proper reasoning, differences in perspective, et cetera. If your teachers had you read books just to have you regurgitate what you read two weeks later, then you had lazy teachers. Discussing motives, justifications, how characters may be right or wrong or why they think the way they do, discussing alternative scenarios and possibilities, et cetera... that IS critical thinking.

5. More politics, less history. Specifically: how the system works.

Eh, I don't know. We learned exactly "how the system works" towards the latter part of highschool. It's completely irrelevant (not to mention boring as fuck) to kids in elementary school. I agree with your whole idea that school should be more than just about cramming facts into brains to be vomited-out later for quizzes and tests, but history is seriously important shit. It's how we got where we are, after all. Just because people are detached from what happened before they were born doesn't mean that stuff is unimportant. It's just another subject to critically-think about that ISN'T just pure fiction but that has had consequences and repercussions that extend even into our era.

6. No more french. French sucks.

I concur. Other languages are cool though. :P

With the internet and spell check programs, learning how to write any language properly when a computer can correct it for you is pure stupidity and a waste of everyone's time.

I think complete reliance on a computer to get that right for you is even stupider. I mean, you can't type a sentence with more than five words into an online translator before it mangles the shit out of it. Fun thing to do: translate a simple sentence from one language to another and then back to the original just to see how messed-up it can get.

[AapoJoki]

I propose media/internet class. This could be covered in critical thinking, but it might be large enough a subject to warrant its own class. Basically, kids need to learn how to deal with the internet and its content. Which sites provide factual information and which ones falsehoods and propaganda? How to recognize them? Which kind of sites can you trust with your personal information? How to protect yourself from phishing and other online scams? How to recognize when people are joking online? How to avoid being trolled?

[All-American-Badass]

At 9/23/09 11:32 AM, poxpower wrote: 4. Less litterature. Shakepeare is BULLSHIT. I'm sorry, there is no call for this. Reading literature is the exact same thing as watching movies in the classroom. They just didn't have movies when they started. Replace reading with WRITING. Make kids write more reports on current events, politics, science or even entertainment. Ask them what they think. Make them shape ideas. Don't force them to mentally masturbate over how great Edgar Allan Poe supposedly is based on totally arbitrary standards set by people who died 100 years ago.

I agree with this 100% we should not have to learn about shakespere, especially in America. he was some british fag who wrote plays 400 years ago. No one cares. If we should have to learn about literature we should learn literature that was written in the past 50 years by people of your own nationality.

6. No more french. French sucks. No one should learn it anymore. Let it die already. Kids spend a ridiculous amount of time learning french and lose a stupid amount of points on tests and essays making mistakes. Why? Because FRENCH IS A BADLY DESIGNED LANGUAGE. Oops tough shit, there is such a thing. English is far superior in written form. People complain a lot about how English is hard to pronounce well. So what? Who gives a shit? Do you get graded on that? No. You don't. With the internet and spell check programs, learning how to write any language properly when a computer can correct it for you is pure stupidity and a waste of everyone's time.

Yeah I'm afriad they're gonna force us to learn spanish here in the states with all the illegals coming in. I really don't see a point in learning French unless you're going to montreal or france. That aside I don't like English either, i think i should invent a new language that isn't as complicated as spanish or english or french.

[ohbombuh]

Here's what I propose. You can choose to either be right and agree with me or be wrong. :D

I'll try my best.

1. Nutrition.

I don't know what your school is like, but our lunch ladies and health teacher are eternal enemies (the food doesn't taste good either).

2. Non-team physical education.

Definitely. Plus, if you're graded by team performance (or if you're wearing gym clothes, like at my school), there's no logical reason you should get stuck with the grade as an individual.

3. Critical thinking classes.

It would probably be stopped by school boards, half of which are usually threated by any kind of independent thought (hence English classes being required to find classics with minimal offensive language).

4. Less litterature....Don't force them to mentally masturbate over how great Edgar Allan Poe supposedly is based on totally arbitrary standards set by people who died 100 years ago.

