Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Your article has been substantially dismissed and your opinion is as well as far as I am concerned, bvbm.
Enjoy your 41 cent letters while you can.
wow, you're kinda like Larkinn accept for the ability to coherently comment on anything.
You have many posts with your whitty little zings. But you have yet to refute any actual points (common for you in the history of the board) and yet to make any actual points of your own (also common for you).
I asked for specific problems and I got a lot of shit from jerks just as jerky as you.
I will not diminish your reputation as you attempt on my own but I will call you on the crap you espouse as truth.
The goal of education is to acquire sufficient knowledge and develop intellect suitable to a purposeful life. In this, much of what passes for education today is a waste of time, albeit that now a college education (which is little more than a high school refresher course) has come to be the ticket to middle-class society. Beyond that, what good is the pursuit of useless studies and advanced academic degrees that only certify learning beyond ones capacity to think? It seems a tiresome venture with but little prospect for any substantial reward; and yet one sees such masters of arcane knowledge (myself included), who are no good for anything but a pretentious display of pedantry. I am reminded of a noted ichthyologist who prided himself with knowing the Latin names for the entire class Osteichthyes, and whose students joked that the professor was so full of fish that every time he learned of a newly-discovered species another previously learned would pop out his backside in an expression of unpardonable French! One cannot help but think that more useful things might well be learned outside the halls of academe at the local tavern.
Thank you for your insightful reply.
The goal of education is to acquire sufficient knowledge and develop intellect suitable to a purposeful life. To seek knowledge for its own sake is, at best, an idle pursuit, and to cram ones mind full of useless information is to be worse than a blockhead. In this, the importance of education depends on what value one places on knowledge. Knowledge to fit purpose is certainly of value, for to be without it is to live in a world without light; but by the same token, to pursue useless knowledge is worse than worthless, it is a waste of precious time. See Herbert Spencer, "What Knowledge is of Most Worth," Westminster Review (July 1859). Good schools are scarce, and useful knowledge invaluable. Individually, we are as much as we know; and as a nation, our democracy is dependent on an enlightened citizenry, which justifies placing a premium on education. What form that education takes - what curriculum our schools provide - is a matter, if not all important, at least essential to everyone.
Well, if they can teach anything useful about money, other than lessons learned in the school of hard knocks, there might be fewer bankrupts.
Can anyone teach you how to be wise? I think not; and much less when it comes to money. Indeed, when Countrywide Home Loans (the largest mortgage lender in America) goes bankrupt, it will be for all the bad loans it made.
im telling ya.. pay the kids. acclimate them into our society of earning a living through work and effort. Skip teacher salaries and tech budget for a year and pay the kids.
I'd be a little worried about that depending on what age you started. It would teach them some things on a certain level I suppose, but I think some formal financial education would need to accompany it. I honestly believe many, many of the U.S. problems would go away if people understood money.
Interesting. I guess I see a couple of negative by-products. First that cheating I think would get worse. I would be interested in what the psychological change would be long term. Would we really be helping them understand money and make good financial decisions? Or would we be breeding a bunch of greed machines? My gut tells me the latter.
You'd also have a hard sell with cutting teachers salaries. Even I think perhaps they should get a little more.
You're theory is a real sink or swim approach. Given that tech is now the burden of the student (or parents if they arent makeing the grade). Perhaps the best bet is to become less dependent on it, computers specifically. There shouldn't be much beyond basic word processing that a kid needs.
Interesting... let me see if i can address a few of these. thanks for giving me some critical thoughts, dude.
1. I'm curious how you think cheating would get worse. Teachers would still have to act as educational guides and filter out cheating as they do now. Isnt there websites that allow teachers to vet for plegarism and such? Please expand on this one.
2. I would say that it's precisely a psychological change regarding working for compensation that is necessary in order to better gel into our work force that plays by similar rules. As it is, we expect kids to put forth effort merely because they are getting free education and because we tell them that an education is the key to a better life. This may ring hallow to kids that are poorer or with less opportunity. Kids don't appriciate this as a reason to learn like kids did deades ago. Specifically, I can tell you that a lot of kids that run to selling drugs do so because of social status AND the money it brings in. Ironically, selling drugs IS a job. I'm betting that we could reduce negative options for these types of kids by giving them a tangible example where their effort in education, isntead of the street, pays off. Indeed, I can't think of a better way to break the cycle of welfare and those who expect handouts than to give kids some hands on experience in working for money.
