Are American Schools not Hard Enough?

[Kalyyn]

Oh wow, well that could explain some of why the education is not up to speed over there, in here you need a masters degree to teach, which is 5 years in university.

Take that with a grain of salt, though. I'm only making a (poorly) educated guess. No pun intended.

[Raptor With a Saber]

The problem with U.S schools 'Public' is everything 1-12 is on such a curve now that people that obviously shouldn't be passing are and those that do well and work hard are still held back because of the dumber kids that are useless drains on the education system.. The collages are great for sure top ranked in the world.

[Catta]

I don't think there is much of a prerequisite. If I'm not mistaken, you just have to be the best person to apply for the position.

If your teacher has to a read from a book while teaching then its a bad sign.

[Elegiac]

Take that with a grain of salt, though. I'm only making a (poorly) educated guess. No pun intended.

Teacher qualifications vary by state and even by district; in Washington the norm for secondary is a bachelor's in a particular field as well as a specific teaching qualification.

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If your teacher has to a read from a book while teaching then its a bad sign.

It's pretty lazy, but be aware that sometimes even we need to refresh ourselves on the source material.

[Catta]

It's pretty lazy, but be aware that sometimes even we need to refresh ourselves on the source material.

Isnt that what the summer holiday is for?

[Elegiac]

Isnt that what the summer holiday is for?

Do you remember everything with perfect clarity six months after you've memorized it?

Again, while reading out of a book is lazy, sometimes we need it to refresh ourselves.

[haxartus]

Teacher salaries are bad almost everywhere.
Let's say somebody has a BS in Physics. They will have to be pretty unsuccessful in their field to go work as a teacher in a public school. And they will have basically no motivation to improve since the salary is the same anyway. Which lowers the quality of teaching a lot.

[Catta]

Do you remember everything with perfect clarity six months after you've memorized it?

Again, while reading out of a book is lazy, sometimes we need it to refresh ourselves.

After a few years i imagine i would remember it

[haxartus]

After a few years i imagine i would remember it

I had a biology teacher in high school that knew the entire textbook word by word.

[Mihalik]

But I disliked the idea that our current education system is based on outdated thinking from the industrial revolution. The implication is that we designed education 200 years ago and now it's out of date, and I don't find that accurate. I look at the people who flourished during the industrial revolution and realize that they *thought* like a factory. Technology had arrived at a place where an uber efficient and system-oriented thought process was rewarded heavily. That thinking and perspective *still exists*, and our education system works really well for those that possess it. But now that we've learned more about what makes a society successful, we need to expand education to also include lateral and aesthetic thinking.

The point I'm trying to make is that people are different fundamentally. Our educational system is meant to appeal to one set of them, and it succeeds at doing so. The other sets just need their own systems, and all of them need to be merged skillfully. Hell, if I knew how, I wouldn't be sitting here writing an mmo champ post.

Ken Robinson clearly agreed with this point. He pointed out the fact that many many people benefit from this system greatly, BUT and that is the problem, the system also flunks out A LOT of people who don't deserve it. Essentially we are letting them down. By we I mean the adults and especially the positions of power who design our systems of education.

His argument was in favor of different types of systems of education that are tailored to the needs of the individual students, extracting the best outcome from every teaching process.

This is one of the very common problems everywhere you look. Schools programs are designed by half illiterate populist politicians, lobby groups, political or economic (conservatives vs. liberals vs. unions vs. religious groups vs. parent interest groups etc.), the end product is 80% of the time is less about education then about satisfying each interest group.

[anyaka21]

I don't necessarily believe that they are lax, but maybe their aren't enough innovations in education in recent times. I think teachers are typically set in their ways and won't experiment enough to try and shake up the education establishment. They are too set on "teacher stand up front, lectures for 45mins, and class dismissed."

For example, home schooled children from the last time I looked at statistics, are typically better educated and smarter than kids in the public school system. Add that, the people who I know that were home schooled were smarter. Granted, they didn't tend to be the most well adjusted socially norm type kids, but they were smart.

