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Thread: Need for education reform

  1. #1
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    Need for education reform

    I'm preoccupied with the social impacts of the internet. So sue me.

    One of them reaches out to individuals at the most basic level: The "answer" to any question is readily available on line. The problem is that there is no quality control. No, I'm not an Andrew Keen afficianado, but previously, if you wanted to get something published in a journal, book, or such, a group of professionals kept the gate. Oh sure, you could publish something yourself, but distribution was going to be a *****. Well, that's not really an issue any more.

    First, you have the fact that internet publishing of all sorts is readily available. That's well and good, but it means that for anything but the hard sciences and math, any idiot can offer up their opinion as fact. The technotopian vision of people being exposed to all that information, and expanding their horizons is absolute bunk. What actually happens is that people consume information and assoicate with people on line that they already agree with. If they interact with those who disagree, it's usually to get in a fight. Hence the tongue in cheek, but entirely accurate "Godwin's Law," originally developed for usenet, which basically states that as an online discussion gets longer, the probability of a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis approaches one." Nothing mind-expanding going on here. Rather, it's just mirroring...IN GENERAL, we personalize our media to ensure that we never have to be exposed to something we don't agree with.

    This personalization can, in fact, be demonstrated by some rather interesting network analyses done on amazon book purchases. I don't, off the top of my head remember who does these analyses, but there are more than one, and the pattern has remained consistent. They show this: people who read "liberal" or "conservative" books, DON'T read books from the "other" side. An example is here

    Which brings me to my second point: Print and video media have been changed, because there is now worldwide distribution for any content, no matter how "niche." I can go to amazon and buy a book that my local store probably wouldn't have carried 20 years ago, because they have limited shelf space, and can't waste it on poor sellers. By contrast, inventory, as opposed to retail space, is cheap, and selling 10000 books at 10000 copies each is a cool 100 million. Can't think of any 100 million sellers off the top of my head. That's real profit.

    So you can personalize all that too.

    The point: We are inundated with information, of varying qualities and value. Education must ironically shift to something that looks more classical, with a grounding the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. If we are truly entering an "information" economy, then the advantage goes to those humans possessing the edge in information processing and analysis. The above three subjects give you the critical thinking skills you need to weed out bad arguments, and assess the information, opinions and facts on their merits.

    Time for a massive overhaul.
    "In the world of martial arts, respect is often a given. In the real world, it must be earned."

    "A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. "--Bertrand Russell

    "Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. "--Benjamin Disraeli

    "A conservative government is an organised hypocrisy."--Benjamin Disraeli

  2. #2
    Good topic.

    I've been quietly sheparding my sons toward a Jeffersonian approach to education. These days information is cheap but being able to find accurate information and knowing if it is accurate is the hard part.

    Once upon a time I looked at the internet for information, and while I still continue to do so I find myself more and more skeptical about what I see. These days I look for bloggers, posters or columnist whose writing I enjoy, if not necessarily agree with, and who seem to have a good head on their shoulders, and watch for who they're quoting or reading. So far I've picked up on some books and authors that have really made me think or have showed a perspective I don't have.

    Print media is going through some churn. Once upon a time in what now seems a long time ago I could buy a computer book and the information in it would be somewhat up to date for a few years. These days technology can change faster than someone can write a book, get if proofed and printed meaning almost any computer book you buy is out of date. I don't even buy martial arts books anymore because youTube is better to get across a technique than 25 still pictures. Now the only books I buy are classics, poolside reading and anything else that might stand the test of time.

    As a rule I avoid books by anyone, liberal or conservative, who has a radio show, and I've never understood the point of reading a book or blog by someone who I fully agree with. It is interesting to see birds of a feather doing the flocking thing and forming closed systems of thought where other view points are quickly rejected if they can even get by the thought police. It gets really fun when they start quoting each other to validate their opinions.


    You might be interested in this...
    http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
    What's really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you've got a market bigger than the hits. Take books: The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles. Yet more than half of Amazon's book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are (see "Anatomy of the Long Tail"). In other words, the potential book market may be twice as big as it appears to be, if only we can get over the economics of scarcity. Venture capitalist and former music industry consultant Kevin Laws puts it this way: "The biggest money is in the smallest sales."
    I'm rambling, time for bed.
    Last edited by rogue; 06-13-2008 at 09:52 PM.
    I quit after getting my first black belt because the school I was a part of was in the process of lowering their standards A painfully honest KC Elbows

    The crap that many schools do is not the crap I was taught or train in or teach.