Agreed. I had to read nothing but E.A.P. for 2 months in 7th grade. He was some 19th century psycho who seems to have an oddly convenient connection to women dying.

5. More politics, less history.

You have done well in pleasing the politics forums.

6. No more french.

All we get at my school is 3 required years of high school Spanish. Want to go anywhere in Asia, Africa, or Europe (excluding Spain and England, of course)? Too bad.

Spellcheckers cannot correct mistakes in French by the way, since it's so twisted and shitty. But they correct 99.9% of the ones in English. I could go on for my english should be the language everyone uses but ... it's just too obvious.

Fine by me, just wait for all the other countries to start requiring English (China, Japan, and India are doing pretty good if I heard correctly), and appeal to the school boards.

I'll stop there before your mind explodes.

Oh good, I hate it when that happens.

[TheStonePilot]

The school system in general is just stupid. Not just because of standardized testing, teachers who don't get paid enough to give two shits, or that they teach facts that no one will ever use and make you memorize it. It's the whole system that just doesn't work.

We need five years of basic schooling- Mathematics, science, geography, etc. Then 3 years of those same subjects, but in-depth and according to specified interests. Then, college, which will provide even more indepth knowledge, but in the field you chose. College will last for a mandatory 4 years, basically replacing high school, and then you can continue on for up to 12 years getting high degrees.

This is all theory and in practice, I doubt it would work, but I sure as hell know that today, I never use Calculus, biology, chemistry, or even algebra in my everyday life. I doubt that'll change. And yet I wasted seven years learning useless shit like that. (I'm not counting Elementary schools because they teach a wide range of actually useful subjects.)

School lunches nowadays aren't healthy at all. They serve stuff like PB&J, chicken, stuff like that. Although there has been an improvement within the last few years- removing soda machines was a bad move, in my opinion- they're not going to change the nutrition tables anytime soon. I was taught a food pryamid that said you should eat something like 30 total servings of food a day, so that's just wrong.

On gym, it's much, much more efficient just to give them an assignment and just let them tire themselves out. Coordinating 30+ rowdy idiot kids in a hot gym would be hell for anyone.

French sucks, I agree. I took Spanish instead, because in Florida half the people speak it and it's actually useful.

Literature- No comment. Writing more would improve comprehension in schools, though.

Politics- Teaching current politics and using examples to show how the system works would be amazing. It would make people much more alert to the political world.

[SmilezRoyale]

At 9/23/09 11:32 AM, poxpower wrote:

School is structured so that you can go on to the next level of school. That's basically how it is. You get in school to get into high school to get to college to get a BA, then a master's then a doctorate and after you've spent 30 years of your life doing nothing, get a job teaching other future doctorates in college. Meanwhile everyone is still fat, stupid, sick and ignorant.

I FUCKING agree!

Here's what I propose. You can choose to either be right and agree with me or be wrong. :D

D :D :D :D

And if i refuse? >:(

1. Nutrition.

AP Nutrition Classes? Interesting. Though the main problem with nutrition is that nutrition science is constantly changing, (The nutritional value of caffine seems to jostle from horrible to wonderful every other month) whereas in something like high school physics the major ground work has been laid with new breakthroughs usually occurring in the more advanced levels of physics, what we 'know' about nutrition today may be entirely different from what we know about nutrition tomorrow. The curriculum may very well have to change every two to three years. But the idea has merit, and the only genuine way to know if this is effective is through experimentation. Unfortunately, diversity and experimentation is frowned upon in our universal, uniform, and compulsory education system.

2. Non-team physical education.

Biking and swimming might be rather expensive... i don't think schools can afford a swimming pool off hand nor providing every student with a bike. But i agree that physical education should not be centered around sports, it should be centered around fitness. Just get the kids moving, they don't have to be doing anything tactical or competitive. My preference would be to something like kickboxing, since it has utility in both exercise and in self-defense.

