The Second Apocalypse
Miscellaneous Chatter => Philosophy & Science => Topic started by: Royce on February 18, 2014, 11:59:14 am
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Is serious business. I do not have a specific kind of goal with this thread, only to maybe get some new insights into what
you people think "good education" is. In a broad sense I think that all is learning in one way or another, but education in the sense of specific training is something every one of us has to deal with growing up in the modern world.
Say (just to maybe make it more interesting) that humans are socially constructed beings. That means you are being constructed by your environment through ideas on what is best for you as a persona. Eventually you get to choose ideas more freely, but still there are boundaries. Suddenly you are an adult, perfectly constructed to act as a social member of a society, which is dependent on your participation, or else it collapses.
Ok so far so good(bad?). If we then say that those people who planted those ideas in your mind while growing up, are also social constructs, who went through the same conditioning while they grew up, there seems to be a certain pattern here, which goes on and on.
If this concept has any truth to it, education really is serious business. It means that we literally can create any society we want, if we manage to break the patterns of repetitive conditioning, that only serves the status quo. I think that on a deeper human level, it is not enough only to "get a job" that again keeps the capitalist gangbang floating safely into an everlasting sunset of profits and greed.
I want to hear ideas of what you guys think can replace the ideas of profit, and even money as a concept at all?. Are we capable of breaking this extremely unhealthy circle, or do we even want to?
The idea of profit suits the single minded goal driven individual perfectly, but to what end?
What comes after money?, and what will "education" look like if we change course?
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Lol - a version of this conversation has come up so many different times with so many different members it was inevitable this happen.
I can't post now but I will definitely think about this today.
Thanks, Royce.
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Make therapy an acceptable thing for children and adults.
Teach yoga and meditation.
Teach critical thinking, cover the logical fallacies early.
And in honor of John Holt, learn the three things he thought everyone should learn - How to say "I don't Know", "I was Wrong" and "I'm Sorry".
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Teach them that teachers have weaknesses, conceits - all the very human things which are not super pretty but are super us.
It means that we literally can create any society we want
Not especially - what you want would be largely a result of previous sociatal structure, in your theory. Therefor what the previous generation (and generations before that) constructed would largely inform what 'we want'. We'd form no 'right angle turn' to what the past did and only alter by a few degrees the current momentum of culture.
On currency, I think some people simply have the urge to obsessively collect currency (see alot of players of mmorpgs, for example) and be better than the Jones's next door. But with a ceiling on that, so as to create a system with a number of features: A: With a ceiling that means wealth distribution cannot become so imbalanced with insane difference between individuals. B: It allows wealth distribution to be managed so there is more fair distribution of goods (along with a ceiling, there is a safety net - and not necessarily one of those 'feel guilty like a slave does in order to get your food' safety nets*) because no one has soaked up all the goods with their wealth. C: I've heard communist systems just have one pay for all and basically that sucks - it's boring, uninspirational and we all actually enjoy a certain amount of competition (just not an extreme amount, however one might define that), so it avoids that. We all enjoy beating the jones's a little bit - it's just that most of us don't enjoy it to a fetish level.
I keep thinking about making an text based online multiplayer game, to play out the idea of it (and sometimes playing out an idea leads to it's fruition)
* There's the common complaint of 'how come I have to work to support some layabout' - but the fact is such a model does not fetishise work. Work in such a model would become considerably more lazy (particularly given mechanisation) - start at 10 or 11am, finish in the early afternoon - play with your kids in the park till evening. And for those who fetishize work so they can hit the ceiling, too bad if you support 'the slack' - all you are doing is indulging in your fetish for working anyway. There's no reason anyone else has to do anything just because you indulge your fetish on a regular basis. No, working hard is not 'holy'.
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So, I work in education, teaching English to students aged 16-20. And although I try hard to teach them some things in addition to plain language, vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing skills, it's not easy. Especially not at this age, as they already have their own point of view of the world, their own interpretation of life, ambitions, plans. And sometimes I doubt my ability to make a difference. As I've written in another thread, I'm a hopeless humanist, while many of my students are more of extreme right-wing type. And there's a lot of fear and hostility towards the mythical Other, be it a foreigner, a gay or a feminist. I try hard to make them a bit more open-minded, to show them that the world is more complicated that they (and their political idols) believe. Will it change anything? I can only hope.
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Nice input so far peoples ;) I will make a more through response later but I would like to share a vid with you, which IMO shows a teacher who is miles apart from my own experience with them. To me it was a very touching experience watching this. It only last 40 min, and I highly recommend it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tLB1lU-H0M
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I watched the vid, Royce. And while impressive, one amazing teacher a curriculum does not make ;). Also, that gave me Japan flashbacks.
To throw out some bulletpoints:
- I support honesty, respect, and communication as it is shown in the video... but that only happens based on the iron will of their teacher.
- Ambidexterity
- Martial arts/dance (bodily control)
- Learn an instrument/music
- Linguistics and multiple languages
- Visual arts
- Meditation and yoga (like Sci mentioned - I actually very much like Sci's post. Though Callan's initial thought and Sci's commentary on critical thinking go together. I know that Bakker addresses the "authority gradient" when he teaches and tries to work to combat it).
- Sensory exercises (learning to read Braille, sign language, cultivating other sensations blindfolded, lipreading)
- Dietary and exercise knowledge
And based on a solid foundation of these concepts, concurrently/subsequently start teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering, math.
I will definitely have more thoughts. Threads can affect change in the world.
I try hard to make them a bit more open-minded, to show them that the world is more complicated that they (and their political idols) believe. Will it change anything? I can only hope.
In an idealized situation like we'll describe here, you wouldn't be alone in your efforts :).
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What are your experiences with the actual school system today though? I saw this TED talk by a 13 year old boy who has been learning at home. I do not think this is a solution though, since it probably requires rich parents. Either way it is refreshing to see this boy talk. Only ten minutes long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY
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Well, from my insider's point of view (bear in mind, however, that's it European, not American), education today is too concentrated on papers and documentation. Everything has to be writted down and documented, so that when some higher instance comes calling to check on us, papers are correct. And as a result we have less time to do actual teaching and general education, because we need to fill in endless papers.
But I don't think home schooling is a good choice, either. Then we have the whole question of socialisation, meeting other people, seeing that they are different, have different abilities, different points of view, different hobbies and interests. Of course, it can be an unpleasant experience (I hated my primary school with all my heart and my classmates were in general rather nasty), but I believe it's necessary. And a good teacher could definitely improve it for his or her students.
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I'm in education and often get bogged down by "what the hell's the point of this" but I like to imagine that education makes a big difference in the bigger picture. I can't see my course making a big difference -- and neither can my students :( -- but that's only because it's just one thread in the whole thing. I think there's plenty to be cynical about in education, but we can't even get to those judgments without some education.
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I'm in education and often get bogged down by "what the hell's the point of this" but I like to imagine that education makes a big difference in the bigger picture. I can't see my course making a big difference -- and neither can my students :( -- but that's only because it's just one thread in the whole thing. I think there's plenty to be cynical about in education, but we can't even get to those judgments without some education.
My entire post-secondary educational experience has been tedious except the random classes and professors. One teacher can make a difference. Or a great group of peers.
