State Education (trying to be serious :-) )

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 5:44 am

As some of you may recollect my time in school was sorly lacking - i missed over 4 1/2 years of high school - and i was wondering how much pay to people put in the education system.

Is it entirely necessary or does it just fail the individual like me. As we have a broad spectrum of spammers from many countries, what is the education system like in your country?

Is school merely a method of 'indoctrinating' people into a certain way of thinking, in essence creating robots.

or am i a paraniod lunatic?

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 6:03 am

Well it's been numerous years since public and high school - but here are my experience.
IMO the school system in Denmark does (did??) spent to much time on the weakest individuals and not enough time on the rest.
I was in a class (public) where the majority didn't care much about school work and thus just made noise and trouble. This caused some of the other "well-adjusted" students a lot of trouble because they couldn't concentrate on their school work. In my case I've always been good at "ignoring" unwanteded elements so it didn't bother me much.

Also another point is that when I went to school the exames put to much trust in "memory" instead of "knowing".
I remember several (almost all) exames I took in my school-days and most exames was done with how much you could remember and not how much you knew. So if you remembered a lot but didn't know much, you would get a better grade than thoese who knew the stuff but couldn't remember it by heart. This annoyed me immensly. But unfortunally is still the case, epescially with oral exames.
For instance I've taken a written exam at university about macroeconomics - it was a 5 hour written examen without any aid. This to me signals - Memory

(IMO)

or am i a paraniod lunatic?

Yes

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 6:18 am

This is a problem intellectually with many subjects they examinate you on your retention of facts, not necessarily your skill in that field. English is probably one of the only subjects that requires you to use your intelligence.

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 7:17 am

@Sleep how did you manage to miss 4 1/2 years of school??

I would say exams are becoming more about skill and less about knowledge. In my GCSE maths and science papers, all the formulae you needed were printed on the first page of the paper, and you had a calculator. So as long as you understood how to work things out, it was easy

In a subject like history, the emphasis is not so much on facts as arguments, although you need the facts as evidence to support your argument. But the emphasis is on being able to construct a balanced argument. Same in English, but then your evidence is quotes from the texts you're looking at. One of the subjects I had to know the most facts for, believe it or not, was music.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 7:22 am

So georgi do you beleive that the current education system is adequate?

I had an illness, still do

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 7:32 am

Being Scandinavian like Xandax, I believe the Swedish school system might suffer from similar problems. In primary school (age 7-16) education is very much adjusted to and centered on a non existing "low to average" pupil. Talented pupils get no support or encouragement, and pupils with special needs don't get enogh. Swedish school is quite political in it aims, you are supposed to become an efficient production unit with certain values thats fits into the society. (This I suppose is the same in most countries).

Individuality, creativity and thinking of your own is not supported but rather supressed until university level. This is because in Sweden, it's very important not to think of your own since that might result in people thinking something else than they should. Since group values go before individual values, it's extremely essential to be "like everybody else", similarity strenghens the group, variety threatens the group.

At university, some degree of free and creative thinking is allowed, and sometimes even encouraged.

The whole education system suffers from the same "memory v knowledge" problems as Xandax describes. I have an extremely good memory for written text, which has always been a very unfair advantage. I've always had top results in school, and this is not at all due to my knowing more than other students, many times it has been obvious that I know *less*, it's just that I have better semantic memory.

Waverly · Post by **Waverly** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 7:38 am

Education is a mess, IMHO. Instead of raising the bar and finding the means to help children reach their potential, it seems standards are lowered to yield satisfactory results with the lowest common denominator. Parents and educators alike have adopted a more ‘touchy feely’, sensitive approach and lost a bit of the determination that was more prevalent a decade ago.

I think it’s just another facet of a newly evolving ‘poor me’ society that thinks they can get something for nothing. Whether it’s a decent job, instant weight loss, or the laws of thermodynamics… you most certainly do not get out more than you put in.

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 7:40 am

@Sleep from my POV, I can't complain about state schooling. I turned down a place at grammar school (state-run, but elitist) to go to my local comprehensive school (age 11-16), and got excellent results.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 7:54 am

And no spelling mistakes...

I would probably have been a gifted student (says him

) but i was out of the school system my retention of knowledge is quite high, and i would have succeeded at subjects such as history, but i do not ascribe intelligence to knowledge, you can sound intelligent through your knowledge but is that the same thing? i think one of the worst habits people get into is compartmentalisation, people are individuals and should be treated as such.

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 8:10 am

My school was pretty good at encouraging slower students, but I guess it could be at the disadvantage of the brighter ones who didn't get as much attention. Then again, I don't think the brighter pupils wanted that attention, so it works out...

Waverly · Post by **Waverly** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 8:23 am

When I was in primary school, it was common to shame the kids into trying a bit harder. For example; I remember the kids being separated into 3 reading groups: 'The Eagles' read one book, 'The Penguins' would read a less advanced book, and 'The Turtles' a still less advanced book.

You would probably get tarred and feathered today if you encouraged dear underachieving little Johnny to try harder by putting him in a reading group entitled 'The Meal Worms'. Instead you have to nurture his ego and tell him the world needs Nintendo players too while stuffing him with MacDonald's french fries.

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 8:32 am

State education made me the foul-mouthed, loutish, boorish, rough, loud, disgusting, fart-bag of a perverted man that I am today.

Waverly · Post by **Waverly** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 8:46 am

Obviously no-one fostered little Grunty's feelings of self worth and stroked his fragile ego.

He is never going to be a fastfood eating layabout like the lucky children of today.

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 8:54 am

Sigh. The teachers never cultivated my superior intellect. Instead of McD's and Heart-Attack Burgers, I was beat with a stick.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 8:59 am

Originally posted by Georgi:
My school was pretty good at encouraging slower students, but I guess it could be at the disadvantage of the brighter ones who didn't get as much attention. Then again, I don't think the brighter pupils wanted that attention, so it works out...

Well I don't know if I wanted attention - but for instance in math in public school I wanted more/thougher problems when I finished the regulars one. But instead I was often told to help the others because they wasn't as good at math. I hated that.

Waverly · Post by **Waverly** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 8:59 am

Originally posted by Gruntboy:
Sigh. The teachers never cultivated my superior intellect. Instead of McD's and Heart-Attack Burgers, I was beat with a stick.

I too got paddled, grounded, detention, etc. Despite straight A's, I was constantly bored and sought to entertain myself and the rest of the class at the teachers expense.

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 10:41 am

Originally posted by Xandax:

Well I don't know if I wanted attention - but for instance in math in public school I wanted more/thougher problems when I finished the regulars one. But instead I was often told to help the others because they wasn't as good at math. I hated that.

That never happened with me

Especially in maths, there was always some big old textbook with more difficult questions in it that you could go on to.

Actually maths was the only subject that was streamed the whole way through secondary school, so the rest of the class were good at maths too.

leedogg · Post by **leedogg** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 11:31 am

i thought education was (in a way) remembering what you were taught.

the US is going downhill fast though. as wavey said, they keep making the exit exams easier to get the percentages up(who cares if we are smart? as long as we LOOK smart).

but hey, I'm a dropout, so who am i to talk!

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 11:56 am

Hmmm, well I am not sure what to think of all the people complaining over here that A levels are getting easier...

I mean how do they know if it's not just kids studying harder? With less people going on to do A levels, the ones there are will probably be the most academic and likely to do well, so it would make sense that results are better.

Weasel · Post by **Weasel** » Mon Jun 18, 2001 12:11 pm

For example; I remember the kids being separated into 3 reading groups:

The great experiment.

I had this as well in school. I did notice in the school I attended that some teachers would give the *advanced* kids more work.