School is like starting life with a 12-year jail sentence

[Anarchemitis]

It's a nice article about the collective and coldness of the modern curriculum, but it holds it's faults. For a start, school education are favouring, more and more, a more individualistic approach to teaching. An approach where your opinions do matter, but the method has to be prescribed. Sociology exams at A-Level, for instance, isn't about knowing the facts but rather arguing a point with citations (especially true in A2, the second year of A-Level). However, I do see the point he's trying to make about the coldness of schooling, however, the alternative is worse. You could have 12 years of learning discipline and to think in a prescribed manner so you can get a slip that says you're a good boy so you can spend the rest of your life working for a certain wage, which without you suffer and collapse in the capitalistic society we have. However, there is an alternative.

The alternative is something a psychologist called Carl Rogers put forward: Humanism. No more prescribed lessons where you're taught what you're told to learn. No more forced learning. No more written exams. No more coldness. A more warmer community where morals and values take a stronger emphasis than today's curriculum. No more learning to beat the exam, but rather learning for the sake of learning. The catch is this: It is useless in a capitalist society which values having qualifications as proof you can do the job right and do it well. Sure they offer the chance to take qualifications, but you get bogged down with the "let's learn empathy!" stuff. The good thing, however, is learning ceases to be a chore, but rather an enjoyable activity. There was reports that when they discussed what punishment a child should have, the other students elected for that child to be banned from lessons. However, the Rogerian view, despite being utopia on the child's emotional development (creating someone who is kind, helpful, happy, so on), creates something impractical. Unable to get a high paid job and unprepared to the harshness that is every-day life.

There is a UK school that uses the Rogerian view that is constantly under attack by the government due to poor educational achievement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School

Makes enough of an argument for me. Very insightful, my good gentleman.

Jail is sitting in a room and thinking about what you did. School is sitting in a bigger room thinking about what you'll do.

 

[Riobux]

Makes enough of an argument for me. Very insightful, my good gentleman.

Thanks. The only other thing that I realise now that I left out is how the Rogerian approach ignores the need for standardisation. It's very hard to assess the abilities of someone when every individual learnt something different, and also very hard to teach that. It's hard to cope with one child wanting to learn about Lord Of The Flies and another wanting to learn about Call Of Cthulhu. Sure, both books may be equally classic in their own right, William Golding making a lot of metaphors about his beliefs of how people are naturally different and how the "bad kids" seem to be like Nazis (e.g. the all black uniform is apparently a metaphor for the SS). On the other side, you have H.P. Lovecraft as a character explores the depths, begging philosophical questions which ring as only rhetorical. However, it's hard to teach both students who want to learn two completely different stories and assess them in two completely different ways as well. The first child may want to do an evaluation on the reoccurring metaphors that William Golding displays while the second child may want to analyse, generally, the story of Cthulhu. Both require different skills. Which since Rogers preferred discovery learning above dictated learning, it'd only take so much longer and be more difficult to teach both. It's also difficult to make a test that tests both.

You could easily read that and conclude it'd be easy to do, but think on a wider scale. Best case scenario, it'd require small groups and for the teacher to assess the groups themselves. Instead of classes of 30, you'd have six times less that. This makes it so much more expensive. So, whatever the author of the article was proposing to make a system that makes it cheaper but also achieves individualism and warmth, he might want to spill the beans because I'm not seeing what he's getting at.

Anyone can attend a private or charter school on a scholarship (this actually requires the kid to motivated...what a shocker).

There is so much more to it than that.

It's not entirely about motivation, not by miles. There's other factors involved as well. There's institutionalised racism which keeps ethnic minorities away, there's institutionalised sexism which keeps males and females away from gender-orientated classes (keeps the females from electronic work and the males from ballet). There's school favouring a middle-class life-style above working-class which can lead to pushing working-class children into delinquency (e.g. younger working class children may find it harder to get into school because the school prefers an elaborated code of language while their parents preferred and raised them on a restricted code of language). There's material deprivation (good luck learning about computers when you don't have one) and there's cultural deprivation (as said above, schools have a preference of middle class culture). There's parents who may of had bad experiences first hand and pass on his/her fatalistic and negative view of education to his/her children. There's also psychological difficulties (e.g. dyslexia, ADHD and autism). There's likely even more.

 

[captainwillies]

however, the alternative is worse.

the alternative

the

0_O............You do know that there isn't just "one" alternative? You don't have to limited the options for the growth of humanity. There are "other" ways.

 

[captainwillies]

"in the real world", you're gravely mistaken.

did you get that line from personal experience? If so then you've hardly seen the "real world". If not then stop quoting others. I'm not trying to troll... but seriously?

