the real purpose of school

[mickey]

This will probably anger parents, educators, and even children, but the truth hurts, don't it:

http://mickeykocic.deviantart.com/art/the-real-purposes-of-school-539798412

 

[TheRealCallie]

Where is your proof that this is accurate? This is an opinionated article, to which the only real source is likely you. It's not backed up by fact.

 

[Nicolelt]

Where is your proof that this is accurate? This is an opinionated article, to which the only real source is likely you. It's not backed up by fact.

I would be interested to see the research behind this.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Mickey, I couldn't agree more. I don't have any research myself, but what I do have is personal experience. I remember school being about learning pretty much the same stuff year after year. Sure, sometimes it added on those things but ultimately, most of it was forgotten in the end. Now that I look back, I feel that all of your points were true. Especially in regard to the part that school is a means for breaking in kids to be workers, not thinkers. It's all about building up the tolerance to drudgery, just like you said - repetitive, long and drawn out tasks. You learn to watch the clock, you learn to not have a problem with the idea of spending all day doing things you have no particular interest in doing. I thought that was the norm for the longest time.

Unfortunately, it also can turn you off to all learning. I don't think people dislike learning though, necessarily. Just school, because like you said, it's all about the drudgery, not true development.

The other problem I have with school is that a lot of the stuff we learned is pure academia. It's almost like learning all the answers to Trivial Pursuit. Sure, it's knowledge, but it has very little practical use in the real world unless you are going into specific professions. I wish school, high school in particular, had more of a focus on real life. Such as things like fixing cars, basic home repair, planning a diet, things like that. Things which could help a person be less dependent on others and have to spend less money going to experts to have it done. I also think it would be nice to tell kids, especially high school students just starting to think about career choices, just how much certain lifestyles cost. They should just tell people, ok, so if you want this lifestyle, this is how much it will cost you to live this way. This is how much it costs to rent. This is how much it costs to own. These are the average costs of bills in such and such area. These are the kinds of jobs you should be looking at if you want to live this lifestyle. Obviously they can't tell you how it is for everywhere, but they can give you guesses based on region and based on whether you want to live in a city, suburb, or rural area. If kids knew in advance the costs of living certain lifestyles, then I feel it would more easily help them choose a career.

I also have a problem with how school doesn't really teach you how to think critically or problem-solving skills. These are the kind of skills that can most help a person become successful, these are the kinds of skills that can most help a person become an entrepreneur. Academia is nice and all but again not all that helpful in real life. I feel like an animal that was raised in a zoo, then dumped into the wild and told to fend for myself. I say, but I don't have my instincts, I wasn't raised to learn them. To which society says, well f off and starve then. Argh. I really feel that school needs to be more about real life and less about academia.

---

I appreciate the teachers who were nice and did their part to make things more bearable. I was never one of those troublemaker types, I never felt a need to be mean to teachers because they weren't mean to me. I just think school should do more to teach people about real life, though.

 

[Nicolelt]

The other problem I have with school is that a lot of the stuff we learned is pure academia. It's almost like learning all the answers to Trivial Pursuit. Sure, it's knowledge, but it has very little practical use in the real world unless you are going into specific professions. I wish school, high school in particular, had more of a focus on real life. Such as things like fixing cars, basic home repair, planning a diet, things like that. Things which could help a person be less dependent on others and have to spend less money going to experts to have it done. I also think it would be nice to tell kids, especially high school students just starting to think about career choices, just how much certain lifestyles cost. They should just tell people, ok, so if you want this lifestyle, this is how much it will cost you to live this way. This is how much it costs to rent. This is how much it costs to own. These are the average costs of bills in such and such area. These are the kinds of jobs you should be looking at if you want to live this lifestyle. Obviously they can't tell you how it is for everywhere, but they can give you guesses based on region and based on whether you want to live in a city, suburb, or rural area. If kids knew in advance the costs of living certain lifestyles, then I feel it would more easily help them choose a career.

I also have a problem with how school doesn't really teach you how to think critically or problem-solving skills. These are the kind of skills that can most help a person become successful, these are the kinds of skills that can most help a person become an entrepreneur. Academia is nice and all but again not all that helpful in real life. I feel like an animal that was raised in a zoo, then dumped into the wild and told to fend for myself. I say, but I don't have my instincts, I wasn't raised to learn them. To which society says, well f off and starve then. Argh. I really feel that school needs to be more about real life and less about academia.