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Finally have a bit of time. There are a lot of new and old threads that i wanted to post in...if only i could live outside of time ;D
Education...oh boy! I love it and i hate it...yes, you heard right ;)
As someone (we seem to be quite a group here!) who now works in edu (Math teacher), i have to have an opinion, right?! ;)
I do think education is a very important part of our society and also an important obligation we have to our young. I agree that it is not easy to give them an education that does not influence too strongly (not sure we got that right in our western culture, though) and, most importantly, makes them able to think for themselves. It can not be the idea just to make them learn stuff by heart. They should be able to think critically and for themselves (i know, i said that already but yes, it is that important).
Unfortunately, a lot of education today seems to me to be geared toward "just learning for the next test, independent of the whole picture" instead of "get my knowledge interconnected between topics so that i can use everything everywhere".
To be fair though, to achieve tha latter thing is veeeery very hard (if i had an idea how to really do that, i'd probably be filthy rich ;D ).
Some thoughts:
Make therapy an acceptable thing for children and adults.
Not sure what exactly you mean here, but i'd be very careful in wishing for that. As i see it, there is way too much "therapy" going on for our young atm (at least around where i live). Just let the young do their stuff and find their own way (within reason, certainly!)...don't take everything out of their hands. Don't treat them like babies all the way to adulthood.
I agree though that if someone really needs therapy, we should not be so judgmental. I think it is a strength of character to admit that you need help. So stop the "you're weak" bullshit.
Not especially - what you want would be largely a result of previous sociatal structure, in your theory. Therefor what the previous generation (and generations before that) constructed would largely inform what 'we want'. We'd form no 'right angle turn' to what the past did and only alter by a few degrees the current momentum of culture.
Oh yeah? And how would you know? Why is your idea more "right" than Royce's theory?
And just because our society moves like that atm does not mean that it always will move like that or that it always has. There have been quite strong changes in societal structure at times in the past...so i guess right angles are definitely possible.
What i would agree with, though, is that it takes a lot to get such shifts in one jump. And i guess it is a good thing that such jumps only happen every once in a while.
On the other hand, i think we might be close to one such jump. Not sure if we will live to see it...but i think that the way our western society "behaves" atm, there will soon be a lot of jump-energy ... (but that's another topic, i guess).
To the "can i make a difference" - it seems every teacher asks him/herself that question, eh?! ;D
I think that we all do make a difference...maybe not a huge one, but every small difference is one that is worth it, right?! For me, to know that i impart young people with knowledge is a very good feeling.
So even if i am not completely satisfied with the field of education as it stands, i would not change my job for any other.
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So, our final year students are close to graduating, they will be doing their final exams in a month's time, because of the Easter break they have already been graded, most students have stopped going to school (19-year-olds have much better things to do on a nice April day, right?). Yesterday I had a lesson with three students, we started chatting and I heard a very nice thing from one of them. She said that with me it's impossible to say whether I personally like a given student or not, because I treat everyone the same. And I was happy to hear that because I strive to be as objective as possible.
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That is indeed a nice compliment, Alia. Well done!
I try to be impartial...but sometimes it is hard. Not that i have an inclination for favourites...but non-favourites sometimes ;D Some students just make it hard to be impartial with them...and we teachers are also only human, after all ;)
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I tend to think that motivation is key. I was never motivated in school as a kid, and as we all know that is not the kids fault. In retrospect I can say that none of my teachers even asked me once what I really liked to do.
I do not really know much about how this system works, but it seems like the main point is just to "get people through it", and to me that is not "education" at all. You "learn" ,then forget, and suddenly you are finished. It is like you are sucked in and spat out.
I went to a psychologist many years ago and I had a very weird experience. The guy was way too young! He could not help me at all, because he had no real experience with the issues I had. I guess he had top notch grades and all, but that did not matter at all.
I think the same goes for many teachers. It is just a paycheck. They do not really care about real education, no passion for the subjects they are supposed to be experts on. So the students become like them(great imitators those kids!). No passion, no motivation, but I got to "get through" to get a job.
In the end the whole culture suffers. An entire culture with no passion, no motivation(except paycheck motivation). If you do not have paycheck motivation, you are a "loser", and the coin suddenly flips upside down all of a sudden. The "loser" has no motivation, no passion to "contribute" to this delightful culture of wants and needs. We frown upon those folks. Can it be that they have passion that is not based on money?.
To close this highly biased rant, I will suggest that a curriculum with much/heaps/mountains of more choice, and no grading at all could help. Really get down to business to take each kid under your wing and make a sincere effort to really listen to what he/she says. To that we need teachers with lots of motivation, passion for the art of teaching and educating, not just people having a job to get payed. So there are definitely some major structural issues that needs to be addressed.
Before you attack me with a chainsaw, I will once again emphasize that most of this rant is personal. Do not take it any other way ;)
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Time to respond :).
What are your experiences with the actual school system today though? I saw this TED talk by a 13 year old boy who has been learning at home. I do not think this is a solution though, since it probably requires rich parents. Either way it is refreshing to see this boy talk. Only ten minutes long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY
Sorry, Royce. I missed this question. I wasn't all to impressed with Skater Boy either. Affluent home-schooling is not the same as effective home-schooling, though they'll no doubt cover some of the same bases.
My experiences with the actual school system is having been indoctrinated, right?
I mean, I know some teachers now from the other side of the mirror - many of my friends are starting their twenty-plus years of chasing the educational dragon. What scares me from these interactions are how often curriculum changes, the arbitrary reasons that it does, and the length of time they are given to succeed or fail (in my opinion not nearly long enough).
They should be able to think critically and for themselves (i know, i said that already but yes, it is that important).
What does "think critically" mean, for the sake of our discussion?
Unfortunately, a lot of education today seems to me to be geared toward "just learning for the next test, independent of the whole picture" instead of "get my knowledge interconnected between topics so that i can use everything everywhere".
To be fair though, to achieve tha latter thing is veeeery very hard (if i had an idea how to really do that, i'd probably be filthy rich ;D ).
Lol - I don't think the next educational paradigm and "getting rich" are necessarily the same?
And "learning for the next test" - which I agree with you is absolutely ridiculous - ensures "the way things are" have people who can meet deadlines, produce some-kind of quality rigour, deal with those stresses. So it isn't fruitless if we're bent on producing cogs?
By the way, I realize the history and the research has been around for a longtime (and probably is especially apparent to our European members) but has anyone else read the nice consolidation in The Curiousity of School by Zander Sherman?
I agree though that if someone really needs therapy, we should not be so judgmental. I think it is a strength of character to admit that you need help. So stop the "you're weak" bullshit.
Segue:
This makes it difficult? How do we decide? For instance, the DSM for all it's flaws is still pretty much the most-balanced artifact available? Obviously, there are vested-interested that go into doses kids with therapy/drugs but...
Not especially - what you want would be largely a result of previous sociatal structure, in your theory. Therefor what the previous generation (and generations before that) constructed would largely inform what 'we want'. We'd form no 'right angle turn' to what the past did and only alter by a few degrees the current momentum of culture.
Oh yeah? And how would you know? Why is your idea more "right" than Royce's theory?