    Dam nit... it made sense when it was running through my head.

    DM


    People love Iron Crotch. They can't get enough Iron Crotch. We all ride the Iron Crotch for the exposure. Gene

    Find the safety flaw in the training. Rory Miller.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Merryprankster View Post
    I'm preoccupied with the social impacts of the internet. So sue me.

    One of them reaches out to individuals at the most basic level: The "answer" to any question is readily available on line. The problem is that there is no quality control. No, I'm not an Andrew Keen afficianado, but previously, if you wanted to get something published in a journal, book, or such, a group of professionals kept the gate. Oh sure, you could publish something yourself, but distribution was going to be a *****. Well, that's not really an issue any more.

    First, you have the fact that internet publishing of all sorts is readily available. That's well and good, but it means that for anything but the hard sciences and math, any idiot can offer up their opinion as fact. The technotopian vision of people being exposed to all that information, and expanding their horizons is absolute bunk. What actually happens is that people consume information and assoicate with people on line that they already agree with. If they interact with those who disagree, it's usually to get in a fight. Hence the tongue in cheek, but entirely accurate "Godwin's Law," originally developed for usenet, which basically states that as an online discussion gets longer, the probability of a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis approaches one." Nothing mind-expanding going on here. Rather, it's just mirroring...IN GENERAL, we personalize our media to ensure that we never have to be exposed to something we don't agree with.

    This personalization can, in fact, be demonstrated by some rather interesting network analyses done on amazon book purchases. I don't, off the top of my head remember who does these analyses, but there are more than one, and the pattern has remained consistent. They show this: people who read "liberal" or "conservative" books, DON'T read books from the "other" side. An example is here

    Which brings me to my second point: Print and video media have been changed, because there is now worldwide distribution for any content, no matter how "niche." I can go to amazon and buy a book that my local store probably wouldn't have carried 20 years ago, because they have limited shelf space, and can't waste it on poor sellers. By contrast, inventory, as opposed to retail space, is cheap, and selling 10000 books at 10000 copies each is a cool 100 million. Can't think of any 100 million sellers off the top of my head. That's real profit.

    So you can personalize all that too.

    The point: We are inundated with information, of varying qualities and value. Education must ironically shift to something that looks more classical, with a grounding the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. If we are truly entering an "information" economy, then the advantage goes to those humans possessing the edge in information processing and analysis. The above three subjects give you the critical thinking skills you need to weed out bad arguments, and assess the information, opinions and facts on their merits.

    Time for a massive overhaul.
    LOL....classical? A lot of our education techniques of the past have led to the present. For example...traditional grammar taught us what? Who still has traditional grammar?

    Everyone in the public and private system. Grammar needed an overhaul in order for it to make sense in the improvement of writing. Traditional grammar did nothing to improve our writing. Most teachers of grammar don't even know the rules without a book. The truth is: you don't need the rules. You only need to know how to employ the words. We needed implementation strategies, and are using them now, or were....until No Child Left Behind.


    REally, there's nothing in education so frightening as No Child Left Behind. Studying for testing strategies rather than learning valuable skills.

    We're turning out morons as big as Laura Bush and Georgie Poorgie.

    Grammar test: why is this sentence incorrect, and why is the rule in place in place?

    I'd like to actually have sex and not have to pay for it.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by rogue View Post

    As a rule I avoid books by anyone, liberal or conservative, who has a radio show, and I've never understood the point of reading a book or blog by someone who I fully agree with. .
    HAHA.....that's a good one....

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    As someone who is in grad school right now in an education related field, the buzzword is "information literacy", which is crucial in the information age.


    To move in a different direction, our culture needs to change if we want our education system to perform better (especially in the Teenage years, but it probably starts before that). Education is NOT valued by our children, which I suspect goes back to the parents. I suspect if parents are more involved in education from an earlier age, it could help a little. Stricter discipline at home could also make a difference. I don't know what the answers are.

    This is not an accross-the-board statement, but it certainly applies to a lot of today's youth.


    Conclusion: Not all of our educational problems can be solved by the schools, school districts, or the government. Education, and more importantly educational values, start at home, which is where these values to be nurtured and prepared for school.
    Last edited by bodhitree; 06-14-2008 at 09:28 AM.
    Bless you

  6. #6
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    LOL....classical? A lot of our education techniques of the past have led to the present. For example...traditional grammar taught us what? Who still has traditional grammar?