What kind of school did you go to? We had to take classes in order to understand paying taxes, rent, and all that personal finances in order to graduate from my school.

And as far as interests, you were put on a pathway to a career you wanted to work for. Like for example, at the school I teach at, if you want to go into the medical field, you take classes to prepare you for the medical field and/or college. And all of the things you are talking about kids needing to learn are a part of at least my state's standards.

And nobody teaches random facts anymore, you get fired for doing that. You have to teach students to do things with that knowledge, there has to be an outcome with what they learn, like a product of some sort. We don't just quiz kids about who was the 16th president, we make them analyze what that president did for our country, and give us their opinions with supported facts on what they think. I wrote a paper in high school about how Abraham Lincoln wasn't that great of a president. It pissed my mom off (my teacher loved it because I was thinking outside of the box), because when she was in school she was taught just the trivia facts, she never had to look into the big picture like I was.

But, everyone has different experiences with school, and in Mickey's writing, there are parts I agree with, and parts I don't based on my experience as a student and teacher.

 

[Sometimes]

What kind of school did you go to? We had to take classes in order to understand paying taxes, rent, and all that personal finances in order to graduate from my school.

And as far as interests, you were put on a pathway to a career you wanted to work for. Like for example, at the school I teach at, if you want to go into the medical field, you take classes to prepare you for the medical field and/or college. And all of the things you are talking about kids needing to learn are a part of at least my state's standards.

And nobody teaches random facts anymore, you get fired for doing that. You have to teach students to do things with that knowledge, there has to be an outcome with what they learn, like a product of some sort. We don't just quiz kids about who was the 16th president, we make them analyze what that president did for our country, and give us their opinions with supported facts on what they think. I wrote a paper in high school about how Abraham Lincoln wasn't that great of a president. It pissed my mom off (my teacher loved it because I was thinking outside of the box), because when she was in school she was taught just the trivia facts, she never had to look into the big picture like I was.

But, everyone has different experiences with school, and in Mickey's writing, there are parts I agree with, and parts I don't based on my experience as a student and teacher.

Nicolelt I was hoping you would answer, I wanted to hear what you had to say about this. Your experience with school was much better than mine, from the 70's CA school system. But you are much younger, too.

And also, I do wonder how much affect the specific state/locale has on the classroom experience. I asked a teacher that I know, teaching primary school in the southwest in a middle to low income area, to read the article and tell me what she thought. Her comments were either agreement with mickey's statements, or an even worse representation of the situation.

One thing I have been impressed with here in New Zealand, is that our school is focussing a great deal of energy on how to think well, and the ability to express, both verbally and in writing, a cohesive and convincing argument. Noone expected any kind of thought from me in public school, much less an original thought, until I got to College. I had a hell of a transition to make.

 

[Nicolelt]

One thing I have been impressed with here in New Zealand, is that our school is focussing a great deal of energy on how to think well, and the ability to express, both verbally and in writing, a cohesive and convincing argument. Noone expected any kind of thought from me in public school, much less an original thought, until I got to College. I had a hell of a transition to make.

My generation of teachers are really focusing on differentiated instruction in the classroom, which gives kids more freedom to learn at their own pace and their own way, and what you have in New Zealand is what we want out of kids. It is so much easier to do now with the technology we have in the classroom. I teach in a the poorest county in my state, but my students all have 1 to 1 iPads. My kids create wikis, blogs, iMovies, all kinds of stuff to express their thoughts, arguments, and just general research on the information we facilitate too them.

It amazing what these guys come up with! For instance, remember in high school in chemistry class, we were forced to memorize the periodic table? Well the chem teacher had them make a video on what certain groups on the table and describe the elements. One group made a rap video, and it was really freaking good, and they had examples of things that had the elements in them. AND IT ALL RHYMED! It was so great. Then later on the year they built off of that knowledge and figured chemical reactions and such.

Any good teacher hits all levels of bloom's taxonomy in their lessons as well. This is where that real-world stuff people crave so much is.

As far as the article, Mickey wrote above, the first paragraph to me is somewhat correct, but in the elementary school levels. In high school, you don't have to go to school all day and be "confined". You can take like 3 core classes and then leave and go to work, or go take college courses somewhere close.