And just because our society moves like that atm does not mean that it always will move like that or that it always has. There have been quite strong changes in societal structure at times in the past...so i guess right angles are definitely possible.
I'm not sure that social evolution is as rigid as Callan makes it sound?
On the other hand, i think we might be close to one such jump. Not sure if we will live to see it...but i think that the way our western society "behaves" atm, there will soon be a lot of jump-energy ... (but that's another topic, i guess).
Culture is (not) your friend (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1210.0) is that thread, isn't it ;)?
To the "can i make a difference" - it seems every teacher asks him/herself that question, eh?! ;D
I think that we all do make a difference...maybe not a huge one, but every small difference is one that is worth it, right?! For me, to know that i impart young people with knowledge is a very good feeling.
So even if i am not completely satisfied with the field of education as it stands, i would not change my job for any other.
But would you change how your job is done? Idealize then make practical... this is the place.
So, our final year students are close to graduating, they will be doing their final exams in a month's time, because of the Easter break they have already been graded, most students have stopped going to school (19-year-olds have much better things to do on a nice April day, right?). Yesterday I had a lesson with three students, we started chatting and I heard a very nice thing from one of them. She said that with me it's impossible to say whether I personally like a given student or not, because I treat everyone the same. And I was happy to hear that because I strive to be as objective as possible.
Haha, I remember being one of those students who wasn't there. Congratulations on the balance reflected, Alia.
I tend to think that motivation is key. I was never motivated in school as a kid, and as we all know that is not the kids fault. In retrospect I can say that none of my teachers even asked me once what I really liked to do.
Would it have mattered if they did? Teachers, especially elementary school teachers, don't have time to coddle each child. And, in fact, from what I've learned this year, it's hard enough to simply achieve the curriculum requirements while keeping the children engaged in the task at hand.
I often find myself waxing philosophically about this. Children - people - are motivated by interest. However, it seems necessary to frame a child's environment so that they do achieve some specific learning, as children are learning constantly - I mean, that's what a teacher does with a lesson-plan is provide pieces for insight constrained within certain conceptual considerations. This is possibly also the same aspect of environment that is leveraged in paradigms advocating vibrant pictures of numbers and orchestral music, etc...
I do not really know much about how this system works, but it seems like the main point is just to "get people through it", and to me that is not "education" at all. You "learn" ,then forget, and suddenly you are finished. It is like you are sucked in and spat out.
I went to a psychologist many years ago and I had a very weird experience. The guy was way too young! He could not help me at all, because he had no real experience with the issues I had. I guess he had top notch grades and all, but that did not matter at all.
I was lucky enough to have a gap after I dropped out of high school. I can't imagine the lives of the mes out there who had a stable home environment and went directly from high school to university... Those guys are probably all assholes.
I've been World-Slapped a couple times. It definitely helps shape some choice personality characteristics.
But this has been my gripe with university. I've jumped through the flaming bullshit hoops that you describe and in my last year have even engaged and succeeded in it. However, the education I wanted from the beginning only truly begins now - I'm hopeful that I've secured the chair as my honours supervisor and I'll try to nurture a mentorship with another professor who I've found has much to teach me about things in which I am interested.
What did it take? Me shaping myself to their mold for a year. And what did that leverage? Enabling me to learn from my obvious betters for the next year and beyond - an adventure I'm not sure they are entirely aware of or ready for. But the past four years were mostly a joke to get to this point where I fit their mold enough to shatter it.
Intellectual apprenticeships are an interesting thought.
Segue continued: I was discussing with my roommate over the past month the idea of constraining departments at universities by social research. My first thought was the community of 150 (whether or not this is true is irrelevant, it's a placeholder, as there absolutely could be described the ideal crux). What if you limited your faculty and students to 150 and started teaching individuals when they were prepared intellectual to learn and they finished when they satisfied the same curriculum requirements? It strikes me that this might produce graduates at a faster pace eventually, as social influx is a phenomenon that is controlled for after all - the existing paradigms are timed to make sure that graduates (colleges, universities, vocational students) replace cogs as fast as they lose them.
I think the same goes for many teachers. It is just a paycheck. They do not really care about real education, no passion for the subjects they are supposed to be experts on. So the students become like them(great imitators those kids!). No passion, no motivation, but I got to "get through" to get a job.
In the end the whole culture suffers. An entire culture with no passion, no motivation(except paycheck motivation). If you do not have paycheck motivation, you are a "loser", and the coin suddenly flips upside down all of a sudden. The "loser" has no motivation, no passion to "contribute" to this delightful culture of wants and needs. We frown upon those folks. Can it be that they have passion that is not based on money?.
+1 for thoughts. I don't think money should play a traditional role as facilitator in these discussions but accreditation definitely should (as it legitimizes your education for employers).
To close this highly biased rant, I will suggest that a curriculum with much/heaps/mountains of more choice, and no grading at all could help. Really get down to business to take each kid under your wing and make a sincere effort to really listen to what he/she says. To that we need teachers with lots of motivation, passion for the art of teaching and educating, not just people having a job to get payed. So there are definitely some major structural issues that needs to be addressed.
Not enough teachers for this :(. Unless we redefine the distribution of education?
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They should be able to think critically and for themselves (i know, i said that already but yes, it is that important).
What does "think critically" mean, for the sake of our discussion?
Well to be a critical observer of all they see and also of everything a teacher says or instills. I guess "thinking for themselves" sums it up. Not only learning what is taught but trying to integrate that into their own "web of knowledge". The funny thing is...this has to be learned as well. Who will tech them that and especially...without bias. It's a devil's circle.
Unfortunately, a lot of education today seems to me to be geared toward "just learning for the next test, independent of the whole picture" instead of "get my knowledge interconnected between topics so that i can use everything everywhere".
To be fair though, to achieve tha latter thing is veeeery very hard (if i had an idea how to really do that, i'd probably be filthy rich ;D ).
Lol - I don't think the next educational paradigm and "getting rich" are necessarily the same?
No, not at all. I was not trying to imply that. I am just saying that this so called "transfer skills" are very important but oh so difficult to achieve. Edu studies are still trying to find a good way to go with this that works. To be able to teach that in an "easy" manner would be a real gift. That was what i tried to humorously hint at ;)
And "learning for the next test" - which I agree with you is absolutely ridiculous - ensures "the way things are" have people who can meet deadlines, produce some-kind of quality rigour, deal with those stresses. So it isn't fruitless if we're bent on producing cogs?
I agree that this form produces what you say here. And from the point of view of our economic leaders it surely is not fruitless. This is why i think one should ban all influences of our economic world from edu (and i know that this is utopic...as they are the ones funding a lot of education...especially later on on university level etc ).
I think going back to the usus of our ancient greek friends would be the way to go ;)
I agree though that if someone really needs therapy, we should not be so judgmental. I think it is a strength of character to admit that you need help. So stop the "you're weak" bullshit.
Segue:
This makes it difficult? How do we decide? For instance, the DSM for all it's flaws is still pretty much the most-balanced artifact available? Obviously, there are vested-interested that go into doses kids with therapy/drugs but...
Not really sure what you are saying here? Are you asking me something? Or are you agreeing/disagreeing with me?
