Education is rubbish!
Discussion
I have often thought that Most (not all) of kid's education in secondary school is a complete waste of time.
For instance what possible use is it knowing when the Battle of Hastings was, or that
Cu + H2SO4 = CuSO4 +H2
Far better pupils were tought PRACTICAL skills, such as how to wire a plug, change a puncture, paperhang, change a washer on a tap,change the oil on a car, build a brick wall, fit a carpet etc etc........
What does the panel think?
For instance what possible use is it knowing when the Battle of Hastings was, or that
Cu + H2SO4 = CuSO4 +H2
Far better pupils were tought PRACTICAL skills, such as how to wire a plug, change a puncture, paperhang, change a washer on a tap,change the oil on a car, build a brick wall, fit a carpet etc etc........
What does the panel think?
I kind of agree.
After the first 3 years of senior school (mainly mathc english and science), the rest had practically no or little relevence to what I do today.
The school had no decent IT equipment and I knew more about the sytems and architecture than the IT teacher of the time !!!
After the first 3 years of senior school (mainly mathc english and science), the rest had practically no or little relevence to what I do today.
The school had no decent IT equipment and I knew more about the sytems and architecture than the IT teacher of the time !!!
Is education purely to turn out practical, job seeking, handymen and women, or is it a more general thing which gives us a sense of humanity, personality, self worth etc etc etc.
In my opinion, it's job is to do both. And, in my opinion, for the past thirty years, it's done neither.
The supposedly "useless" things I did in school have, for me anyway, turned out to have had the more lasting impact on me than all the practical subjects I studied.
In my opinion, it's job is to do both. And, in my opinion, for the past thirty years, it's done neither.
The supposedly "useless" things I did in school have, for me anyway, turned out to have had the more lasting impact on me than all the practical subjects I studied.
Biggest problem with education is its 'one size fits all' strategy and obssession with examination. Throughout their school life, a child will be assessed on something every year (yes, even when they're 5) and will have taken 2000 tests by the time they leave 6th form. Result - they learn how to pass tests and exams.
This has a number of effects:
1. The child grows up an 'average'. If you can meet an 'average', you're perfect. If you can't, you're seen as 'inferior' and if you're above that you can (and it happened to me) be considered 'unteachable'.
2. Their social development suffers as schools become elitist. On one level you have the high-fliers who impose staggeringly high standards on themselves and their peers at a very young age and will be acting like cut'n'thrust businessmen by the age of 14, losing out on growing up. On the other hand you get those who reject them, embracing delinquency and not setting themselves up for life in any way, creating a partial 'underclass'.
3. The skills learnt in schools are limited by curriculum descriptors. You can only learn what is on them (ie to pass a test). Scientific and mathematic theories are cut short, rendering them useless. The worst damage is done in the creative subjects - English, Art and Music, where you are marked on your ability to write and compose 'in the style of' rather than developing your own (a bit like Lame Academy, then). It doesn't feed creativity - it stamps all over it.
4. Other important life skills such as mechanics and the like are being ignored due to this curriculum and obssession with tests, so their numbers are shrinking.
In short, this education system just preaches adequacy, a homogenisation of 'average', which will produce a bland, imitative, uncharismatic society.
This has a number of effects:
1. The child grows up an 'average'. If you can meet an 'average', you're perfect. If you can't, you're seen as 'inferior' and if you're above that you can (and it happened to me) be considered 'unteachable'.
2. Their social development suffers as schools become elitist. On one level you have the high-fliers who impose staggeringly high standards on themselves and their peers at a very young age and will be acting like cut'n'thrust businessmen by the age of 14, losing out on growing up. On the other hand you get those who reject them, embracing delinquency and not setting themselves up for life in any way, creating a partial 'underclass'.
3. The skills learnt in schools are limited by curriculum descriptors. You can only learn what is on them (ie to pass a test). Scientific and mathematic theories are cut short, rendering them useless. The worst damage is done in the creative subjects - English, Art and Music, where you are marked on your ability to write and compose 'in the style of' rather than developing your own (a bit like Lame Academy, then). It doesn't feed creativity - it stamps all over it.
4. Other important life skills such as mechanics and the like are being ignored due to this curriculum and obssession with tests, so their numbers are shrinking.