There's also this thing out now called "The Flipped Classroom" where a teacher puts all their lectures on things like podcasts or online and avail. Thus for a students out of class work, they watch the lectures, and then in-class time is spent answering questions about problems they have and doing "homework" assignments. The reason this works, though not widely accepted, is that typically if a student has a question during a lecture, they have to take time away from the lecture and a class could get bogged down and a lecture unfinished. Or if a student has an issue with not understanding actual homework in a standard class type setting, then their homework doesn't get done. The flipped classroom solves this issue.

Thus another reason I think it's not lax, but extremely establishment oriented. America needs more innovations like the "flipped" classroom concept to take hold. Because when you think about it, it is one of the reason why home schooling, if done right, is effective. If a student has a question, then they can get them answered.

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Ken Robinson clearly agreed with this point. He pointed out the fact that many many people benefit from this system greatly, BUT and that is the problem, the system also flunks out A LOT of people who don't deserve it. Essentially we are letting them down. By we I mean the adults and especially the positions of power who design our systems of education.

His argument was in favor of different types of systems of education that are tailored to the needs of the individual students, extracting the best outcome from every teaching process.

This is one of the very common problems everywhere you look. Schools programs are designed by half illiterate populist politicians, lobby groups, political or economic (conservatives vs. liberals vs. unions vs. religious groups vs. parent interest groups etc.), the end product is 80% of the time is less about education then about satisfying each interest group.

I would agree, and as mentioned above, one of the reasons that I think homeschooling is effective. It's a much more individualized education vs lecturing to the masses and hoping that something sticks.

[Galluccio]

It seems to me that Americas educational standards get more lax every year. Other countries like China and Japan go to school all year around, and have more difficult course work and tests. Ultimately, I believe this makes America lag behind in the top talent department.

That's why god made private school.

[Yvaelle]

I had a biology teacher in high school that knew the entire textbook word by word.

Give that teacher some love, that sounds like the worst existence ever.

[Mihalik]

I would agree, and as mentioned above, one of the reasons that I think homeschooling is effective. It's a much more individualized education vs lecturing to the masses and hoping that something sticks.

There are a number of fundamental problems with homeschooling that makes me very uncomfortable.

First it essentially hands over all power to helicopter parents.

Second parents aren't impartial educators. Undoubtedly handing over the control of education to biased parents restricts the available of perspectives. For example a New Age hippy family will raise their kids to see religion evil, will teach Marxist economics etc. A conservative religious family, might never expose their children to evolutionary biology or will simply teach it as false, while focusing heavily on religious education. Schools are still mostly an impartial middle ground for this.

Third parents are rarely qualified to be educators themselves, even with all the help tools available.

Home schooling can work for some some. But IT IS NOT THE PANACEA to our problems. A better public education system, with multiple viable alternatives could be tho.

[NewOrleansTrolley]

American schools just have different philosophies. In Asia and Europe, if you fail in fourth grade, you don't get second chances. If you fail a huge eighth grade exam, they kick you out and send you to vocational school. The old world model rewards only the students mature / OCD enough to take school seriously at that young age. Personally, I despise that form of schooling.

When you compare Asian high school performances with American, you are comparing apples with oranges. In one school, you have everyone, high and low academic standard, and in another, you have only the top 20%. The only difference is that American try to teach the middle groups.


I'm OK with American school systems trying to teach everyone. We're still creating many capable young men and women who are going off to college and becoming doctors, engineers, and so forth. The only difference we don't kick kids out for not being mature enough at an early age. We have second, third, forth, and even fifth chances.
I'm OK with this.

[anyaka21]

There are a number of fundamental problems with homeschooling that makes me very uncomfortable.

First it essentially hands over all power to helicopter parents.

Second parents aren't impartial educators. Undoubtedly handing over the control of education to biased parents restricts the available of perspectives. For example a New Age hippy family will raise their kids to see religion evil, will teach Marxist economics etc. A conservative religious family, might never expose their children to evolutionary biology or will simply teach it as false, while focusing heavily on religious education. Schools are still mostly an impartial middle ground for this.