I know that the first half of my first sentences is kind of an empty thing. The difficult thing is in fact the "know when someone really needs it"...i just think that around here (maybe that is better in Canada?) our society is just too fast with sending everyone to the psychologists and/or psychiatrists and then prescribing them drugs to combat the symptoms (but not the problems). And i hate that automatism that has slowly crept in. And it also lets skyrocket our health-insurance-costs. Another negative side effect of all that "fragile humanity" picture we have around here.
Not especially - what you want would be largely a result of previous sociatal structure, in your theory. Therefor what the previous generation (and generations before that) constructed would largely inform what 'we want'. We'd form no 'right angle turn' to what the past did and only alter by a few degrees the current momentum of culture.
Oh yeah? And how would you know? Why is your idea more "right" than Royce's theory?
And just because our society moves like that atm does not mean that it always will move like that or that it always has. There have been quite strong changes in societal structure at times in the past...so i guess right angles are definitely possible.
I'm not sure that social evolution is as rigid as Callan makes it sound?
Me either ;) But i kind of agree with him that our western civilisation has not made that big of a move in the last couple of decades. Certainly no 90 degree jumps.
On the other hand, i think we might be close to one such jump. Not sure if we will live to see it...but i think that the way our western society "behaves" atm, there will soon be a lot of jump-energy ... (but that's another topic, i guess).
Culture is (not) your friend (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1210.0) is that thread, isn't it ;)?
Not sure it is ;) That thread is more in-general. But i guess i could turn it into that direction. But wouldn't that also be kind of a thread-jack? ;D
To the "can i make a difference" - it seems every teacher asks him/herself that question, eh?! ;D
I think that we all do make a difference...maybe not a huge one, but every small difference is one that is worth it, right?! For me, to know that i impart young people with knowledge is a very good feeling.
So even if i am not completely satisfied with the field of education as it stands, i would not change my job for any other.
But would you change how your job is done? Idealize then make practical... this is the place.
To be honest, i don't think from the position i am in (normal teacher that stays in front of classes) i can change how the edu system works. I would have to go into the edu part of the university that deals with educating teachers. I do consider that now and again because i think it would be interesting and i would not feel so...powerless. On the other hand i have to be realistic...what can i alone really change there?! If the higher functionaries of those departments do not want to change how it works, one man alone has no chance. I know this sounds kind of defensive and maybe even evasive. But i have fought against those windmills of uni during my studies for more than one time and it is most often absolutely futile. It's a big fucking behemoth that moves so slow and is so not willing to change direction that it'd rather crush you than move.
Sounds kind of frustrated, doesn't it?! Well to be honest, i kind of am in some ways.
Luckily my dayjob is so fullfilling most of the time that i can forget about it.
My privilege is, i guess, that math is one of the topics that is not so loaded with cultural bias and not as tendentious as other topics that i am able to teach my students with a good conscience (and more or less culture-dependent-free).
I'd have some things to respond to Royce's rant (;)) but i think this needs to wait for another time. As a short "positioning" :
First of all : way too many generalizations in it. I am not convinced that that high a percentage is working without passion and is just there for the money. Because, in all honesty, at least on my school-level, if you are in it for the money, you are doing it wrong. I could earn way more in the economic field (banks, insurcance companies etc) as i do as a teacher.
Second of all:
I will suggest that a curriculum with much/heaps/mountains of more choice, and no grading at all could help. Really get down to business to take each kid under your wing and make a sincere effort to really listen to what he/she says.
I am not sure this really works. It's a nice picture, but it is also very much looked at with rose-tinted glasses. Putting the choices into the hands of kids is not the way to go, imo. It sound nice and sweet, but i guess it also ignores the fact that children are very volatile creatures (and the should be, mind you! Not saying this is something bad) and that they "change favourites" as often as their underwear. Also, no grading at all...not sure that is reasonable. I mean in the end, a good and as-unbiased-as-possible edu is something to be wished for...but not at the expense of not providing the growing soon-to-be-adults with what they need to "survive" in the adult-world. Life out there is a competition, and if you are not ready for it you'll have a fucking hard time of dealing with it.
Now sure, we can go into the basic argument about if we should not also change that fact. And maybe we should. But atm i just think edu is something embedded into the rest of our world...and changing the whole of society as it works today is another thing entirely from changing the edu system to something more...sensible.
Okay, it got longer than i expected ;D I guess it will do for the moment.
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Well to be a critical observer of all they see and also of everything a teacher says or instills. I guess "thinking for themselves" sums it up. Not only learning what is taught but trying to integrate that into their own "web of knowledge". The funny thing is...this has to be learned as well. Who will tech them that and especially...without bias. It's a devil's circle.
I can see how this will get complicated quickly.
What exactly do you teach someone to make them a "critical observer?" What is "thinking for themselves?" Do you teach preceding understanding of "web of knowledge" to frame their experiential journey?
How do you qualify or quantify these statements?
No, not at all. I was not trying to imply that. I am just saying that this so called "transfer skills" are very important but oh so difficult to achieve. Edu studies are still trying to find a good way to go with this that works. To be able to teach that in an "easy" manner would be a real gift. That was what i tried to humorously hint at ;)
Lol - unclear analogy perhaps? I honestly feel like there is more potential for an individual to be persecuted for fucking with the educational status quo than to become rich... though, private schools but this defeats the purposes of this thread for me ;).
I agree though that if someone really needs therapy, we should not be so judgmental. I think it is a strength of character to admit that you need help. So stop the "you're weak" bullshit.
Segue:
This makes it difficult? How do we decide? For instance, the DSM for all it's flaws is still pretty much the most-balanced artifact available? Obviously, there are vested-interested that go into doses kids with therapy/drugs but...
Not really sure what you are saying here? Are you asking me something? Or are you agreeing/disagreeing with me?
I know that the first half of my first sentences is kind of an empty thing. The difficult thing is in fact the "know when someone really needs it"...i just think that around here (maybe that is better in Canada?) our society is just too fast with sending everyone to the psychologists and/or psychiatrists and then prescribing them drugs to combat the symptoms (but not the problems). And i hate that automatism that has slowly crept in. And it also lets skyrocket our health-insurance-costs. Another negative side effect of all that "fragile humanity" picture we have around here.
Are you familiar with the term segue :)? Sorry, again, stream of consciousness thoughts, Kellais. My mind is a fractured plane?
How do we decide "who really needs help?" The DSM is one document that is used in North American and in conjunction with other documents internationally to diagnose mental health. It's the collaborative product of a large population of academics trying to offer some kind of consensus on mental health. It is flawed but the alternatives are mostly jokes - we might as well start weighing ducks and witches again ;).
I do agree with you that it is a tool used by a system that over-medicalizes everything (I realize that isn't a word ;)). However, I don't think it's the diagnostic (or recognizing dysfunction) tools that cause the issues.
To the second bold, I think that might be more of a crux in this situation. Which again, leads us back to the stigma towards issues in mental health.
On the other hand, i think we might be close to one such jump. Not sure if we will live to see it...but i think that the way our western society "behaves" atm, there will soon be a lot of jump-energy ... (but that's another topic, i guess).
Culture is (not) your friend (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1210.0) is that thread, isn't it ;)?
