The Decaying Evolution of Education...

[philosophygirl78]

Yes! But I fear that the only way that would work would be to start at a few select schools, the ones most likely to be motivated to accept a new program and then create a school that only teaches self education. Absolutely no subject content whatsoever; no history mathematics, science or anything else. All testing to be done by anonymous outside sources. Basically, just teach students how to teach themselves and be extremely rigorous about it. Many of the subjects you and others have mentioned would be appropriate but everything, everything, with the intent that when you emerge you are not "educated" (none of us ever will be) but you know how to further your ongoing education, an education that will never end. This would deliver the best result in our fast changing world. It would, hopefully, create objective minds (which our schools seem bent on destroying). And it would set an example to be followed more or less by other institutions.

Of course the students would hate it ... we'd have to do something to make it seem like there was some immediate gratification in it. Most professors would be utterly unqualified to teach in such a program but hopefully it would attract those who were. My most challenging dream would be to create some sort of gentle weeding out process and then accept students with all types of scholastic records. Some couldn't continue to stay but it would be different enough so that maybe kids who didn't have a rigorous formal education up to that point could flourish. I'd like to say that only the basics of reading and math would be necessary but that might be a bit utopian. The idea is that a wide variety get a shot, but if you don't make the grade , out you go.

There's a documentary about the Danish (I believe) school system, where the children only sit in the classroom for 3 hours a day and play outside physical games and activity the rest. And no homework. They produce the highest scores in all of Europe. When the reporters asked the educators why they do it this way, the reply was, 'we want the children to be happy. then, they will succeed.'...

 

[philosophygirl78]

Perhaps the best way to re-focus higher education on education is to eliminate federal funding of research and to also eliminate television coverage of college sports.
At far to many universities the actual education budget is in third place, behind funded research and intercollegiate athletics.
So "higher education" is just an excuse to run tax-exempt research businesses and sports franchises.
Faculty are hired for their research prowess and the greatest efforts in student recruiting is towards student-athletes.
Without outside-funded research and athletic department empires, the most important people on college campuses would be the actual students and the faculty who teach them.

Agreed 1000%.

 

[MikeKardec]

There's a documentary about the Danish (I believe) school system, where the children only sit in the classroom for 3 hours a day and play outside physical games and activity the rest. And no homework. They produce the highest scores in all of Europe. When the reporters asked the educators why they do it this way, the reply was, 'we want the children to be happy. then, they will succeed.'...

There is a limit ... unless you're really in love with a subject. I was ready to go 24/7 but many college students today are definitely NOT there for the classes and their threshold is as limited as a grade school kid. I taught two classes at Colorado College, a place that is very proud of using the "block system," an immersion style class where students sped around 7 hours a day and only take one class at a time, each class runs for three and a half weeks. It's absolute HEAVEN for visiting faculty, in a month you are in and out, but I have a very low opinion of it as a method of instruction. Your students never have time to think, decompress, or subconsciously integrate anything they learn.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Maybe teaching kids how to reason and use logic.

Stands to reason I suppose, it's logical when you think about it.................but that would imply that it isn't innate & therefore anyone who hadn't received a formal or state education, would be unable to reason & use logic, n'est-ce pas ?

 

[Lean'n'mean]

There's a documentary about the Danish (I believe) school system, where the children only sit in the classroom for 3 hours a day and play outside physical games and activity the rest. And no homework. They produce the highest scores in all of Europe. When the reporters asked the educators why they do it this way, the reply was, 'we want the children to be happy. then, they will succeed.'...

Are you sure that is indeed "the Danish school system" & not experimental ? but even so, you can't compare a little country of 5 million inhabitats to that of say the U.S.A......... or can you ? http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Denmark/United-States/Education

 

[Lean'n'mean]

They produce the highest scores in all of Europe. .

That's not what the stats suggest; http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27314075

 

[philosophygirl78]

Stands to reason I suppose, it's logical when you think about it.................but that would imply that it isn't innate & therefore anyone who hadn't received a formal or state education, would be unable to reason & use logic, n'est-ce pas ?

Would it be but one level to divulge in, perhaps.... wouldnt that be lovely?

 

[philosophygirl78]

Are you sure that is indeed "the Danish school system" & not experimental ? but even so, you can't compare a little country of 5 million inhabitats to that of say the U.S.A......... or can you ? http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Denmark/United-States/Education

No, indeed you cannot compare such matters. And you will find that I am not of the persuasion to make such comparisons, especially as some do with other things. But I do think there is importance in studying other cultures that seem to house success when it comes to education. This may have been an experimental situation, I honestly do not recall...

 

[Stanley Doble]

Wayne State University drops math requirement, to add diversity requirement.

Gee I wonder why so many graduates have a hard time qualifying for a good job.

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/22537

 

[LizzieMaine]

At last, a college I could qualify to get into.

 

[SurfGent]

Grammar.

Rhetoric.

Logic.

Arithmetic.

Geometry.

Music.

Astronomy.

Those were, traditionally, regarded as the seven liberal arts. A good secondary school education should present the tools for mastery of all of them- and I'd submit that any decent baccalaureate program (no matter the major- be it engineering, nursing, education, and, yes, one of the modern liberal arts) should reinforce and strengthen them.

