Since this is the time of year when educators once again discover that they are charged with teaching individuals who didn't learn what they were supposed to learn last year--perhaps it would be appropriate to discuss what is wrong with the educational system in the U.S. Most people and most research studies agree that the United States has one of the poorest educational systems among industrialized countries, and that has been true for decades. So it's a subject worth discussing.

Actually, at the university level, this country's educational system is considered one of the best in the world. And, even when college freshmen turn out to be undereducated, they are generally willing to learn, and will put in overtime in bonehead courses to get themselves up to a minimum standard.

And, actually, when you look at the educational system in perspective, it seems to me, that it turns out to be something of a social class problem. University students come, for the most part, from the better high schools in the country, and those schools are in high-income areas. The students who don't get to college, and who don't actually get a minimally adequate education, are those students who attend bad schools in low-income areas.

So, perhaps you can say, that this country does a reasonably good job of educating students who come from, socially, the middle of the middle class, on through the upper middle class and upper class. The United States, however, does a poor job of educating students in the lower section of the middle class (lower part of the middle middle class, downward) and in the lower class.

Why? I have to wonder if it isn't, in large part, because the schools in low-income areas, are trying to educate students who don't want to learn, and who, in some cases, want to keep from learning. Very tough to teach somebody who doesn't want to learn. And, in turn, the students don't want to learn, because their parents don't emphasize education and, a lot of the time, don't even think that education is worthwhile. To that you have to add the fact that psychologists have known for at least forty years, that many children are raised, not by their parents, but by a complex of social factors including television and other media, peer groups (including, of course, gangs), and institutions of which the schools are a part,but which also include the whole corporate environment, various local businesses where school-age persons may work or which may otherwise influence them (e.g. the mall rat phenomenon), and assorted entertainment corporations like recording companies. To this, you can now add the internet and the video game culture. Most of these, in fact, nearly all of them, don't emphasize education, and even promote ideas antithetical to the educational system. A lot of children and adolescents appear not to be exposed to many influences which encourage interest in learning.

If that is the situation, then the educational system is fighting an uphill battle in its attempts to improve education. To improve the schools, you would have to change the whole social climate.

Lotsa luck.

I have heard that 15 of the 20 best universities in the world are in the United States. Somehow they survive.

Politics makes teaching in elementary school difficult. Extremist Christian bigots have been active for a long time. They suppressed the excellent Man: A Course of Studies program during the seventies.

During my Teacher Corps experience, I made the same conclusion you made. You have to change the entire social system to change the public schools. However, I am not certain why young people resist hearing. I think that the reasons are more complex that them simply not wanting to learn.

I'm afraid that the problem has more to do with the students than the system. It seems that there is no corelation between the amount of resources allocated per student and learning. In India, they can teach calculus in a hut with dirt floors and no AC. The students do well because they WANT to learn the stuff. Our students are soft and don't give a shit. I really think it is a student attitude problem and not a systemic problem with the educational SYSTEM.

American students have to take responsibility for their own education and not put the burden on the government. We have incredible opportunity in this country for people that put out a little effort.

I tend to agree because I think that the best learning is autotelic. It is hard to imagine how Harvard would have made Bill Gates more creative or competitive that he became. Still, resources do help.

My nieces and nephews studied mathematics including calculus, modern languages, physics, chemistry, and biology in high school. My father did not have calculus in high school during the 30s but he did have German, Latin, and, I think, French. His chemistry instruction was good enough to cover him for his first year at Georgia Tech. Some good happens in our schools. And my father endured incredible poverty.

Our schools do seem to offer courses in a good range of subjects. I am not certain how good the courses are, but that is another matter. One nephew attended a private school in New Hampshire, the other nephews and nieces studied in public high schools (I am using the American nomenclature).

I studied educational psychology and instructional design and I doubt that we use the best methods to teach courses. We panic. We want students to pass screening test, but we teach for those tests instead of teaching for intellectual development and I think that the students realize this cheats them.

There is something to learn from the way people like Richard Feynman say that they learn and think. The work of Jean Piaget impressed Einstein. But we don’t teach subjects the way that Piaget argues that we learn. Still, something good must happen at Cal Tech and other such schools.

A cesspool like New Orleans stuns me. That the young people there actively resent and resist education amazes me. I think that it goes back to early childhood experiences in that city.

I would that I had the good health and energy to teach again in New Orleans. There is potential there. I know people who attended public schools in the city who are creative, responsible, and successful. Some of them were students of my former wife.

The quotation on my computer service today applies:

The mind thinks, not with data, but with ideas whose creation and elaboration cannot be reduced to a set of predictable values.

Theodore Roszak (1933 - )

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Beau Geste (imported) wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2008 5:44 pm when you look at the educational system in perspective, it seems to me, that it turns out to be something of a social class problem.

If that is the situation, then the educational system is fighting an uphill battle in its attempts to improve education. To improve the schools, you would have to change the whole social climate.

Lotsa luck.

Darn right it's a social class problem

We all know that kids from a bad background are unlikely to be high achievers. A bad background is one which is unloving and unstable, where reading is unknown, education despised and where conversation is a series of grunts at best and shouted arguments leading to actual physical violence at worst.

Kids from these backgrounds are the ones that Beau Geste is complaining about. To what extent is it the kid’s fault that he cannot keep up with his peers?