Not sure it is ;) That thread is more in-general. But i guess i could turn it into that direction. But wouldn't that also be kind of a thread-jack? ;D
Well, if you think that thread isn't appropriate, don't thread-jack :P. If the one you make ends up being similar, then we can combine them later.
To be honest, i don't think from the position i am in (normal teacher that stays in front of classes) i can change how the edu system works ...
I'm sorry to cut off the rest of that quote but you misunderstood my question, I think. Say, for instance, I'm opening a new kind of school: How do you want to teach math? You wouldn't make any changes to how you function in the day to day?
Trust me, those educational theorists aren't doing us any favours :P.
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My experiences with the actual school system is having been indoctrinated, right?
Yes. Can we reprogram?
Would it have mattered if they did?
That is one of those questions that is rather difficult to address :) But for me it depends, it would certainly have made my schooldays more interesting if they did, but I am also convinced that all is learning.
Not enough teachers for this :(. Unless we redefine the distribution of education?
With the present system....no. I think there will be a lot of redefining to do if/when the shit hits the fan. I will come back to this addressing Kellais.
First of all : way too many generalizations in it. I am not convinced that that high a percentage is working without passion and is just there for the money. Because, in all honesty, at least on my school-level, if you are in it for the money, you are doing it wrong. I could earn way more in the economic field (banks, insurcance companies etc) as i do as a teacher.
If you take away the aspect of money, how many are left doing what they do? Almost no one. The point being that money is the reason we all work. If you do not, you will starve and freeze to death. Everyone of us knows this, but few see the chains around their wrists. The point here is: If you take away the fundamental element of money, would people still work as they do out of passion for their work? To me this shows that money directs you way more than it should. In the west this shines through very clearly IMO.
So what I really would like to talk about is real education(whatever that is:)) What would you do if there where no money involved? Would everything fall to pieces? Maybe. Is that a bad thing? I do not think so. This culture will gradually decline anyway, so in the end it will be important to prepare future generations on change. I mean real structural change. If we can agree that(for most people) money(at some level) is the key motivation in almost every walk of life, what will motivate people when profits is thrown out the back door?
I will also point out that while I was writing that rant, I was in a bad mood:) It is funny how a mood reflects the world I perceive. Bad mood=bad world:). As you can see from this post, the mood is slightly bad today also:)
One last thing. I did not imply that kids should choose their own curriculum Kellais:) I am talking about young adults. To gain a more nuanced perspective, there should be more choice IMO. In Norway you have to get through 12 years of schooling before you have more choices. Many people are sick of it by then.
When it comes to grading, I do believe that it creates more "losers" than "winners". I also read awhile ago that (in USA) it is a huge problem that teachers give pupils better grades than they deserve so the overall result of the class looks better. Teachers can of course point out what is good and bad in a test, but I do not see the need to grade them more than that. I know of people who have ended up with various drug issues because of stress with grades(amphetamine to stay awake etc).
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My experiences with the actual school system is having been indoctrinated, right?
Yes. Can we reprogram?
It is my hope that I am always reprogramming.
Would it have mattered if they did?
That is one of those questions that is rather difficult to address :) But for me it depends, it would certainly have made my schooldays more interesting if they did, but I am also convinced that all is learning.
Indeed - I mean, I understanding cultivating a child's predispositions but... somewhere there might be a consensus on what exactly children need to learn?
Not enough teachers for this :(. Unless we redefine the distribution of education?
With the present system....no. I think there will be a lot of redefining to do if/when the shit hits the fan.
One of the best ways to redefine is to have a better system prepared to step in when shit hits the fan, rather than waiting until then to plan.
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It is my hope that I am always reprogramming.
I guess since no moment is the same, we all "reprogram" all the time:)
Indeed - I mean, I understanding cultivating a child's predispositions but... somewhere there might be a consensus on what exactly children need to learn?
Yes. Isn`t that to fit in and behave in a way? To learn reading, writing and act "normal" etc. That seems to be the consensus where I live anyway. With normal, I mean, do what you are told and behave.
In Norway and probably many other countries, there are private schools which are called "Steinerskolen". These are schools based on the ideas of Rudolph Steiner, who is one of the big ones in the field of theosophy. I am not well read in that area, but anyways these schools seem to focus more on the creative aspect of our existence. I know one guy who went there and he is a self centered, egomaniac, cannabis wreck, and generally a dickhead:) So I am not sure that works any better than ordinary schooling:)
One of the best ways to redefine is to have a better system prepared to step in when shit hits the fan, rather than waiting until then to plan.
Yes, we should start a "school" where we lay out a better system :P
On a more serious note, I do not have any solution to this of course, but I did hope by creating this thread to at least start to discuss what can be better, and what people think generally works and not. What to keep and what to dispose of in a way. By that I mean, to step out of our cultural programming and reprogram the system into something brilliant and human :)
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It is my hope that I am always reprogramming.
I guess since no moment is the same, we all "reprogram" all the time:)
Indeed - I mean, I understanding cultivating a child's predispositions but... somewhere there might be a consensus on what exactly children need to learn?
Yes. Isn`t that to fit in and behave in a way? To learn reading, writing and act "normal" etc. That seems to be the consensus where I live anyway. With normal, I mean, do what you are told and behave.
In Norway and probably many other countries, there are private schools which are called "Steinerskolen". These are schools based on the ideas of Rudolph Steiner, who is one of the big ones in the field of theosophy. I am not well read in that area, but anyways these schools seem to focus more on the creative aspect of our existence. I know one guy who went there and he is a self centered, egomaniac, cannabis wreck, and generally a dickhead:) So I am not sure that works any better than ordinary schooling:)
One of the best ways to redefine is to have a better system prepared to step in when shit hits the fan, rather than waiting until then to plan.
Yes, we should start a "school" where we lay out a better system :P
On a more serious note, I do not have any solution to this of course, but I did hope by creating this thread to at least start to discuss what can be better, and what people think generally works and not. What to keep and what to dispose of in a way. By that I mean, to step out of our cultural programming and reprogram the system into something brilliant and human :)
+1 the bold. And starting a school is entirely practical.
This is what I've been querying Kellais about, I think. He suggested "critical thinking skills" are the object of our curriculum. You've suggested that a school's primarily function is to socialize people...
Perhaps that is what we should be focused on teaching but that is a pretty stark curriculum (and we'd be raising little Dunyain if we solely trained them in understanding emotional content).
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This is what I've been querying Kellais about, I think. He suggested "critical thinking skills" are the object of our curriculum. You've suggested that a school's primarily function is to socialize people...
Perhaps that is what we should be focused on teaching but that is a pretty stark curriculum (and we'd be raising little Dunyain if we solely trained them in understanding emotional content).
Lol. That would be an interesting world to behold :)
This subject of education is very tricky indeed. I would suggest that the fundamental premiss is that no one knows what education is. It can be anything. If we knew for certain what the purpose of our existence was, and that was indeed something that had to be learned at some point, then it would be easy to accept that as education. That is not the case though. It seems like it is all about adapting to a system that needs(for its survival) people who trudge through this process of schooling. Further, I might suggest that this system I am talking about(western empire in general) is on a large scale insane :). If the system is insane, are we also insane?.