 

[captainwillies]

It's a nice article about the collective and coldness of the modern curriculum, but it holds it's faults. For a start, school education are favouring, more and more, a more individualistic approach to teaching. An approach where your opinions do matter, but the method has to be prescribed. Sociology exams at A-Level, for instance, isn't about knowing the facts but rather arguing a point with citations (especially true in A2, the second year of A-Level). However, I do see the point he's trying to make about the coldness of schooling, however, the alternative is worse. You could have 12 years of learning discipline and to think in a prescribed manner so you can get a slip that says you're a good boy so you can spend the rest of your life working for a certain wage, which without you suffer and collapse in the capitalistic society we have. However, there is an alternative.

The alternative is something a psychologist called Carl Rogers put forward: Humanism. No more prescribed lessons where you're taught what you're told to learn. No more forced learning. No more written exams. No more coldness. A more warmer community where morals and values take a stronger emphasis than today's curriculum. No more learning to beat the exam, but rather learning for the sake of learning. The catch is this: It is useless in a capitalist society which values having qualifications as proof you can do the job right and do it well. Sure they offer the chance to take qualifications, but you get bogged down with the "let's learn empathy!" stuff. The good thing, however, is learning ceases to be a chore, but rather an enjoyable activity. There was reports that when they discussed what punishment a child should have, the other students elected for that child to be banned from lessons. However, the Rogerian view, despite being utopia on the child's emotional development (creating someone who is kind, helpful, happy, so on), creates something impractical. Unable to get a high paid job and unprepared to the harshness that is every-day life.

There is a UK school that uses the Rogerian view that is constantly under attack by the government due to poor educational achievement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School

Makes enough of an argument for me. Very insightful, my good gentleman.

Jail is sitting in a room and thinking about what you did. School is sitting in a bigger room thinking about what you'll do.

???????? school is supposed to be about learning the beauty and secrets that this world hides. Now days its "lets rush kids onto computers then push them out the door".

I wish I knew about Steiner schools earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education

 

[Stoic raptor]

I think school is here to get u ready for a good supporting job. You know, the ones that make you work at least 8-9 hours a day for about 5-7 days a week. Plus there is your living expenses and your family (If you have one)and lot of other shit to deal with.

 

[Drexlor]

School NEEDS reform. Plus my school is so strict that it doesn't help dispel the prison comparisons.

 

[Blimey]

I hated school. I hated every fucking second of that hell-hole. I hated the people, I hated the classes, I hated the environment, I hated everything.

And my counselors wondered why I did drugs and got shitfaced all the time. School gave me no reason to haul my ass out of bed in the morning. I can't think of a single thing I hate more then school, and thank fuck I don't have to touch that shit with a 10-foot pole anymore.

/rant

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I find it especially ironic when an institution that's ostensibly focused on education creates an internal culture that ostracizes those who actually go about doing that and rewards ignorance and boorish behavior. Huzzah for not attending public schools past the 5th grade - you know there's something wrong when, as a 3rd grader, your teacher directs any questions she doesn't know the answer for to you. Really makes you question why you're attending in the first place.

 

[captainwillies]

I think school is here to get u ready for a good supporting job. You know, the ones that make you work at least 8-9 hours a day for about 5-7 days a week. Plus there is your living expenses and your family (If you have one)and lot of other shit to deal with.

You do know most company Ceo's don't have college degrees?

EDIT:

Richard Branson

CEO, Virgin Group
Type of Business: Travel, radio, TV, music, venture capital
Education: No college degree
Fun fact: He became an entrepreneur at age 16 with the creation of Student magazine.

Maverick Carter

CEO, LRMR Innovative Marketing & Branding
Type of Business: Marketing
Education: 3.5 years of college at Western Michigan University and University of Akron combined
Quote: "Don't be afraid if you see an opportunity to go and give it shot. You can finish school later; it's always there."

John Paul DeJoria

CEO, John Paul Mitchell Systems
Type of Business: Hair-care products
Education: No college
Fun fact: He started out selling greeting cards at age 9.

Michael Dell

Founder, chairman, and CEO Dell (DELL)
Type of Business: Computers
Education: Attended University of Texas, Austin; did not finish.
Quote: "When I started our company, it was very much an idea outside of the conventional wisdom, and if there were people telling me that it wasn't going to work, I wasn't really listening to them."

Felix Dennis

Founder and chairman, Alpha Media Group, formerly Dennis Publishing
Type of Business: Publishing (Maxim, The Week)
Education: No college degree
Fun fact: He wrote a biography and published a magazine about Bruce Lee; sales surged when the martial arts star died suddenly in 1973.

Barry Diller

Chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI)
Type of Business: Media
Education: Dropped out of UCLA after three weeks
Fun fact: He started his career working in the mail room of the William Morris Agency.

EVEN GODDAMN BILL GATES IS A DROP-OUT.

 

[Riobux]

0_O............You do know that there isn't just "one" alternative? You don't have to limited the options for the growth of humanity. There are "other" ways.

There probably are, but I was only really looking at the only alternative I knew of.