3. Critical thinking classes. Schools are just facts, facts, facts, facts. Here's some facts, I don't care what you think about it, just digest it and write it back on a piece of paper in 2 weeks so you move on to the next level of fact class. Result? People are fucking morons.

Critical thinking has it's merits. Funny though, i was talking with a math teacher and she told me the reason she sends her kid to private school is because she complained that the public schools taught her exactly as you describe.

:You can know all about the civil war but have no idea how a pyramid scheme is run or how people sell you divine magic crystals that do nothing because you were educated to take what any supposed authority says as fact.

I love you and hate you at the same time. That you complain about the dull and dogmatic nature of the state compulsory education system. Yet simultaneously seem to support the centralized, uniform, and unaccountable state system that has supported this undead creature.

4. Less litterature. Shakepeare is BULLSHIT. I'm sorry, there is no call for this. Reading literature is the exact same thing as watching movies in the classroom. They just didn't have movies when they started. Replace reading with WRITING. Make kids write more reports on current events, politics, science or even entertainment. Ask them what they think. Make them shape ideas. Don't force them to mentally masturbate over how great Edgar Allan Poe supposedly is based on totally arbitrary standards set by people who died 100 years ago.

I agree that literature classes are silly from a practical standpoint. The reason they still exist today is because the education system we have today has not changed a great deal from the way children were taught 100 years ago, the main differences being that teachers don't hit their students though they often have affairs with them. 1 teacher at a blackboard with 30 students behind him/her. Reading 'the classics' and writing essays about them harkens back to antiquity.

5. More politics, less history. Specifically: how the system works. We barely had any classes on this in high school. No one votes because no one knows how the fuck it works anymore. It's so complicated and there's so many things to know that people just get paralyzed and stop caring. Sure we spent 100 hours talking about the history of how people with giant boats came here to kick the Indian's asses, but what good does THAT do? Am I now more qualified to vote on a Prime Minister? No, I'm just more of an idiot who knows the equivalent of what happened in the Lord of the Rings books. Things that happened 400 years ago hold the same place in our minds as fiction. There's no difference to us.

Oh great, more civics classes by poxpower. So i can go to the education camps and learn about "History" And the founding of our great country, or rather, the twisted story of how the State has creat--
I mean... "Solved" all of our problems over the last two hundred years.

I am sorry, but whenever you give the government a near monopoly on education (or the approval thereof) Any class on history is inevitably going to tell you how great the institutions that fund the school are.

I'm not saying that learning history is bad.

6. No more french.

I get the impression you were forced to take french, because honestly there's no reason to complain if students chose to take french over whatever other languages are available; it's their choice, let them screw themselves with an impossible language if they so desire (Though They probably have SOME reason for learning it). My education camp is actually pretty good with providing a bit of options with languages, you've got Spanish, French, Italian, Mandarin, American Signlanguage, and Latin i think. (Of course Latin is entirely useless unless you want to study law or philosophy)

I don't think any of your suggestions were bad, insofar as they related to reforming education. And i think implementing them might have some positive results.

However, the whole reason our education system (Specifically the curriculum, not that there haven't been changes with respect to who can get an education, what kinds of teachers you have, etc.) hasn't changed substantially for nearly one hundred years is precisely because there is a compulsory monopoly on education. (private education is regulated by the state, and crowding out lowers the number of people that would probably chose a private school over a public school if they could afford to pay both insane property taxes and private school tuition)

What reason would a school in which students in the local area are forced to attend, and whom income is derived through taxation, have to improve or innovate their education system? The people that run the school have no long term personal gain if their school earns a good reputation, they'll get their money regardless, and it's no skin of their bones if the youths that pass through their halls turn into derelicts and criminals.

A free society doesn't need to guess what sort of curriculum would make the most of a child and then forcibly apply it to every single student in a town, a state, or even a country, it merely needs schools that are AUTONOMOUS from one another and from any person or persons that can impose a "blanket" management system, as well as having both a LONG TERM and short term investment in maintaining the quality of education, that is, they have both a moral but also a financial interest in maintaining the quality of education. Insofar as these two criterion are met you'll have a diverse and RELIABLE education system.