Morris Berman was interviewing a person high up in the educational system, and the impression he was left with was that all education was about was to please the big corporations in one way or another.
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Education? I just want a decent athletic department that brings in trophies on a yearly basis.
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Education? I just want a decent athletic department that brings in trophies on a yearly basis.
Lol.
Let me just elaborate a bit what I mean when I say the system/we are somewhat insane. The global environment is shaped by the sum of what its inhabitants do, which in turn is shaped by how they think. Generally we do not(in the west) train our minds. I think this society would look very different if we added that to the curriculum(As many here has already suggested)
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This is what I've been querying Kellais about, I think. He suggested "critical thinking skills" are the object of our curriculum. You've suggested that a school's primarily function is to socialize people...
Perhaps that is what we should be focused on teaching but that is a pretty stark curriculum (and we'd be raising little Dunyain if we solely trained them in understanding emotional content).
Well i was suggesting that this is something we should teach them. But you can not teach it without context. So i think we still need the normal topics like history, math, foreign languages etc. but we have to interweave them and make connections. Transfer skills! And we do need to show the kids and teenagers, that every information can be "twisted" and used to manipulate. And that they should always try to make up their own mind about stuff given the information they have. Not just accept everything they read or hear as "true words". That is what i mean.
Generally we do not(in the west) train our minds.
Really?! I find that to be waaay exaggerated. We do not train our minds in all possible ways, but to be honest, who on this earth does?! But to say we do not train it at all...that's just not true. We do have an educational system in the west that is more profound than in many other parts of the earth. I agree that there are a lot of "construction sites" in the field of edu, but we also have a field of edu....not everyone has that. I guess that is something, right?!
Maybe you should clarify what you mean by "training your mind"?
In Norway and probably many other countries, there are private schools which are called "Steinerskolen". These are schools based on the ideas of Rudolph Steiner, who is one of the big ones in the field of theosophy. I am not well read in that area, but anyways these schools seem to focus more on the creative aspect of our existence. I know one guy who went there and he is a self centered, egomaniac, cannabis wreck, and generally a dickhead:) So I am not sure that works any better than ordinary schooling:)
Funny you should mention the Steiner Schule. I was to post something on that as well. Because they do what you asked for in another post. They do not grade during their school time. And as you, i have met some folks who went through such a school and i have to agree with you...this is definitely not better edu than our normal schools. The Steiner Schule people i know are of two kinds: 1) the same as you said above and 2) people totally incapable of "working" in our society...they cave under the slightest pressure in their jobs, they have no way of copeing with the stress and pressure of the adult day-to-day. It's sad, really.
I'm sorry to cut off the rest of that quote but you misunderstood my question, I think. Say, for instance, I'm opening a new kind of school: How do you want to teach math? You wouldn't make any changes to how you function in the day to day?
Trust me, those educational theorists aren't doing us any favours
No problem, Madness. And i also have picked just one of your statements out of the long answer you wrote to my last longer post. I hope i can go back to the rest later. But atm i lack the time.
So to the above: As i said, i think math has a kind of comfortable position as it is not that ladden with bias and political stuff etc. as other topics. I do think the process of learning to think in ordered fashion and see logical structures is indeed important, no matter where you come from. So yes, i think math can stay very similar to how it is atm.
Do i think i am teaching flawlessly? Of course not! There are things i can do better...and if you offer me a new school where i can have big impact on the curriculum and how it's done i surely would change some things...but i guess more in the "administrative" corner...as in "give the pupils more time to work on stuff" ... so upping the hour-dotations math gets. And if i had enough time and freedom, i could also focus more on "how do i approach this-and-that" instead of just teaching formulas. But all in all, i don't think it would look totally unrecognizable for someone who visits a math lesson today.
One thing i would change if we had enough money, space and time for our new school, is class size. I'd do little groups of students with maybe even 2 teachers...more of a personal-coaching thing, than the normal usus. Where you can really dive into the individual problems of every student than just looking to it that the class-average is good enough.
Oh and i KNOW, first hand, that those educational theorists do us no favours. I wanted to sream at many of those professors at uni...but i was able to restrain myself ;)
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Maybe you should clarify what you mean by "training your mind"?
Lots of ways to interpret this concept, but it goes back to if you agree or disagree with what I stated earlier. I suggested that this system behaves in accordance with how people act, which again is governed by thinking. So, if we act on our thoughts without knowing what thoughts are, we might create something like a beast. I merely suggest that techniques that provide an understanding of what thoughts really are, we would (as a whole) behave very differently. Certain types of deep meditation techniques might provide this.
This is one of those things that are difficult to explain, they have to be experienced to know the impact these techniques have on your understanding of thoughts/mind. Learning to control your thoughts instead of acting out on them all the time. It would be interesting to see how this can be merged with the technologically advanced society we have today. I am all for taking useful aspects of every culture around and create something new and better:).
This is only a valid argument if you agree that the hyper capitalist/globalist culture is something that needs to be slowed down a bit.
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“The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.” ― John Taylor Gatto.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEWPbTad_Q
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Nice video but that music background...
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“The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.” ― John Taylor Gatto.
Interesting quote...i guess that goes into the right direction and what i meant by "thinking for themselves"/"critical thinking" ... the only thing i do not like is the biased/ladden-with-meaning expression "truths" (to be honest, i am surprised that you, Royce, did not object to it...you're the anti-truth preacher here ;) ;D ).
Royce, do you mean impulse-control when you say "training your mind"? ... because it kind of sounds like that in your second last post. Not just acting on thoughts and trying to controll ones actions before doing them. I am not sure i'd define that as "training my mind" though. It's more like learning to controll my actions and not just act on impulses. And i guess we are not that bad at it, we modern humans. Not perfect, sure, and not everyone masters it at the same level...but i guess we do have some controll or our world would look a lot different ;)
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[quoteInteresting quote...i guess that goes into the right direction and what i meant by "thinking for themselves"/"critical thinking" ... the only thing i do not like is the biased/ladden-with-meaning expression "truths" (to be honest, i am surprised that you, Royce, did not object to it...you're the anti-truth preacher here ;) ;D ).][/quote]
Lol :) Well, how do you teach someone to "think for themselves"?. According to Gatt(who himself was a teacher for 20 years) that is not what our current system intends to do. Basically you learn to fear authority(listen to the teacher), to be jealous of other kids(grading), and you will be streamlined to never really grow up. It is boring because it is supposed to be boring. Most Teachers(almost everyone I have had) is bored aswell, since they to have been through the same 12 year bore of schooling.
Do we really need School? I do not mean education, just forced schooling:six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. If so, for what? To me it seems like there is a hidden agenda taking Place. Although it is not really hidden. Schooling is supposed to produce docile beings who Accepts the status quo.
Alexander Inglis wrote in his book "Prinsciples of secondary education": Compulsory schooling is a Fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical intervention into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject , by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other subtle means."
Theorists from Plato to Roussau knew that if children were cloistered with other children, stripped of responsebility and Independence, encouraged to develop only the trivialized emotions of greed, envy, jealosy and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up.
Royce, do you mean impulse-control when you say "training your mind"?