Third parents are rarely qualified to be educators themselves, even with all the help tools available.

Home schooling can work for some some. But IT IS NOT THE PANACEA to our problems. A better public education system, with multiple viable alternatives could be tho.

As mentioned in the rest of my post, I did say that studies have shown that home schooled kids tend to be smarter. At least when I did some checking into it a few years ago. Also mentioned the people I do know who were home schooled seemed to be smarter as well. Thus both impartial and emperical evidence, from my stand point.

I did also mention that it does have to be done right. My experience did also show me that though smarter, some didn't possess great social skills. And weren't as enamored with athletics as most of the rest of the USA is.

I'd also point out, from a teaching/coaching type standpoint, the best teachers and coaches aren't necessarily the smartest or the most athletic. If that were the case, Michael Jordan, Isaiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird would've been the best coaches ever. But 3 of those are failed coaches, and Jordan is a terrible owner. Who are the best coaches? Pat Riley, Phil Jackson in the NBA, basically marginally washed out, not even remotely all star NBA players. Same holds true in football, look at the Harbaugh brothers who coached in the SuperBowl - same holds true.

I would even go so far as to go into the workplace. Who are the most effective managers? For people that work in sales, as an example, the best managers typically were not the best salesmen and the best salesmen were not the best managers.

Same will hold true of teaching, the smartest people aren't the best teachers. Just because you know a subject doesn't mean you know how to impart that subject so that someone understands it. You need to be an effective communicator

Granted, as said, that may not be all true of all home schooling, I'm sure it runs the gamet from good to bad, just like public education does. Just that, as said prior, home schooling has been shown to be more effective than public education.

Also remember, my overriding point in the entire post was about ways to change up education in America because it isn't that we've become lax, it's that we have an education system that in many ways is failing and we need to look to new ways to better our system. Looking at things like the 'flipped' classroom and effective home schooling to help us see how we can do things differently for the betterment of our education system as a whole and as thus smarter kids.

edit: here's the wikipedia page, just go down to the research section about it's effectiveness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling

[haxartus]

It's also a cultural problem. Kids should see their teachers as a role model. They don't. The media is obsessed with people who have basically no academic background and are rich and successful anyway. At the same time the kids see their teachers, which are smart and have bachelor's degrees, but they aren't successful and they don't have much money. So they don't put much effort into studying. But the schools needs their students to do well, so the only solution is to lower the standards.
What is happening in Japan and South Korea is due to a completely different culture. South Korea is even overdoing it - there is an enormous social pressure on the kids to do well in school, get in a good university, graduate, get a good job and be successful at their job. While there is almost no such pressure in the US.

[oxymoronic]

American schools just have different philosophies. In Asia and Europe, if you fail in fourth grade, you don't get second chances. If you fail a huge eighth grade exam, they kick you out and send you to vocational school. The old world model rewards only the students mature / OCD enough to take school seriously at that young age. Personally, I despise that form of schooling.

Wow really? i;ve always said they need to do this kind of stuff. Could you imagine the liberal backlash if we did though? Plus u can't do it in USA cause then whomever proposed the idea would be instantly flagged as a racist trying to hold us minorities down. (yes im brown)

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It's also a cultural problem. Kids should see their teachers as a role model. They don't. The media is obsessed with people who have basically no academic background and are rich and successful anyway. At the same time the kids see their teachers, which are smart and have bachelor's degrees, but they aren't successful and they don't have much money. So they don't put much effort into studying. But the schools needs their students to do well, so the only solution is to lower the standards.
What is happening in Japan and South Korea is due to a completely different culture. South Korea is even overdoing it - there is an enormous social pressure on the kids to do well in school, get in a good university, graduate, get a good job and be successful at their job. While there is almost no such pressure in the US.

Very true. Ever since I came here I've always said USA has way too much freedom, then people ask me wtf do I mean... the freedom to fail is so huge in america its pretty damn sickening. I can only imagine other the problems other countries that claim to have more of a social net have. Or maybe they dont have to deal with the extreme minority crowd like USA does.