[Acid]

I've realized that all the classes in high school are about cumulative knowledge. It shouldn't be about the when and where, it should be about the why and how.

I really 100% thought that the greatest class I ever took in high school was Psychology. Understanding the way we think and learn and understanding ourselves is the first step to becoming more than a drone.

Well, you might enjoy this, I did: First Definition

[poxpower]

At 9/23/09 12:50 PM, SteveGuzzi wrote:

that there won't be newer food studies and products that invalidates some or all of that information anyway?

Well so what? That's not a reason to stop teaching anything.
History, chemistry, phyisics, biology, politics... it all changes every decade.

Jogging? Walking/running in circles is boring as shit so the school has to be around a scenic area or whatever...

Well if you live in a boring place, you're going to have to learn to get active in a boring place. The point of physical education should be to get kids to enjoy moving around. The way it is now, kids who do sports anyway like it and kids who don't do sports hate it.

Besides, team sports are good in that they teach teamwork, co-operation, fair play, good sportsmanship, et cetera.

Anyway even if playing team sports builds any sort of... anything in people, I'd argue that having kids find one physical activity they enjoy doing alone their entire lives is worth way way more.

Discussing motives, justifications, how characters may be right or wrong or why they think the way they do, discussing alternative scenarios and possibilities, et cetera... that IS critical thinking.

Dissecting fiction is strictly less useful than dissecting real events, especially current events.

It's how we got where we are, after all.

That's only a matter of curiosity really.
When you open a can of beans, you don't give a shit who invented cans or can-openers. You just want to eat the beans.

I mean, you can't type a sentence with more than five words into an online translator before it mangles the shit out of it.

I'm not talking about translators, I'm talking about spellcheckers.

At 9/23/09 01:14 PM, AapoJoki wrote: Basically, kids need to learn how to deal with the internet and its content. Which sites provide factual information and which ones falsehoods and propaganda?

That's a good one.

At 9/23/09 06:18 PM, All-American-Badass wrote:

i think i should invent a new language that isn't as complicated as spanish or english or french.

Nah fuck that.
Language is about culture. You learn French to mingle with french people. The reason people don't want to let go of their language is that it will erase their culture. But no one gives a shit or SHOULD give a shit.
So I say: let's stick with the best culture ever and build all future cultures on the same common ground.

It would solve so many problems in the world. When you hear someone speak a different language, you can't help but feel removed from them...

[Triented]

I'm just dropping by to say that optional different languages and grammar should be taught WHEN THE CHILD IS DEVELOPING THOUGHT PROCESS.
I'm 15 years old, and I'm sick and tired of people my age telling me that I'm using big words. Especially when they can't understand the words "theory, optional, capacity, interfere."
The reason I'm not bogged down with this crowd of unfortunate teenagers, is because I was read a book, every day, until I was 10.
Now I'm not saying that this is the only method to help a child's grammar, but do something, please.
The idiots of today's society are the one's that are actually smart...

[ArmouredGRIFFON]

I disagree with the history; because we, the people, did not learn from history, we stumbled into something we call the Credit Crunch.

How can kid's find an intrest in the subject, without an introduction? Isn't history the base form of politics anyway?

Without history, mistakes would be made over and over again. History as it is said would repeat, and as it does. I think, that mankind, should learn from it's mistakes. We should better ourselves as civilisation.

So how are we going to build a better tommorow. Without learning from past weaknesses?

Remember Efficiency>Deficiency

Not that tudor crap.

[poxpower]

At 9/25/09 07:00 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote:

Without history, mistakes would be made over and over again.

No, not really.
This is the dumbest justification for history people keep throwing around.
If that were even remotely true,first off, there wouldn't be any more wars. We've been doing wars for 8000 + years and all the history-learning in the world won't change that.

The only time you can learn from history is when you're trying to do something specific that someone else has tried before.
And that's NOT the kind of history that is taught in classes.