 

[finalguy]

to be honest it was mostly TLR but as a 31 year old (american btw) i gotta say school was cake compared to working for tha man. school and learning in general has never been perfect and never will be but i think in a lot of ways kids today are MUCH better off then any other time in history. the only problem i have with schools,public especailly, is this idea that no child must be left behind and that we need to teach to the LOWEST common denuminator. i mean, when i was in highschool(back when dinosuars roamed the earth) the teachers had to constantly hold up the class to make sure 1 or 2 dumb*sses got the material. the rlly sad thing was most of the time those under achievers didnt want to learn and were just counting the days til they could quit/drop out. dont force kids to finish school at the cost of everyone elses education.

theres my 2 cents

 

[Sir_Tor]

School is the best time of your life, no responsibility, friends and learning new stuff.

I agree with this. But you do have some responsibility, studying for tests and homework. What you learn in school will follow you throughout your entire life.

 

[Billion Backs]

"in the real world", you're gravely mistaken.

did you get that line from personal experience? If so then you've hardly seen the "real world". If not then stop quoting others. I'm not trying to troll... but seriously?

How the fuck, exactly, did I quote someone in my original post?

Maybe you're the one who should stop quoting others.

 

[Billion Backs]

I think school is here to get u ready for a good supporting job. You know, the ones that make you work at least 8-9 hours a day for about 5-7 days a week. Plus there is your living expenses and your family (If you have one)and lot of other shit to deal with.

You do know most company Ceo's don't have college degrees?

EDIT:

Richard Branson

CEO, Virgin Group
Type of Business: Travel, radio, TV, music, venture capital
Education: No college degree
Fun fact: He became an entrepreneur at age 16 with the creation of Student magazine.

Maverick Carter

CEO, LRMR Innovative Marketing & Branding
Type of Business: Marketing
Education: 3.5 years of college at Western Michigan University and University of Akron combined
Quote: "Don't be afraid if you see an opportunity to go and give it shot. You can finish school later; it's always there."

John Paul DeJoria

CEO, John Paul Mitchell Systems
Type of Business: Hair-care products
Education: No college
Fun fact: He started out selling greeting cards at age 9.

Michael Dell

Founder, chairman, and CEO Dell (DELL)
Type of Business: Computers
Education: Attended University of Texas, Austin; did not finish.
Quote: "When I started our company, it was very much an idea outside of the conventional wisdom, and if there were people telling me that it wasn't going to work, I wasn't really listening to them."

Felix Dennis

Founder and chairman, Alpha Media Group, formerly Dennis Publishing
Type of Business: Publishing (Maxim, The Week)
Education: No college degree
Fun fact: He wrote a biography and published a magazine about Bruce Lee; sales surged when the martial arts star died suddenly in 1973.

Barry Diller

Chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI)
Type of Business: Media
Education: Dropped out of UCLA after three weeks
Fun fact: He started his career working in the mail room of the William Morris Agency.

EVEN GODDAMN BILL GATES IS A DROP-OUT.

Wow! For 6 people to be considered "the most", the world must have, like, no more then 10 CEOs!

There are exceptions to most rules. Yes, it's absolutely possible to achieve high pay with little education and usually a lot of luck and hard work. But guess what? You're not fucking Bill Gates.

Most CEOs usually have years of experience and an education.

 

[captainwillies]

to be honest it was mostly TLR

FFFUUUUUUUUU DO IT

school and learning in general has never been perfect

technically its more correct to say "it's never been institutionalized to a satisfactory degree".

kids today are MUCH better off then any other time in history.

no not really. yes we have cures for diseases woopty-do. with constant stress, high speed environments, coupled with extremely poor dietary choices those extra years will be spent in an old-folks home because your joints have worn away from all your bad habits and your senile.

the only problem i have with schools,public especailly, is this idea that no child must be left behind and that we need to teach to the LOWEST common denuminator. i mean, when i was in highschool(back when dinosuars roamed the earth) the teachers had to constantly hold up the class to make sure 1 or 2 dumb*sses got the material. the rlly sad thing was most of the time those under achievers didnt want to learn and were just counting the days til they could quit/drop out. dont force kids to finish school at the cost of everyone elses education.

theres my 2 cents

I agree

 

[Tdc2182]

I tend to not like things like this. This is where people get the ideas that the government doesn't give a crap about you, and why it is okay to rebel which, in our day and age, will only lead to a worse form rather than a better.

In my opinion, you aren't responsible enough to think for yourself before you get passed at least 6th grade. Therefore, you get to start out in jail, to protect others from yourself. Society has a predetermined bar of understanding that you need to meet before you can start to complain.

 

[jasoncyrus]

This is why I'm a photographer....don't need any qualifications and can charge as much as I want since its all based on talent! Mwuahaha

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Really great article though.

Although it's 20 years old...I think school's have changed quite a bit in that time.