In short, this education system just preaches adequacy, a homogenisation of 'average', which will produce a bland, imitative, uncharismatic society.
eric mc said:
Is education purely to turn out practical, job seeking, handymen and women, or is it a more general thing which gives us a sense of humanity, personality, self worth etc etc etc.
In my opinion, it's job is to do both. And, in my opinion, for the past thirty years, it's done neither.
The supposedly "useless" things I did in school have, for me anyway, turned out to have had the more lasting impact on me than all the practical subjects I studied.
well said, sir
It always p155ed me off that I was forced to spend so much time at school on subjects that I felt (even then, more so now) had little practical application, e.g. sports and religious education. I'd rather have done quadruple French... or metalwork, which I had to opt out of because my parents/ teachers though it wwould be a jolly good wheeze for me to study Latin, which I didn't want to do and wasted 4 years work by answering about 3 questions on the final exams.
Then, in Chemistry we spent two years simply copying down what was written on the blackboard, with little lab time and scant explanation of practical application. As a result I got a CSE where I should have a GCE. I couldn't do Physics 'cos I was crap at maths (still am!
) so it's a bloody wonder to me that I now work in electronics, calculate dose rates for radioactive material and know how to order drinks in several Latin-derived languages.... 
Sic transit gloria mundi etc....
Then, in Chemistry we spent two years simply copying down what was written on the blackboard, with little lab time and scant explanation of practical application. As a result I got a CSE where I should have a GCE. I couldn't do Physics 'cos I was crap at maths (still am!
) so it's a bloody wonder to me that I now work in electronics, calculate dose rates for radioactive material and know how to order drinks in several Latin-derived languages.... Sic transit gloria mundi etc....
One of the "useless" subjects I studied up to Irish Intermediate Certificate ("O" or GCSE in England)stage was Latin. Now, I am quite proud of the fact that some of it actually sunk in and I get a real kick if I vist an ancient site (Like Ephesus or Pompeii) and can read the inscriptions on the buildings and monuments. For example, the seats at the theatre in Ephesus were often bought by wealthy families and this fact would be inscribed on the relevant bit of terrace e.g. "this position belongs to the family of Marcus Aurelius" etc I think that's quite cool.
eric mc said:
One of the "useless" subjects I studied up to Irish Intermediate Certificate ("O" or GCSE in England)stage was Latin. Now, I am quite proud of the fact that some of it actually sunk in and I get a real kick if I vist an ancient site (Like Ephesus or Pompeii) and can read the inscriptions on the buildings and monuments. For example, the seats at the theatre in Ephesus were often bought by wealthy families and this fact would be inscribed on the relevant bit of terrace e.g. "this position belongs to the family of Marcus Aurelius" etc I think that's quite cool.
OK, fair point, I usually get to translate the ones in France that say "Here on 14th March 1943, murdering scum of the Waffen SS hung four men: Claude LeFevre, Jean-Louis Alsace, Pierre Dupont and Xavier Montmartre, for allegedly looking at them in a funny way" but I would still rather have got to grips with a lathe and a milling machine, instead of having to wait 23 years until I could buy my own....
Everyone's different of course and I might have appreciated getting to know how to use a lathe too. But, it didn't happen. So it could be something I might get around to learning later on in life.
The thing about education nowadys is that it never really stops. I am constantly reading up on technical issues for my profession and attending update courses - all totally practical and useful for what I do for a living. However, I enjoy learning new things, SPECIFICALLY if they are totally outside my everyday life.
I'd love to study astronomy, paleantology, geology, and certain aspects of history. Matbe someday I'll get to do some of these things.
The thing about education nowadys is that it never really stops. I am constantly reading up on technical issues for my profession and attending update courses - all totally practical and useful for what I do for a living. However, I enjoy learning new things, SPECIFICALLY if they are totally outside my everyday life.
I'd love to study astronomy, paleantology, geology, and certain aspects of history. Matbe someday I'll get to do some of these things.
I'd love to be able to rebuild a car engine - I bought an old Mini engine for just that purpose twenty years ago but never go beyond stripping it down (the easy bit) before abandoing the thing as I moved house, changed jobs whatever.