    Everyone in the public and private system. Grammar needed an overhaul in order for it to make sense in the improvement of writing. Traditional grammar did nothing to improve our writing. Most teachers of grammar don't even know the rules without a book. The truth is: you don't need the rules. You only need to know how to employ the words. We needed implementation strategies, and are using them now, or were....until No Child Left Behind.
    Traditional traditional. Grammar usually encompassed learning not just the vernacular but greek or latin. There is value there. Grammar teaches you the building blocks of language and expression. Vocabulary, sentence structure, and meaning.

    Logic teaches you to distinguish the good and strong arguments and information from the bad and weak. Critical thinking. Personally, I think this has taken a big hit as deconstructionism somehow meandered out of literary analysis and made inroads into other subjects....

    Rhetoric teaches you to express yourself in written and verbal form.

    Put em together and you have the building blocks of the education needed today.

    We don't need implementation strategies, per se. We need to realize that the current system is rooted in educating children for an industrial world. Scratch that... we TRAINED them, and still do. Education involves instilling a love of learning, and providing the tools for self-learning. Not necessary for a factory worker or factory foreman.

    And this is not to disparage them, either. The other fact that we need to recognize is that not everybody is cut out for college or an analogous environment. That's not a knock on them, it's just a fact. What I would like to see is a set of comprehensives taken say, around the age of 14 or 15. If you pass, they college track your courses. If not, then votech. Heck, I can't rebuild an engine. But I know some guys who aren't the "brightest," in terms of book learnin' that can do it blindfolded.

    Somewhere along the way, we got very very confused. Collectively, in the U.S. at least, we are obsessed with college completion rates. Yes, that correlates to higher lifetime earnings, but the jury is still out on causation (those who complete college are usually smarter, more motivated etc, than those who start but quit).

    However, masonry, nursing, mechanics, etc are serious money makers as well. Skilled labor is vital. It is useful, and it can make people a lot of money. I'd like to see a national shift towards recognizing its value, and placing that kind of mastery on the same pedestal as a bachelor's degree.

    How about some love and money for the votech?

    I would also eliminate subject specific magnet schools. I want educated people, not specially trained monkeys.

    It's not so important that people go to college....it's horribly important that they are equipped with the BASIC skills to write, distinguish solid argumentation, and express themselves; coequal and inseparable from this is the idea that we need to prepare people to make a living, whether they go to college or not.

    Otherwise, civil society suffers.

    Bodhitree - no argument there. Education cannot be only the responsibility of the schools.
    "In the world of martial arts, respect is often a given. In the real world, it must be earned."

    "A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand. "--Bertrand Russell

    "Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. "--Benjamin Disraeli

    "A conservative government is an organised hypocrisy."--Benjamin Disraeli

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    There's the problem though. Education has become tied to business, and even liberal arts universities have begun to sell out to "customer service" and business-oriented strategies in every field. There is no "love of learning." There is "love of money", love of high student counts, love of quotability. But university boards are selling their souls for money, and the economy and every high school is selling the image of

    COLLEGE DIPLOMA=BIG MONEY

    So, you get military grads with horrible education, pampered upper middle classers who take their college entry for granted, and a vast spectrum of underpriveleged persons making use of social-climbing means to get into college to make more money. I don't know of many people who attend school anymore because they enjoy it. Most people think I'm a freak. This isn't Cambridge in the days of seventeenth century scholars.......

  8. #8
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    As for grammar:

    Knowing the rules by their rule does not =

    Better implementation.

    I've just run through a ****load of studies that naysays every claim that teaching formal grammar rules in any way improves implementation, and discussed it ad infinitum in my graduate level "Composition Theory" course at GSU, which is about teaching composition, grammar, and writing to undergrads. I found it offensive to think so, but honestly, when I really think about it, I learned every grammar rule by implementation, and really only learned English grammar when learning foriegn languages. Until then, I didn't need it.

    Latin and Greek give us a better etymological understanding of our "Scholarly" language, but Old English is a better resource for our "Entire" language. There's more Germanic influence than Latin and Greek, especially in our sentence structures. English has borrowed more from the French and old French than Greek and Latin. The latin infusion was used for scholarly jargon, instituted by traditionalists who kept their position as scholars secure by instituting that jargon, which nobody else had; also, religious texts were preserved in latin, so it held a nice holy place in their minds.

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    Quote Originally Posted by ShaolinTeachersUnionWookie View Post


    REally, there's nothing in education so frightening as No Child Left Behind. Studying for testing strategies rather than learning valuable skills.