3. Greed machines? I'm afraid living in an unapologetic capitolist culture does that already. I'm just looking to use the system by which we operate to reach out amd make kids want to learn on their own. We can't force kids to learn. We can't force parents to be better parents. We can, however, make the kids an offer that they won't want to refuse. My theory is that testing this kind of plan in various types of school setting throughout America would drastically improve grades and graduation rates while helping kids realize exactly how our culture works as far as working for living compensation..
4. Yea, teachers salaries would be a huge hurdle to jump. BUT, we have an education system to serve the purpose of educating and not for creating a class of workers. Teachers salaries are secondary to the actual education service they provide. Indeed, considering the current track record in many public schools it's not like they have much to bargain with anyway. I'd hate to have to pull a Reagan and fire them all and replace them with the plethora of educators being pumped out every year. Like I said, I appriciate that teaching provides a stable living wage... but it makes no sense to pay teachers more just for belonging to a union and getting a Masters degree despite teaching the same type of students the exact same type of education as when they only had a B.A. Obviously throwing money at teachers isn't solving any problems. Standardized tests under No Child... isn't solving problems either. I think that this would solve many problems we now have with a lack of student motivation to learn. Would you have made a giant effort if you knew that you'd have recieved almost 4k for one semesters worth of work?
5. I'm not sure if it's so much sink or swim... rather re-allocating the significant motivation to perform into the lap of the kids. Lap tops are not required to graduate. They help but are not a prerequisite to learning. My point being that educational tech budgets are a sinkhole. I've built enough cpus on my own to see the value diminish on any piece of hardware every 6 months. Many times teachers (especially) will WANT things moreso than NEED them. Sure, it would be nice to have every fun tech toy available for the classroom but if the end product, the education of kids, is not meeting an acceptable standard then it wasn't much of an investment. In fact, one major lesson to be learned is how blowing the money instead of buying a computer to help with work the next year WILL negatively impact their GPA income the following semester. Would it be better for a kid to learn how to be responsible with money in HS or in college where the credit card sharks lurk?
I you are familliar with the phrase 'money talks' I'm sure. There are many, incentives you can give someone to acheive; better chances at college, scholarships, honor roll recognition, etc. But there is no motivator like money. Yes there are tools to combate plagarism, but what about math and science? Just as there are businesses in society that will cut corners for a buck, I believe you will find the same in schools to some degree. I don't think you could apply this concept to college either. Well you could but it would entirely defeat the purpose of college; to gain the tools to make a living. (Whether that's what today's colleges are actually doing is a different debate). I bet you've also heard the term 'professional student'......
In our society there is no other motivator quite like money. It's the bloodstream of our economy. My point is to give students experience in working for their living since this is whta they will face upon graduation.
What about math and science? Teachers will still serve a purpose They will still teach and monitor performance. I'm not sure how the internet will help a kid diagram the internal structure of a frog during a test. Maybe if you give me a specific hypothetical.
As far as cutting corners, I'm not sure how you mean. Again, the purpose is education not creating teacher salaries. If we expect our government to handle standards in a police force then I think we can expect the same here. I realize that this isn't a miracle... BUT, i'm betting it would ahve a significant positive impact on graduation rates and work ethic.
I'm not sure mainly because it takes an awful lomg time to develop to psychological maturity. Probably college age at least (for many that we know in our lives, longer). Teenagers simply don't have the psychological maturity that adults do, which is why I am somewhat hesitant to make school a job so to speak.
while I agree that high school kids are not as mature as college kids who are nbot as mature as a 30 year old I have to retort that we don't shelter kids from money until they are as mature as adults. Indeed, it's precisely this formative period that will determine some behaviour for the rest of their lives. Let's not forget that compared to kids the same age 150 years ago we've grown to coddle our kids... some might argue that this is half the problem. If Ben Franklin can become an apprentice to his brother at an early age in order to gel into their culture then I believe our kids can do the same. Hell, what age were you when you had your first job type experience? lemonade stand? mowing grass? Shoveling snow? delivering papers?