But when I left school, my dad just wouldn't have had me do an engineering apprenticeship.
You read about these guys who rebuilt their cars in their single lock-up with no power etc and did it all themselves. If they can do it, then I see no reason why I couldn't (given time) do it - or something akin.
It's a confidence thing a lot of it. The challenge is there - you've just got to do it.
But when I left school, my dad just wouldn't have had me do an engineering apprenticeship.
You read about these guys who rebuilt their cars in their single lock-up with no power etc and did it all themselves. If they can do it, then I see no reason why I couldn't (given time) do it - or something akin.
It's a confidence thing a lot of it. The challenge is there - you've just got to do it.
Oh dear......I for one do not want to live in country full of plug changers and wallpaper hangers.
The point of education is to push people to the limits of their intelligence and in return the developed intelligence is put back in to society through invention, business acumen and everything which make our country run. Being able to hang wallpaper is not essential to the wellbeing of the country.
If we let our children have no higher goals of intelligence than hanging wallpaper or changing a plug our country will fall to pieces within two generations. (As opposed to one generation under the present Labour government).
The point of education is to push people to the limits of their intelligence and in return the developed intelligence is put back in to society through invention, business acumen and everything which make our country run. Being able to hang wallpaper is not essential to the wellbeing of the country.
If we let our children have no higher goals of intelligence than hanging wallpaper or changing a plug our country will fall to pieces within two generations. (As opposed to one generation under the present Labour government).
I wish that they made you do more presentations from an early age. I think they probably did try and make you do them, but I dont think I ever did.
And now that I have to do it at work and in front of people in high places. Its not easy.
And as for shakespere, what a waste of time IMO
And now that I have to do it at work and in front of people in high places. Its not easy.
And as for shakespere, what a waste of time IMO
Billy was a scientist, he isn't any more, for what he thought was H2O was H2SO4.
That's about all the chemistry I can remember.
Still have a fascination with all things cosmological. Read lots of stuff about the nature of spacetime, particle physics, string theory and so on. Don't claim to understand it on anything but a very basic level, but I enjoy trying to wrap my head around some of the concepts. Good brain exercise!
That's about all the chemistry I can remember.
Still have a fascination with all things cosmological. Read lots of stuff about the nature of spacetime, particle physics, string theory and so on. Don't claim to understand it on anything but a very basic level, but I enjoy trying to wrap my head around some of the concepts. Good brain exercise!
Shakespeare is fantastic. Of course, I didn't appreciate him much when I was at school. Now I find his work so engaging and ever relevant to the human condition. Take any human emotion, and Shakespeare will have covered it in at least one of his plays.
OK, the Englsih is a little bit difficult to get one's head around but, once you've tuned in, it all flows in a very sensible and often funny way. It's no different to getting your head around some rapper's lyrics really - and their use of English can be just as alien. In fact, was Will the first rapper?
Nope, I won't write off old Will as useless or irrelevant either.
>> Edited by eric mc on Sunday 7th December 15:57
OK, the Englsih is a little bit difficult to get one's head around but, once you've tuned in, it all flows in a very sensible and often funny way. It's no different to getting your head around some rapper's lyrics really - and their use of English can be just as alien. In fact, was Will the first rapper?
Nope, I won't write off old Will as useless or irrelevant either.
>> Edited by eric mc on Sunday 7th December 15:57
24 years since I left school and some organisations have rejected me for jobs because I don't have a degree.
I have just finished the last course which will complete my degree with the OU, and arguing that I have current skills at tertiary level education cuts no ice with these people. They would rather employ someone who completed a degree, in anything, 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
(Presuming I pass when the results appear in two or three weeks, I will no doubt try again!)
I find this quite mystifying! Again it leads to questioning the "purpose" of education............
I have just finished the last course which will complete my degree with the OU, and arguing that I have current skills at tertiary level education cuts no ice with these people. They would rather employ someone who completed a degree, in anything, 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
(Presuming I pass when the results appear in two or three weeks, I will no doubt try again!)
I find this quite mystifying! Again it leads to questioning the "purpose" of education............
I agree with the evils of generalisation. There is a set of standards imposed by a government (any of the sides, any of the parties, at any moment), that changes every 4 or 5 years, trying to improve things... but in the end they actually end up with an unbalance of things.