For the second, again, I see this more in the elementary and middle school levels when it comes to the social stuff. It's crazy when freshmen get to high school and they raise their hand to speak, "I'm like dude, if you have something to say, say it!" The last part of the paragraph is incorrect. Because a teacher has different views does not mean they are going to loose their job. My boyfriend works in a very conservative christian based school district, and he is an atheist. He still has his job. And I went to a school that was extremely conservative, and the liberal teachers (who expressed themselves very bluntly I may add) were some of our best teachers and held their jobs. And lastly, I work for an all male administration, and I am feminist, and can be vocal about it.

I agree with the third paragraph, except my school doesn't do homework, so I really can't comment on that.

Fourth paragraph, yep, **** standardized testing. Really? You want us to make your child an individual when you standardized them? Pffff. This is why when people choose to vote for someone, look at what they believe in education. 100% agree here.

Fifth, I really don't know. I'm in a dying community, less and less people live here. The school alone can keep this community running. We need jobs here, which makes families move here, and makes kids goes to school here. See, how school gets their money is that the state pays schools for ever kid that goes there. Well, if the community cannot support families, then they go away. Then the school loses money, then they lay of teachers. We have to close one of our elementary schools this year because of this, and there goes 10 teaching positions, those people won't be stimulating the economy anymore. I feel like when it comes to economic development, teaching jobs come after the industry jobs because schools need a community to support them. That is only my perspective on it though.

As for the final reason, I don't think I completely understand what h is talking about. Is like the government stuff and political stuff? Because in that case, yea, politicians like to make us they care about the kids, because that hits home for a lot of people.

 

[TheSkaFish]

Hi Nicole. I'm sorry if I offended you with my views. Anyway,

What kind of school did you go to? We had to take classes in order to understand paying taxes, rent, and all that personal finances in order to graduate from my school.

I was in the public school system from 1991 until 2004. I went to a public high school here in the Chicago suburbs, and it was considered one of the nicer ones at that. It was decent, and prepared me for college fairly well. But, I'm a little bit older than you. I think that my class was one of the last ones that were taught the mindless trivia and intellectual but practically useless academia. We were not required to take any classes about understanding things like taxes, rent, personal finance, and other facts of life that you were required to study in order to graduate. I don't even think classes like that existed, and if they did, they weren't promoted nearly as much as they should have been. I am glad that you did, because I think those things are at least as essential as driver's ed. I just feel that my generation wasn't prepared for the real world very well. We were taught that if only you got good grades and went to college, it would be easy to just get a job and live in the suburbs in a nice house and have a nice car and one vacation a year and all that. Nobody ever talked about how much any of that cost or how much the monthly bills cost to live here or how much taxes are or what kind of salary one needed to get to be "just OK", let alone successful.

And as far as interests, you were put on a pathway to a career you wanted to work for. Like for example, at the school I teach at, if you want to go into the medical field, you take classes to prepare you for the medical field and/or college. And all of the things you are talking about kids needing to learn are a part of at least my state's standards.

Again, in spite of my school being considered very good as far as public schools go, this was not the case. We weren't really put on much of a career pathway. There weren't any classes to specifically prepare people for any sort of profession. The counselors pretty much just smiled and told us any choice we made was fine.

And nobody teaches random facts anymore, you get fired for doing that. You have to teach students to do things with that knowledge, there has to be an outcome with what they learn, like a product of some sort. We don't just quiz kids about who was the 16th president, we make them analyze what that president did for our country, and give us their opinions with supported facts on what they think. I wrote a paper in high school about how Abraham Lincoln wasn't that great of a president. It pissed my mom off (my teacher loved it because I was thinking outside of the box), because when she was in school she was taught just the trivia facts, she never had to look into the big picture like I was.

Eh, I guess times have changed. My class was still very much subjected to things like "who was the 16th president?" We were still a lot like your mom's day, just taught the trivia facts. Like I said, I think my class was one of the last to be taught trivia as knowledge, before people started to realize that stuff like that wasn't enough to make it in the real world. I think looking into the big picture was something that started to come after my time.

Again, sorry if I offended you Nicole. But times have changed. Like I said, I think my year was one of the last of doing things the old way.

