Education: A story

[Forum__Eater]

No just kidding...

Education needs to be spread but also released creatively, no one learns anything mindlessly copying from a text book or chalk board. I should know.

What are your thought for education?

[Mourningstar]

I don't eat salami, or most meat in general for that matter. I have found that I feel better and get relief from my arthritis if I limit my intake of meat to fish and eggs. (how does this relate to education? Hang in there!) I don't expect everyone to eat the way I do, and I don't expect that everyone who does eat the way I do does so for the same reasons that I do. People do things the way that they do things, because those are the ways that they have found serve them the best.

Education, as it currently stands in most industrialized nations works admirably well for some people. My mother is currently retired, and enjoyed schooling so much that she has gone back to college to take more courses. My mother is in her element in the school system, an unstoppable juggernaut who will get straight 'A's or die trying. My father is professional driver, a dog trainer, a marksman, and an amateur carpenter and mechanic. He learns with his hands and learns by doing. My father would never go back to school, and learned to hate reading while he was there. My mother managed to draw a love of reading out of him, but she did not do it the way schools would have insisted that it be done.

I think that schools are a fine place for some people. However I feel that most of us would be better served if other places of learning, that catered to other ways of learning were also supported. If schools were truly and openly optional and children could pick and choose from a variety of schools or even no school (home or self-directed learning) then we would see a great improvement in our children.

I am not in favor of schemes designed at improving test scores, testing only limits people's thinking. Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors of our time, was kicked out of school because the teacher felt he was too stupid to be taught. We should all be so lucky, to be as stupid as Edison.

[Brains_Behind_Operation]

I think that schools are a fine place for some people. However I feel that most of us would be better served if other places of learning, that catered to other ways of learning were also supported. If schools were truly and openly optional and children could pick and choose from a variety of schools or even no school (home or self-directed learning) then we would see a great improvement in our children.


That may not be the best option. Children, for the majority, have absolutely no idea what they want to do for the rest of their life. Some may claim that they do, but in the years to come most of them will have changed their minds. I didn't even know what I wanted to do after I was finished with High School, and I'm not even sure that I know for sure yet now.

Your suggestion realistically probably won't make any improvements in our children. They'll get into doing what they think they want to at young ages, and then realize they don't like it, but that they can't change it anymore and just give up on life all together. Let's teach our kids the basics and wait until they're old enough to think for the future before giving them such options about what their future will be.

[beelzebub]

I just finished the written part of the National Board Certification for Professional Teaching Standards. I only have the test on June 3rd to go.
I am not where I thought I would be.
After I finished my MS in Biology I thought I would finish Peace Corps and get a PhD in Entomology. I thought I would be Dr. bla bla now.
After Peace Corps I took a teaching job and loved it. I have been doing this for some time now. Now that I am getting the highest level of certification in the USA I am thinking of a career change. Mostly because.....

...well read this and you will understand...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-03-07-forum-students_x.htm

[Brains_Behind_Operation]

"Kids have convinced parents that it is the teacher or the system that is the problem, not their own lack of effort," says Dave Roscher, a chemistry teacher at T.C. Williams in this Washington suburb. "In my day, parents didn't listen when kids complained about teachers. We are supposed to miraculously make kids learn even though they are not working."

This is a quote that I pulled out of Beelzebub's website. It's simply horrible. How can parents let their children convince them that the teachers are to blame? They only believe this because the alternative is that they are the ones who deserve the blame. I think that both teachers and parents deserve a share of the blame, along with our government. This no child left behind law is a joke. It does not make certain that the children who don't do all that great will do better, instead it makes the schools lower their expectations of all students. I don't think that there is anything wrong with having a few students required to repeat a grade, more power to it. Just make sure that they complete their education. All students should be required to complete high school, with adequate performance as it was once defined. So what if it requires a few of them to hang around a bit longer? If they really want to get out of school this will only give them more encouragement to improve. Keep them there until they're fifty if that's what it takes!

[liyangke]

That may not be the best option. Children, for the majority, have absolutely no idea what they want to do for the rest of their life. Some may claim that they do, but in the years to come most of them will have changed their minds. I didn't even know what I wanted to do after I was finished with High School, and I'm not even sure that I know for sure yet now.

Your suggestion realistically probably won't make any improvements in our children. They'll get into doing what they think they want to at young ages, and then realize they don't like it, but that they can't change it anymore and just give up on life all together. Let's teach our kids the basics and wait until they're old enough to think for the future before giving them such options about what their future will be.

Sometimes, we feel the conservative education destroy our creative idea. And it maybe really like this. But, even I, come from China, which is said to be have a most ruinous education systme (destroy students' imagination) in the world. I still thought that if i didn't go to school, i will be no better than what i am now. Imagination is most important thing in the world, but it can not do everything. When we are hungry, we image we have a cake to eat, but we will not feel full. In china, there are still many children have no chance to go to school to learning. Go to school and learning hard are their only road to change their life.Though, Chinese eduction system is no the first-band in the world.

I know for some child, if they have the abundant resource. I think they may have their chance to choose the way to be educated. But for most of people in the world, go to school is the most economic way to be educated. On the other hand, they will have a good chance to communicate with the children in the same age. I think the most efficient way to learn is learning from the compeer, the classmate.

If the god let me be a talent, i will be very sad. Because the talent will never happy. Let the children to be normal, happy like every sunbeam.