I mean that it is possible to gain insights that show you that life is yours to create,literally. Like art really. No need to be afraid, to be jealous etc. Institutions force this on ourselves and Our children. Have you read William Reich? Brilliant thinker/psychiatrist/scientist who had to be silenced because of his Message wich can be put in a single statement: You are the authority.Not those fuckers who tell you how to think.
This post is also inspired by John Tayler Gatts "Weapons of mass instructions".
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Too many pages of text to wade through, so I didn't read everything proceeding, sorry if I cover already trampled ground.
The education isn't so much as broken as it is doing what it was originally intended to do. Which, to my understanding, was to create large groups of people who where basically carbon-copies, purportedly so that large armies could be more easily made/trained.
I think transferring knowledge form one generation to the next is extremely important, if not the most important thing (I don't have children yet, so maybe I'm way off here). For me personally, who is pretty low on the competitive scale, I doubt I would have achieved anything at all without formal school. I'm habitually unmotivated and without being forced to do something, especially as a youth, I would choose to do nothing.
Then again, some of those very close to me where home-schooled until high school (8 years, more or less). They claimed to be highly motivated to study/learn with less prodding from their parents. It wasn't until they began public school where that vigor slowly drained. I've heard that, statistically, home schooled children tend towards higher IQ's and better test scores (but then again, tests are kind of the problem here right? :P).
Anyway, I think the current education system is pretty much garbage, but I don't believe in a child's thirst to learn either. There needs to be some kind of balance. Ideally, the most brilliant, motivated, and inspirational people would be our children's teachers, but unfortunately this is not the case. The most brilliant people are successful business owners, renowned engineers or researchers, lawyers, and doctors. I chalk this up to "thats where the money is at".
I think school as its been described in the board needs to exist until a suitable replacement if found. I doubt that will ever happen though, since I'm a pessimist, and Royce's arguments involving the powers that be and the veiled 'reasons' for the way the current is convinces me that change would be extremely difficult.
In my experience, difficult change that relies on the backs of the public to carry the burden tend to fall flat. It doesn't appear that "enough" people care about any one thing to create a true movement away from established/entrenched principles/rules/hierarchies.
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I want to hear ideas of what you guys think can replace the ideas of profit, and even money as a concept at all?. Are we capable of breaking this extremely unhealthy circle, or do we even want to?
That is a brilliant question, and I wish I could come up with an answer. I think people are inherently selfish, to a point. Evolution favors those that survive. Since humans are not anti-social beings and exist in communities, human evolution obviously so some benefit to collaboration. I'll not say that people are completely selfish, just that a large component of how we came to exist. After all, there is no single "human" society that I've ever seen. People posses a great aptitude to kill each other.
I don't think "profit" can ever be done awau with. We're hardwired to 'win'. Winning can be accomplished in many ways, and I think money helped us move away from physical violence. Money was once physical (gold), then moved towards representative (notes representing gold), now its almost entirely intellectual (Money exchanged with no inherent value, but rather an "agreed" upon value).
Maybe it will keep moving towards abstraction, then done away with entirely, with people exchanging thoughts/ideas/intellectual-property for goods/services... But that's a pipe dream. As a thought experiment though, I imagine such a society would become hyper-intelligent in a much (much) shorter timeframe than our own. People clamoring for knowledge, ideas, creative solutions in the way that people today fight for money.
But its really no different than what we do today. In the end, its all about winning. I don't know of any goal or idea that is some how objectively good and worth bending the backs of a civilization towards. Money seems as good as any other marker.
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Here is Rockefellers General Education Boards view on the mission of education. Its statement occurs in multiple forms, this one taken from a 1906 document called Occasional Letter Number one:
"In our dreams.........people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions(of intellectual and moral education) fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen- of whom we have an ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple.....we will organize children.....and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way".
In other words, they did not want brains or talent, just obedience. Who is the "we" here? This mission statement of the General Education Board should be read more than once, until the illusions about school so carefully implanted in your mind are broken.
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If the system is insane, are we also insane?.
Morris Berman was interviewing a person high up in the educational system, and the impression he was left with was that all education was about was to please the big corporations in one way or another.
I think this is echoed as the thread proceeds but it's only "insane" from one perspective because we lack the understanding which would render our view of the system purposeful.
This is what I've been querying Kellais about, I think. He suggested "critical thinking skills" are the object of our curriculum. You've suggested that a school's primarily function is to socialize people...
Perhaps that is what we should be focused on teaching but that is a pretty stark curriculum (and we'd be raising little Dunyain if we solely trained them in understanding emotional content).
Well i was suggesting that this is something we should teach them. But you can not teach it without context. So i think we still need the normal topics like history, math, foreign languages etc. but we have to interweave them and make connections. Transfer skills! And we do need to show the kids and teenagers, that every information can be "twisted" and used to manipulate. And that they should always try to make up their own mind about stuff given the information they have. Not just accept everything they read or hear as "true words". That is what i mean.
Do you take this to theoretical extremes? Or do you think we'd find more than enough material with which to teach?
As I read through the thread, I find an interesting spectrum appearing between chaos and order. We cannot simply let a child's interests dictate what they learn. However, many of us have seen or experienced first-hand the result of too much structure. What is the balance?
Generally we do not(in the west) train our minds.
Really?! I find that to be waaay exaggerated. We do not train our minds in all possible ways, but to be honest, who on this earth does?! But to say we do not train it at all...that's just not true. We do have an educational system in the west that is more profound than in many other parts of the earth. I agree that there are a lot of "construction sites" in the field of edu, but we also have a field of edu....not everyone has that. I guess that is something, right?!
I often wonder about educational theory.
Maybe you should clarify what you mean by "training your mind"?
Agreed.
In Norway and probably many other countries, there are private schools which are called "Steinerskolen". These are schools based on the ideas of Rudolph Steiner, who is one of the big ones in the field of theosophy. I am not well read in that area, but anyways these schools seem to focus more on the creative aspect of our existence. I know one guy who went there and he is a self centered, egomaniac, cannabis wreck, and generally a dickhead:) So I am not sure that works any better than ordinary schooling:)
Funny you should mention the Steiner Schule. I was to post something on that as well. Because they do what you asked for in another post. They do not grade during their school time. And as you, i have met some folks who went through such a school and i have to agree with you...this is definitely not better edu than our normal schools. The Steiner Schule people i know are of two kinds: 1) the same as you said above and 2) people totally incapable of "working" in our society...they cave under the slightest pressure in their jobs, they have no way of copeing with the stress and pressure of the adult day-to-day. It's sad, really.
There is also Waldorf and Montessori who, with Steiner, seem to complete the trifecta of "new pedagogy." In my opinion, all have effective qualities and all have really misinformed qualities.
and if you offer me a new school where i can have big impact on the curriculum and how it's done i surely would change some things...but i guess more in the "administrative" corner...as in "give the pupils more time to work on stuff" ... so upping the hour-dotations math gets. And if i had enough time and freedom, i could also focus more on "how do i approach this-and-that" instead of just teaching formulas. But all in all, i don't think it would look totally unrecognizable for someone who visits a math lesson today.
One thing i would change if we had enough money, space and time for our new school, is class size. I'd do little groups of students with maybe even 2 teachers...more of a personal-coaching thing, than the normal usus. Where you can really dive into the individual problems of every student than just looking to it that the class-average is good enough.