 

[VanillaCreme]

I thought schooling was about brain washing. A couple of teachers (probably more honest than they should have been) told us outright that much of what we learn after the fifth grade is useless. But I really think that depends on what the child decides to do. If they're going to be an accountant, they might want to pay attention to math class. Or if they're going to grow up to cook meth, perhaps taking chemistry would help. Personally, I hated school, didn't ever care to go to college or anything, but there were subjects (like Science) that I still love to learn about.

 

[Nicolelt]

Hi Nicole. I'm sorry if I offended you with my views.

None taken at all. It differs so much from state to state, and education is one of those things that is evolving. I graduated from an Indiana high school, that is now title "The University of (high school name)" because you can graduate there and go to college as a sophomore.

 

[Sometimes]

Hi Nicole. I'm sorry if I offended you with my views.

None taken at all. It differs so much from state to state, and education is one of those things that is evolving. I graduated from an Indiana high school, that is now title "The University of (high school name)" because you can graduate there and go to college as a sophomore.

Really? Is that because it's such a good school that you get your first year of college by the time you graduate?

 

[Nicolelt]

Hi Nicole. I'm sorry if I offended you with my views.

None taken at all. It differs so much from state to state, and education is one of those things that is evolving. I graduated from an Indiana high school, that is now title "The University of (high school name)" because you can graduate there and go to college as a sophomore.

Really? Is that because it's such a good school that you get your first year of college by the time you graduate?

Here as a teacher, if your class is up to par with a local college level class you can apply for your class to be dual credit (high school and college credit)

2 of my classes next school year that I will be teaching will be for dual credit.

 

[Sometimes]

Hi Nicole. I'm sorry if I offended you with my views.

None taken at all. It differs so much from state to state, and education is one of those things that is evolving. I graduated from an Indiana high school, that is now title "The University of (high school name)" because you can graduate there and go to college as a sophomore.

Really? Is that because it's such a good school that you get your first year of college by the time you graduate?

Here as a teacher, if your class is up to par with a local college level class you can apply for your class to be dual credit (high school and college credit)

2 of my classes next school year that I will be teaching will be for dual credit.

dingy dang! I would guess that's really good for career as a teacher, if your class is accepted for this, too. So, why is the model used in Indiana not followed in other states? Is there a reason why Indiana can do this, but another state like, say California, can't?

 

[Nicolelt]

Hi Nicole. I'm sorry if I offended you with my views.

None taken at all. It differs so much from state to state, and education is one of those things that is evolving. I graduated from an Indiana high school, that is now title "The University of (high school name)" because you can graduate there and go to college as a sophomore.

Really? Is that because it's such a good school that you get your first year of college by the time you graduate?

Here as a teacher, if your class is up to par with a local college level class you can apply for your class to be dual credit (high school and college credit)

2 of my classes next school year that I will be teaching will be for dual credit.

dingy dang! I would guess that's really good for career as a teacher, if your class is accepted for this, too. So, why is the model used in Indiana not followed in other states? Is there a reason why Indiana can do this, but another state like, say California, can't?

Education is always localize, which in reality is good for like standards. As an agriculture teacher I am not going to teach my students to be pineapple farmers when they live in Indiana, but if I was in Hawaii that would be like our corn!

I think when it comes to the dual credit thing, it's because we have a state wide community college called IVY Tech. There is one in all major cities in Indiana. IVY Tech helps with resources for high school and our students don't have to pay anything extra for the college credit (free college credit!). Now bigger universities, like IU, Purdue, ISU, or Ball State, students have to pay a couple hundred dollars extra for the credit, but hey, that's cheaper than college. As long as a student gets a C in the class, they get the college credit. I guess we get more support from the universities than other states.

I don't really know much about other states education systems, except for my neighboring states, and after somewhat looking into them, I think I will teach in Indiana for my entire career. It seems like teaching jobs are harder to get here than other states, so it must be more desirable.

I don't see why other states cannot do what we are doing, it all up to the government though, and we know how that goes.

 

[Solivagant]

My school experience was much like Ska's, and I'm about the same age as him (and also in the Midwest). They did implement the career pathway-based classes here, but it started with the students a year behind me.

I didn't feel like I was taught much new material beyond 6th grade. It also seemed to me that there was more devotion to helping slower students learn at their own pace than quicker students learn at their own pace. The solution at the time seemed to be to just slow things down for everybody, which unfortunately stagnated learning for some.


I saw this video a few months back, I thought it made some good points:

[align=center][video=youtube]