    Ah yes, accountability is terrifying.

  10. #10
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    Take any subject that is a grounding principle.

    IE:

    Mathematics
    Reading Comprehension and Writing (English language for this case)
    History
    Social Studies/ Interpretation of Current events
    Science - Chemistry/Biology/Physics et al

    any of these disciplines will be further refined dependent upon your choicce of career path.

    so the math you learn in high school will be light years behind what you learn in uni for your astro-mechanics course.

    also, if you are going to be a writer, phonics will not get you beyond writing heavily edited farting dog stories.

    yes, the educational system that you are mandated to attend is the toolset required for higher learning which is what you will need to make a significant change in your life or the lives of others, barring some form of natural genius and overwhelming capacity for learning and compassion, most of us will go that way.
    Kung Fu is good for you.

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    Quote Originally Posted by unkokusai View Post
    Ah yes, accountability is terrifying.
    Have you ever taught in a NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND classroom during the testing preps and assessment sessions?

    I'm going to say no, or else you wouldn't be so snide.

    Accountability is achieved thus:

    Instead of giving lessons every class period, which all of us recieved, teachers must cram more material into fewer sessions and shorter classes. Then, they replace that discussion time with sessions where they teach children how to perform on state-based standardized tests, which value no imagination, style, or anything of what we might call "personalized education". Rather, we teach them all to value what is key to the utilization of assessment numbers by a bunch of Washington politicos who value number crunching and "accountability" over functional literacy. Hence, rather than, say, giving a SAT prep course on weekends, we've effectually replaced in-classroom learning sessions with these State-test prep courses. You learn how to test. You don't learn information.

    We're giving them the education equivalent to what qualifies the ruck of the lot.

    I've seen it firsthand in several schools and participated, have you?

    Then, at the cost of further lessons, a teacher has to perform individualized assessment of the students during hte semester. This means, he/she fills out a report that is supposed to summarize each student's strengths and weaknesses with 1 on 1 conferences. Meanwhile, the students sit in the classroom without guidance, doing busy work or reading (which they're supposed to do outside of class). This happens a couple times per semester.

    But then, if you're a supporter of No CHild Left Behind, clearly you think the educational system left you behind?

    It's okay man. There's always HUKT ON FONIKS. Or, you could always go back to grade school and see what's going on.

    Of course, if you want to politicize the classroom, let me submit the political world to the classroom. Let's begin with Dan Quail's "Potatoe" and George Bush's ".....can't get fooled again". Yes, clearly the minds we want behind educational reform.

  12. #12
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    Perhaps you think getting a high score on some multiple choice scantron and computer-graded essay test is more important than understanding how to show your work on long division and comprehending issues of syntax and style in Huckleberry Finn?

    If so, sign onto that No CHILD LEFT BEHIND bill and contribute to the mediocracy of hte middle class...LOL...

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    I've been teaching for 15 years now. I've taught at public schools, private schools, universities, private tutoring situations, etc.

    The people most opposed to testing and accountability are lazy teachers and corrupt unions who want to protect the 'right' to slack off and let kids just drift on by after year, who see the classroom as their 'turf' that no one had better dare step into and who see education as a political power they will never give up, or who want to ensure that whatever flavor of the day teaching 'methodology' they have most recently tied their sense of self importance to is never inconvenienced by actually expecting any kind of resuts.


    What a load of crap. Testing of one sort or another is a part of life and always will be. Would you want a surgeon who never passed a test to operate on you? Would you want a president with virtually no experience to lead your country? Oh wait, you probably would...

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by unkokusai View Post
    I've been teaching for 15 years now. I've taught at public schools, private schools, universities, private tutoring situations, etc.

    The people most opposed to testing and accountability are lazy teachers and corrupt unions who want to protect the 'right' to slack off and let kids just drift on by after year, who see the classroom as their 'turf' that no one had better dare step into and who see education as a political power they will never give up, or who want to ensure that whatever flavor of the day teaching 'methodology' they have most recently tied their sense of self importance to is never inconvenienced by actually expecting any kind of resuts.


    What a load of crap. Testing of one sort or another is a part of life and always will be. Would you want a surgeon who never passed a test to operate on you? Would you want a president with virtually no experience to lead your country? Oh wait, you probably would...
    If you're a teacher, I quit. You passed the tests.....'nuff said.

    We're all doomed

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    Glad to hear you quit. Good luck finding another job where you can be lazy and self-righteous at the same time.

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