They don't tell people, for instance, the kinds of effects literacy will have on a country. That's the kind of things I want to hear and wish they had taught. What happens when certain political programs are implemented? What happens when certain military strategies are tried? See, that's actual lessons from history.
No one really needs to learn what Gods the ancient Egyptians worshipped or how long ago they built pyramids. That is completely trivial information and yet 99% of history textbooks are this kind of useless tripe.

The results? People have no fucking clue how to gauge anything in modern politics. Why fund schools? They can't tell you because they didn't learn why a high literacy rate is important. But they sure as fuck know who discovered the Grand Canyon! Boy that's helpful!

[EmoNarc]

I know I'm ignoring the vast majority of your post, but...

Literature is important. You learn to write by learning how to read. You have to get used to good language. And Shakespeare was a master at his craft: the powerful subtext lying underneath the dialogue, the beauty in his language, the pacing.

I am president of my high school's Writers' Workshop, and it is very apparent who reads and who doesn't. Those who don't read simply don't write well.

[ArmouredGRIFFON]

At 9/25/09 07:18 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 9/25/09 07:00 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote:

Without history, mistakes would be made over and over again.

No, not really.

Again, disagreed; relevantly if you had a girlfriend, slapped her, and got beat up by her dad. You would then learn, to never slap her again, or perhaps tie the loose strings before making the attempt.

If you did not learn from history, you would have zero input into consideration, you may slap her again, and get beat up again. Therefore you did not learn from your mistake because you did not pay attention to consequence. That's all history is really, action, cause, consequence.

I see where your coming from, and I respect your opinion. With respect I have the right to criticise, and in criticism I take each and every one of your points into judgement. This will give me something to look back on, and function to help improve my learning

See what I did there?

This is the dumbest justification for history people keep throwing around.
If that were even remotely true,first off, there wouldn't be any more wars. We've been doing wars for 8000 + years and all the history-learning in the world won't change that.

It won't change that, but what did we learn? Not from wars, but about people.
Tolerance, that's what we've learnt. Over time and history, it has developed, into something accepted by society. We look back into the past, and see the examples of others, people who have reformed the world, Martin Luther King, and whatnot. His ideals are still taught today, in History, so that the next generation does not subtly fall askew.

The only time you can learn from history is when you're trying to do something specific that someone else has tried before.

You can learn from example. Indeed.

They don't tell people, for instance, the kinds of effects literacy will have on a country. That's the kind of things I want to hear and wish they had taught. What happens when certain political programs are implemented? What happens when certain military strategies are tried? See, that's actual lessons from history.
No one really needs to learn what Gods the ancient Egyptians worshipped or how long ago they built pyramids. That is completely trivial information and yet 99% of history textbooks are this kind of useless tripe.
And that's NOT the kind of history that is taught in classes.

All agreed. Make this change Pox, when you reach your new seat in the White house. When people learn from history in this way. The fact of the matter is that both Science, and Law,have learnt from history, and made changes, subject to the situation

... Something about the Grand Canyon

All useless, irrelevant information! I agree! I believe schools, in History class, should be able to make the distinction between useful information, and somehow 'interesting' information, thus implementing the mistakes that should not be repeated into the curriculum. Anything that dictates "The Grand Canyon", should be taught in a remedial 'Trivia' class, don't you think?

[poxpower]

At 9/25/09 07:48 PM, EmoNarc wrote:

You learn to write by learning how to read.

First off, that would mean: no more Shakespeare. Ever.
Second: you don't have to read fiction.

At 9/25/09 07:52 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote:

Again, disagreed; relevantly if you had a girlfriend, slapped her, and got beat up by her dad. You would then learn

That's not history, that's experimentation.

Anything that dictates "The Grand Canyon", should be taught in a remedial 'Trivia' class, don't you think?

Hell if I know. It's just sad that history classes are more about teaching kids how to be great at Jeopardy than they are about teaching kids how to solve problems and how others have solved theirs.