People complain about being taught "useless" knowledge, others about being too stressed with marks and only being able to enter such or such school depending on a number.
The aim of education should be to teach us how to think, how to develop the tools to be able to learn later what we want. This gives a wide range of knowledge to cover, doh, and sadly enough, the schools don't have enough material, funds, time, teachers for that. The students don't understand how important education is so if the teacher is not good enough to motivate them, sod it all... Parents, well... they don't have the time to sit with their kids to make sure they are doing their homework, coz they are too busy (we all are).
Ehm, i don't have the answers, but i do think that education, including "useless" subjects, is the key to make you who you are (from an engineer to a translator, from a painter to a nurse). I wouldn't discard things such as latin or philosophy if you ended up studying sciences, as well as i am happy to have studied chemistry and advanced maths for such a long time(which have and will be useless for me).
We had a technology lab, which was utter *** that is where they should have taught us how to change a plug (they tried, but the lab was set on fire by someone at some point so they closed it down).
I don't have the solution, but i know that wherever there is a good teacher, for some reason, that subject stops being useless. Learning is not a pleasure for everyone, that i also know, but it is necessary. On the other hand, it makes me angry to see that vocational careers are disregarded as "inferior" (at least in Spain), and no parent would want their kids to study to be a plumber or a hairdresser. Well... that is why we end up with so many bored people struggling for a degree, when they would be sooo much more useful and happy working.
That was my rant. 'Course, i'm a teacher, and trying hard to do my best... Nobody is paying me more for that or noticing the extra work i am doing, but the feedback from the kids and their motivation at doing presentations - a very useful thing indeed - shows it is worth it
(ok, i'll turn off the patriotic music now and the soppy pink background, the stars in my eyes and all that and get my coat
)
>> Edited by iria on Sunday 7th December 16:18
People complain about being taught "useless" knowledge, others about being too stressed with marks and only being able to enter such or such school depending on a number.
The aim of education should be to teach us how to think, how to develop the tools to be able to learn later what we want. This gives a wide range of knowledge to cover, doh, and sadly enough, the schools don't have enough material, funds, time, teachers for that. The students don't understand how important education is so if the teacher is not good enough to motivate them, sod it all... Parents, well... they don't have the time to sit with their kids to make sure they are doing their homework, coz they are too busy (we all are).
Ehm, i don't have the answers, but i do think that education, including "useless" subjects, is the key to make you who you are (from an engineer to a translator, from a painter to a nurse). I wouldn't discard things such as latin or philosophy if you ended up studying sciences, as well as i am happy to have studied chemistry and advanced maths for such a long time(which have and will be useless for me).
We had a technology lab, which was utter *** that is where they should have taught us how to change a plug (they tried, but the lab was set on fire by someone at some point so they closed it down).
I don't have the solution, but i know that wherever there is a good teacher, for some reason, that subject stops being useless. Learning is not a pleasure for everyone, that i also know, but it is necessary. On the other hand, it makes me angry to see that vocational careers are disregarded as "inferior" (at least in Spain), and no parent would want their kids to study to be a plumber or a hairdresser. Well... that is why we end up with so many bored people struggling for a degree, when they would be sooo much more useful and happy working.
That was my rant. 'Course, i'm a teacher, and trying hard to do my best... Nobody is paying me more for that or noticing the extra work i am doing, but the feedback from the kids and their motivation at doing presentations - a very useful thing indeed - shows it is worth it
(ok, i'll turn off the patriotic music now and the soppy pink background, the stars in my eyes and all that and get my coat
) >> Edited by iria on Sunday 7th December 16:18
you have to teach people the advanced stuff (history, sciences etc) in the vain hope that 1 or 2 of them take it in, and do something useful in an effort to make the human race progress, rather than sit back on it's lorels(sp?) and sue/kill/bitch at/backstab each other....
it took basically 10 years to put a guy on the moon... and what's happened since? if the effort had been made we could have had a colony on mars by now!
just my 2c.
it took basically 10 years to put a guy on the moon... and what's happened since? if the effort had been made we could have had a colony on mars by now!
just my 2c.
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