Single parent families usually mean an early childhood of deprivation, of going hungry and of going without. And kids have a sense of being underprivileged, of being inferior to others.

They go from childhood to adolescence with this sense. They have little concept of decency, of empathy for others, of personal responsibility. But violence and aggression they do understand. What sort of citizens do they make?

The answer of course is not terribly good ones. They become the criminals, the drunks and dropouts. They are the irresponsible breeders whose own progeny continue the line all too well. They will as like as not spend a goodly part of their lives in jail.

I suspect it would be cost effective to support these kids from an early age – long before they become prison fodder. Establish creches in poor neighbourhoods, adequate welfare grants for single parent families, perhaps a mentoring scheme whereby volunteer ‘uncles’ could spend time with a kid and influence him in the right direction. Even establish boarding schools to keep young teenagers away from bad influences and instil a few middle class values.

As it stands, a lot of kids are condemned to a wasted life from their moment of conception. It is tragic in the worst sense of the word.

Kortpeel.

Well social ostracism remains a problem in the United States. It does work as an obstacle to poor people. Many children do grow up with a sense of privilege that lets them disdain other human beings as mere means to an end in producing wealth for those with as sense of privilege.

I made a long post last night, but somehow I posted it incorrectly. It disappeared. There is a movement in the United States to eliminate public education as such. It is sometimes called the the separation of school and state movement. It is a real movement and from some of the same sources as the Christian right-wing.

The founders of the American Republic placed great stress on public education. It was a vital core of American life, but we have lost a sense of that center.

I tend to think that the best education is autotelic but relies on having resources for learners. Remember the story about how Richard Wright had to access the public library by deception.

ramses (imported) wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2008 7:08 pm I'm afraid that the problem has more to do with the students than the system. It seems that there is no corelation between the amount of resources allocated per student and learning. In India, they can teach calculus in a hut with dirt floors and no AC. The students do well because they WANT to learn the stuff. Our students are soft and don't give a shit. I really think it is a student attitude problem and not a systemic problem with the educational SYSTEM.

American students have to take responsibility for their own education and not put the burden on the government. We have incredible opportunity in this country for people that put out a little effort.

Ramses in onto something here.

While is it counterproductive to lay blame, the system can only be as good as the product it produces. To produce a good finished product you must use a high quality raw product. However, in all fairness, our schools are a mere reflection of what is happening in our society. Money speaks louder than anything and in may areas the power within the schools lie in the person(s) who are employed by that school who have used the political system to gain control of the schools.

When sports, clubs and extra-curricular activities replace academics in schools, and more money is spent to retain a football course than an english teacher then we must look at what we hope to accomplish with public education. What is the purpose of the school?

Is the schoool a social institution or an educational institution? The introduction of sports into a school is meant to be a method of keeping students in the school and interested. The extra-curricular activities are many times arranged as a competition to determine who is 'the best'. (at whatever, usually NOT academics, and if it is it is academic trivia.)

So what are your ideas. I realize that the E.A. members are probably NOT the most enthusiastic about these things.

But in a society where professional sports commands such interest and provides such high salaries exactly what do we think is the most valuable thing? Is a PhD more inportant than watching Peyton Manning throw a football?

If you want schools to change then you must teach values if you expect it to happen.

What we are teaching is that academics is secondary to sports, and social events, and etc. and so forth. How about religion is more important than academics? What DO YOU value most highly?

So, which cam first, the chicken or the egg? And, which came first, the devaluation of education or the emphasis on money and sports?

How do you change the system?

Or, should you change the system?

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Blaise (imported) wrote: Tue Sep 16, 2008 4:22 am The founders of the American Republic placed great stress on public education. It was a vital core of American life, but we have lost a sense of that center.

"

Much of the public education movement was started in the 19th century, and the notion of "everyone goes to high school" is 20th century. If you were working on the farm, you often went through 8th grade; high schools often required Latin and Greek.

Imagine if we had a wave of immigrants into the US, today, from a country where high school was not required. The parents in those families would feel differently about public education than us; they would not necessarily feel that learning the language (here) was as important, especially if they had TV and radio in their own language; they would have children sent to school who were hostile to being there and unwilling to listen to these teachers who didn't speak their language.

You don't have to imagine too hard. That is the state of the public schools; the immigrants are spanish-speaking, and the school administrators are afraid of hurting anyone's feelings by making demands on the families.

The combination of that situation, and the current generation of very lazy parents (from every demographic), means that teaching school is an exercise in crowd control -- not curriculum.

I can tell you from experience that the bulk of the problem is in two parts:

1. Crazy content mandated by the State, most of whom, who write it, have never set foot in a classroom. Why are we teaching Egyptian mythology to 7th graders who can't read on a 2nd grade level?

2. Incompetent teachers who send all the work home because they can't teach it at school, expecting parents to do their jobs for them, and having the kid sit at the kitchen table until 1AM trying to get it all done.

Paolo wrote: Tue Sep 16, 2008 7:58 am 2. Incompetent teachers who send all the work home because they can't teach it at school, expecting parents to do their jobs for them, and having the kid sit at the kitchen table until 1AM trying to get it all done.

OOoooooooooh, yeah.

Incompetent doesn't even start, for the malfeasant fools who do that shit.