[Elfer]

At 9/25/09 07:52 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote: Again, disagreed; relevantly if you had a girlfriend, slapped her, and got beat up by her dad. You would then learn, to never slap her again, or perhaps tie the loose strings before making the attempt.

Would you agree that pure history classes could be eliminated if historical examples were used as case studies in critical thinking classes?

We certainly already know that history classes have only been helping people learn about history, not from it. War, hatred and economic stupidity are still rampant.

[RaptorJesus]

I couldn't disagree with the OP more on everything except the non-team sports phys ed. I agree there's too much emphasis on team sports in Elementary & High Schools. And way too much funding spent in that area that could be better spent in core classes like Math, Science, English, or in electives like band/music.

Like take the football programs of most High Schools. Total waste of money since most of those kids after HS don't go on to play in college.

[ArmouredGRIFFON]

At 9/25/09 11:24 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 9/25/09 07:52 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote: Again, disagreed; relevantly if you had a girlfriend, slapped her, and got beat up by her dad. You would then learn, to never slap her again, or perhaps tie the loose strings before making the attempt.

Would you agree that pure history classes could be eliminated if historical examples were used as case studies in critical thinking classes?

They could be eliminated, but out of interest I think a pure history class, would be optional. After all, shouldn't there be balance?

We certainly already know that history classes have only been helping people learn about history, not from it. War, hatred and economic stupidity are still rampant.

Yes, yes I would. In fact I couldn't agree more!

The thing is I took particular attention in my History classes. I like to relate the mistakes of the past to the issue's of the present; and demonstrating my ideals and attitudes in my essays, in my studies, is what raised my standards to A* material.

Not the analysis crap, but because I can from history deduce the differences between theory and practice, and in relation to the present, we can transcribe this to action and consequence. This is the point I wish to make in schools. I think I was fortunate to have a teacher who agreed with me, and because I asked him, helped me understand how we could/and should put the past and present in relativity.

[poxpower]

At 9/25/09 11:36 PM, mrgreg846 wrote: like band/music.

No one should learn music in school.

What schools should do more of is help you figure out what you want to do hobby-wise at a young age. If you want to be good at something, you have to start ASAP but ultimately, we don't need dancers and actors, it's just entertainment. I'd rather form one biochemist than 40 graphic designers.

[ArmouredGRIFFON]

At 9/26/09 10:16 AM, poxpower wrote:

So we should move dancing and acting into Private Education?

[Elfer]

At 9/26/09 09:36 AM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote: They could be eliminated, but out of interest I think a pure history class, would be optional. After all, shouldn't there be balance?

Oh optional classes would be totally fine. However, history classes are kind of a waste of time for people who don't have a genuine interest in the subject itself.

On the subject of things that are mandatory and things that aren't, is anyone else completely baffled by the fact that shakespeare is a mandatory part of every student's curriculum, but not calculus?

[RaptorJesus]

At 9/26/09 10:16 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 9/25/09 11:36 PM, mrgreg846 wrote: like band/music.

No one should learn music in school.

What schools should do more of is help you figure out what you want to do hobby-wise at a young age. If you want to be good at something, you have to start ASAP but ultimately, we don't need dancers and actors, it's just entertainment. I'd rather form one biochemist than 40 graphic designers.

Wow, so biochemistry is a hobby? And music can't a hobby? And studying music makes you a graphic designer? I'm confused.

[ArmouredGRIFFON]

Well as he says.

When I think of all the crap I learnt in high school. It's a wonder I can think at all. 'Kodachrome', Paul Simon.

[morefngdbs]

Higher learning... the schools are geared toward that & it IMO sucks.
I've posted this before ,but I went to school with a guy who wanted to be a mechanic, he knew he wanted to be a mechanic since we were in junior high. He dropped out of high school to work on cars, he wanted to go to vocational training , but the wouldn't let him ...he had to be over 18 & he had to have been out of school for ( I think it was 2 years) before he could be eligible to go to vocational & take a mechanics course & get his papers.