This is the meat of a thread like this. These are the things I want to strategize ;).
Maybe you should clarify what you mean by "training your mind"?
Lots of ways to interpret this concept, but it goes back to if you agree or disagree with what I stated earlier. I suggested that this system behaves in accordance with how people act, which again is governed by thinking. So, if we act on our thoughts without knowing what thoughts are, we might create something like a beast. I merely suggest that techniques that provide an understanding of what thoughts really are, we would (as a whole) behave very differently. Certain types of deep meditation techniques might provide this.
This is one of those things that are difficult to explain, they have to be experienced to know the impact these techniques have on your understanding of thoughts/mind. Learning to control your thoughts instead of acting out on them all the time. It would be interesting to see how this can be merged with the technologically advanced society we have today. I am all for taking useful aspects of every culture around and create something new and better:).
This is only a valid argument if you agree that the hyper capitalist/globalist culture is something that needs to be slowed down a bit.
You know, I reread the question, I read your response, Royce, and I realize that maybe it's collapsible, maybe the question and the greater thread echo each other. Isn't all education supposed to be "training your mind?" Doesn't the revelation of learning always change our perceptions, and perhaps, our behaviors?
“The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.” ― John Taylor Gatto.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEWPbTad_Q
I found this one in the sidebar: Noam Chomsky: Education For Whom and For What? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_EgdShO1K8). So good, though I haven't had a chance to finish, and it doesn't seem to do much more than better articulate and echo some of our thoughts here.
“The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.” ― John Taylor Gatto.
Interesting quote...i guess that goes into the right direction and what i meant by "thinking for themselves"/"critical thinking" ... the only thing i do not like is the biased/ladden-with-meaning expression "truths" (to be honest, i am surprised that you, Royce, did not object to it...you're the anti-truth preacher here ;) ;D ).
Royce, do you mean impulse-control when you say "training your mind"? ... because it kind of sounds like that in your second last post. Not just acting on thoughts and trying to controll ones actions before doing them. I am not sure i'd define that as "training my mind" though. It's more like learning to controll my actions and not just act on impulses. And i guess we are not that bad at it, we modern humans. Not perfect, sure, and not everyone masters it at the same level...but i guess we do have some controll or our world would look a lot different ;)
This seems like it is already an aspect of our educational system - socialization is impulse control, just cast in this specific incarnate mold.
Do we really need School? I do not mean education, just forced schooling:six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. If so, for what? To me it seems like there is a hidden agenda taking Place. Although it is not really hidden. Schooling is supposed to produce docile beings who Accepts the status quo.
Perhaps - but again, the spectrum I highlighted above seems to exist. Where do we strike the balance of structure?
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This post is also inspired by John Tayler Gatts "Weapons of mass instructions".
Much more reading is necessary.
I think transferring knowledge form one generation to the next is extremely important, if not the most important thing (I don't have children yet, so maybe I'm way off here).
But in transferring that knowledge, educators affect just what it is that is transferred and we're back to the "what?"
There needs to be some kind of balance. Ideally, the most brilliant, motivated, and inspirational people would be our children's teachers, but unfortunately this is not the case. The most brilliant people are successful business owners, renowned engineers or researchers, lawyers, and doctors. I chalk this up to "thats where the money is at".
I like balance. I dislike teaching being dictated by "where the money is."
I want to hear ideas of what you guys think can replace the ideas of profit, and even money as a concept at all?. Are we capable of breaking this extremely unhealthy circle, or do we even want to?
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Maybe it will keep moving towards abstraction, then done away with entirely, with people exchanging thoughts/ideas/intellectual-property for goods/services... But that's a pipe dream. As a thought experiment though, I imagine such a society would become hyper-intelligent in a much (much) shorter timeframe than our own. People clamoring for knowledge, ideas, creative solutions in the way that people today fight for money.
But its really no different than what we do today. In the end, its all about winning. I don't know of any goal or idea that is some how objectively good and worth bending the backs of a civilization towards. Money seems as good as any other marker.
These are interesting thoughts. Who posed the original question, by the way?
Here is Rockefellers General Education Boards view on the mission of education. Its statement occurs in multiple forms, this one taken from a 1906 document called Occasional Letter Number one:
"In our dreams.........people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions(of intellectual and moral education) fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen- of whom we have an ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple.....we will organize children.....and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way".
In other words, they did not want brains or talent, just obedience. Who is the "we" here? This mission statement of the General Education Board should be read more than once, until the illusions about school so carefully implanted in your mind are broken.
Watch my linked Chomsky video!
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The Brainy Bunch (http://www.amazon.ca/The-Brainy-Bunch-Harding-Familys/dp/1476759340) - The Harding Family's Method to College Ready by Age Twelve
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I promise to go through this thread but for now:
Capitalism vs. education: Why our free-market obsession is wrecking the future (http://www.salon.com/2014/06/08/capitalism_vs_education_why_our_free_market_obsessions_are_wrecking_the_future/)
Writing in Salon last month, Matt Bruenig illustrated the inadequacy of education as a remedy for inequality by looking at the market poverty rate in Finland, a nation whose students’ math and science proficiency is among the highest in the world. Were education reform in the United States shaped by liberal utopian principles instead of corporate ones, Finland would be its model. The Finns’ education system is radically egalitarian, with free college and no private schools. Standardized testing is limited, and teachers enjoy significant pedagogical freedom. Yet the only thing keeping Finland’s market poverty rate from exceeding that of the United States is a redistributive system financed by a tax level twice as high as our own.
In his new book, “The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame,” philosophy of education professor David Blacker takes Bruenig’s pessimism several steps further. In Blacker’s vision, the economy’s dysfunction renders systemic improvements in education not merely inadequate, but impossible. He argues that the form and quality of public education is so dependent on macroeconomic forces that education reform is “at best a mirage that diverts oppositional energies.” To Blacker, it’s no coincidence that universal public education became a reality in the Western world at the same time that industrialization created the demand for an expansive, educated workforce.
Now, as automation and globalization renders whole swaths of the American labor force useless to capital, Blacker sees the economic system transitioning from a mode of exploitation to one of “elimination.” From the perspective of capital, an ever-increasing portion of the population is no longer seen as a resource to be cultivated, but as a risk to be contained. He sees this “eliminationist” logic driving disinvestment from public higher education, impatience with student speech and activism, and the charter movement’s push toward school privatization.
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Everyone in this thread should read Island by Aldous Huxley, and discuss the different aspects of education he brings forth. A great read.
We do after all live in a culture where people think self awareness is looking at a reflection of yourself in a mirror. The educational system reflects this notion pretty nicely.
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These are interesting thoughts. Who posed the original question, by the way?
Fixed my post to show it, but it was from Royce's original post :P
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The way our system of education is set up its no wonder kids come out of school without motivation. Instead of nurturing our native curiosity as children, cultivating our ability to think independently and collectively through open group discussions, the majority of modern educational systems force feeds 'answers' that we are expected to memorize. Having our earnest questions repeatedly dismissed as children leaves us rather cautious as teenagers and downright hostile with suspicion as adults.