So I've sifted through the last few pages of the thread. As the 1st few pages not all 23 I'll admit so if someone else has brought this up, let's continue. But this gentleman has come the closest to identifying the problem.

 

[SurfGent]

Before I can offer you a coherent explanation that most of you will understand. You would have to be knowledgeable on what's termed "Prussian Education" witch 99.99% of us Americans receive today.

Even the .001 receive it but the very few schools who add the additional methods , thouse children have that advantage.
The additional methods I'm alluding to are called the Trivium and quadrivium method. It's been referred to as "classical education" for thouse simi familiar with other forms. But generally it's been kept secret for several reasons.
I'd love to discuss this with my fellow FL members. Looking over some of your posts i can see some of you are smart enough to figure out that something is afoul in our education system, and your right. You have the nose to say it stinks. But the red herring has been laid down and until you do the very difficult work of tracking down the history of our education system and where it comes from, the K-12 Prussian model. You never be able to have a grasp of the total situation.

 

[SurfGent]

I've done extensive/very extensive research in this field and am very eager to discuss this topic with all of you, my good FL sisters and brothers

 

[SurfGent]

Also. If anybody can contribute to my thread I started called inspire. I quote a ancient Sanskrit poem quoted by the great hatter Alexander Conley in a YouTube video he made before he died. Think of it as a inspired space where you can put anything. A photo a quote a story a joke a warning. Anything that's inspiration to any of you. When we share these experiences with each other we have better connections and understanding and this uplifting action enhances our experience on FL.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

In the meantime............

 

[TimeWarpWife]

Frankly, I think the first thing children should be taught is how to use common sense. If you're not smart enough to come in out of the rain or cross the street without looking both ways (the latter I've run into - almost literally - several times the last couple of weeks with children and adults), then all the education in the world won't benefit you. This country, IMO, has become a nation of over educated birdbrains.

 

[ChiTownScion]

And what is often forgotten is that education ought to be a life's long process. A good education teaches one the scientific method and other means of acquiring and processing learned knowledge. That goes on- or at least ought to- long after you're handed that sheepskin.

I have to fight the regurgitation reflex every time that I see someone boasting of a "college of hard knocks" education on Facebook. I usually translate that as, "too lazy and dimwitted to even try, and perfectly willing to spend the rest of life gleefully wallowing in ignorance." Look... I get it that a college degree doesn't make one "smarter:" if anything, it ought to inculcate the bearer with a sense of awe as to the knowledge which they can never possibly acquire. But perpetually bitching about college educated boobs who are getting a better hand to play in the game of life gets tedious as well.

That said, I have encountered a handful- a HANDFUL- of people who are truly self educated to the point where I'm willing to doff my lid in sincere respect. (To our own Miss LizzieMaine: you certainly are among those few!) Another was a semi truck driver I knew who, among other virtues, lived and breathed Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau.. and could quote either at length.

If I had to articulate that characteristic that separates the complacent from the truly educated (formally or informally) it's that fire in the belly that will simply not allow that person to embrace inertia: the knowledge is out there, ripe for the plucking, and these folks always seem to have a bushel basket in hand. Some of that knowledge will never put a dime in their pockets--- but I guarantee that it will enrich them.

 

[SurfGent]

Well there's examples of this in the lexicon of humanity. In Don Quixote I believe it's a donkey tender who displayed this situation. A truck driver who reads Thoreau. But a student who is conversant with this three-fold procedural pattern, they are now capable - and this is one of the great things about the Trivium - of teaching themselves, with minimal guidance from an instructor, how to learn any established subject such as mathematics, geometry, musical theory, astronomy "the Classical Quadrivium" physics, chemistry, history, philosophy, etc, or of fully grasping any propositional topic he is motivated upon which to focus - like current socio/political issues, newly developing scientific hypotheses, historical and literary analyses, and so on. In other words, through the process of learning how to learn, they learn how to critically and creatively think . . . for themselves. That last sentence sums up the process.The first aspect of systematic thinking is to learn the elements of a proposition or subject in order to critically define a problem or an opportunity (this is done in the grammar and logic stages). Once defined, we use our creative thought capacity to solve the problem or find ways to take advantage of the opportunity (the classical rhetorical mode accomplishes this task).This makes a person a first-hand, independent thinker rather than remaining a second-hand, dependent thinker. In not relying on his own organized thoughts, a second-hand thinker (usually one marked by low self-esteem) has his mental content filled by various so called authorities like the mass media and its advertising; professionals and politicians, some of whom may be unscrupulous; officials, both benign and despotic, in schools and in the work place.The first-hand mode - the Trivium pattern of organization - is in fact the way the human mind would naturally order itself for effective thinking if this process were not aggressively discouraged by various entrenched factions in society - those self-perceived and self-proclaimed guardians of convention. To state the process in its simplest form, the 3 steps in order answer the 5 Ws + How to identify knowledge and how its inter-related in context of its surroundings, producing objective and verifiable understanding

 

[SurfGent]

In the meantime............

?

 

[Harp]

the human mind would naturally order itself for effective thinking if this process were not aggressively discouraged by various entrenched factions in society - those self-perceived and self-proclaimed guardians of convention.

...those warlocks and witches of the Socratic method, law school faculty.