Which I think is nucking futs !
This guy is now the lead mechanic at on of Halifax's largest car dealers, & he's certainly not the oldest, but when it comes to cars , he really knows his stuff & he loves working on them. He's not the only guy I know from school who knew what he wanted to do... several guy's I know wanted to be carpenters & they had to stay in school then go to vocational school for a trade, or their parents would have kicked them out !
Its a waste of their time, you don't need a grade 12 education to be a good carpenter, perhaps a change like allowing trade school courses in grades 11 & 12 would keep more people in school to graduate with a grade 12 dipolma, & they would be on their way to graduate, if they couldn't finish the requirements, to the trade of their choice.
My brother wanted to be a plumber & was working in the summer for a plumbing & heating company, he did it all through high school & went on the plumbing in trade school
Everyone isn't into school just to go to University,or at least they aren't around here.

[poxpower]

At 9/26/09 11:24 AM, Elfer wrote:

is anyone else completely baffled by the fact that shakespeare is a mandatory part

People don't realize it but reading Shakespeare is the equivalent of reading the scripts to movies.
Which is one notch down from actually watching movies.

At 9/26/09 11:26 AM, mrgreg846 wrote:

Wow, so biochemistry is a hobby? And music can't a hobby? And studying music makes you a graphic designer? I'm confused.

Prime example of how bad the school system is right there.
THIS GUY CAN VOTE PEOPLE.

[RaptorJesus]

At 9/26/09 01:07 PM, poxpower wrote:

Wow, so biochemistry is a hobby? And music can't a hobby? And studying music makes you a graphic designer? I'm confused.

Prime example of how bad the school system is right there.
THIS GUY CAN VOTE PEOPLE.

Um... sure... Says a guy that bases the public school system on one typing error in an informal BBS... And yes I can vote, that's the only thing you've said that's made any sense so far.

[SmilezRoyale]

At 9/25/09 07:18 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 9/25/09 07:00 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote:

Without history, mistakes would be made over and over again.

No, not really.
This is the dumbest justification for history people keep throwing around.
If that were even remotely true,first off, there wouldn't be any more wars. We've been doing wars for 8000 + years and all the history-learning in the world won't change that.

The only time you can learn from history is when you're trying to do something specific that someone else has tried before.
And that's NOT the kind of history that is taught in classes.

They don't tell people, for instance, the kinds of effects literacy will have on a country. That's the kind of things I want to hear and wish they had taught. What happens when certain political programs are implemented? What happens when certain military strategies are tried? See, that's actual lessons from history.
No one really needs to learn what Gods the ancient Egyptians worshipped or how long ago they built pyramids. That is completely trivial information and yet 99% of history textbooks are this kind of useless tripe.

The results? People have no fucking clue how to gauge anything in modern politics. Why fund schools? They can't tell you because they didn't learn why a high literacy rate is important. But they sure as fuck know who discovered the Grand Canyon! Boy that's helpful!

I agree with you to a certain extent. As far as state agents are concerned, learning history for them is useless since mass killings, wars, propaganda campaigns and other coerced projects come to their benefit, and most usually when the idea of learning history to avoid past mistakes is invoked it seems to be a statement directed at world political leaders.

As far as regular people are concerned, learning history is more useful to them since it gives them a tool at identifying the source of the problems they see today, and not being so keen to accept the next quick-fix scheme.

Though i disagree with you on the egyptians part, i found learning about ancient egypt was rather enlightening, ESPECIALLY about the pyramids. Just think about it for a second, who in the right mind would spend 20 years slaving for nothing just to construct a giant stone triangle?

My interpretation of the first states, the territorial monopolies that is, is that their origins were likely religious and probably cult-like in mentality. Because no one would willingly accept such a parasitic arrangement as existed in ancient Egypt unless one was convinced that the cult leader was a god. No one would

But i stand by what i said before. The only reason we're forced to debate about what kinds of education people 'should' have is because we have become accustomed to an education system where curriculum are often mandatory and uniform in nature. If the government decided to nationalize the fashion industry we would probably be discussing what kinds of fashions people should be wearing.