I don't think that's what capitalist society does to people. And we are comeing more 'apologetic' all the time, if you take my meaning. They will have time to learn how society operates later. They do need to be kids while they are kids.
The very nature of capitolism hinges on greed. Yes, that's what it does to people. Who was the last CEO you can think of that stopped trying to maximize his profit margin?
I would argue that it's the very CREATION of adolescence as a protected status that we see a stark decline in work ethic. Why would we keep kids ignorant regarding our society for the sake of a created status? They can still be kids. Hell, the last four years of school starts at age, what, 14? 14 isn't old enough to start learning a few things about earning a living? I think it is well old enough to start forming motivation that creates a better work ethic and facilitates education by putting the motivation to excell in the hands of the student. As it is now, the kids don't care, the teachers care enough to get paid, the parents care enough to bitch at someone despite shitty parenting, the unions care as long as yearly salaries increase; education be damned. While Ben Franklin was CLEAR about his motivations in learning a trade at his age so to should we make it clear to OUR kids that they will be rewarded according to work and I don't think 14 is too young to start.
That's why I would lean more toward a college education approach to personal finance. No doubt serious changes need to be made to primary education, I just don't think paying students is the way to do it.
I respect that you differ in opinion. Thank you for playing along and responding with critical thinking. I have to remain adamant and I think a social test with schools from different demographics would prove it.
Most definatley the incentive would be there to work hard if there was some financial reward at the end, but there are so many factors. What is the purpose of the monetary reward? What is the lesson you want kids to learn? Whatever that is, there is likely only a certain path that can be taken to reach that goal. Many paths can be taken to get to that monetary reward. How many of those paths do have control over?
Purpose? It gives a student a little financial autonomy and allows hands on experience in making and spending money. I want the kids to learn that theywill be rewarded financially by the effort of their own motivation and work ethic. Indeed, that certain path is to excell in school and get paid for the effort. People flunk out all the time without incentive to learn. Im not sure what you mean by the paths remark. As it is, we don't reward flunking students with a diploma. I'm talking about using the nature of our society to become an incentive in HS as they will find is the case after graduation.
That's exactly what I'd love to find out by testing such a program in problem schools. Indeed, we both have the same goals in mind but different opinions of the correct paths to take. Im not sure what your opinion of a viable solution might be but, if it happens to be school vouchers I'd make the follwoing deal:
divide the states and test your idea in half and mine in the other half. Set dates for evaluation at 5 years, 10 years or the terms of two presidents and decipher the results.
Id need to see a source that conveys as much and I'd have to wonder if such is the case accross the specific demographics that need the most work. Specifically, inner city ghetto schools. I'm not sure if selling pot counts as a legitimate job although I can tell you that it can be hard work. Indeed, by paying them for their motivation in education instead of flipping burgers how wold this not make gaining an education more important than becomeing a minimum wage slave after school when they should be doing their homework?
may do, but Many, MANY don't. How wold you suppose we get those who fail in parenting to become better parents? We can't. Thus, putting the motivation to learn on the student whose life with benefit from learning a good work ethic. I'd love to hear any ideas on getting parents to do a better job otherwise.
Transparent, I agree. Itemization of spending, I agree. I appriciate Unions but, just like their antithesis, they are looking out for themselves instead of the reason they are around in the first place: education of kids. I would entertain the question but I think it may be better addressed in a different thread.
It may START with parenting but, by age 15-18, it doesn't end with parenting. I still think that kids of this age bracket would be able to thrive on an opportunity. But, I'm not sure that I took the hint. Please, be specific. Who could we pay in order to get parents to be better parents?
yea.. But I learned all that in High School. I took Home Economics as a freshman and business and marketing my sophomore year. In fact, the marketing class was involved with DECA AND an internship program where kids could get school credit and get out of school at noon if they had a job. I really don't think that kids in HS are incapable of riding this roller coaster. In fact, I'd argue that the earlier we were able to mold their behaviour the better for our society overall.
I guess my question becomes, How would a kid REALLY understand the gaining and losing of money and the importance of establishing credit if they dont get the hands on experience of gaining and losing money? 4k per semester earned for learning might be a greater motivation than minimum wage flipping burgers.
Again, please elaborate on who we should be paying to get better parents. I'd like to clear that up before commenting on it.
