How School Makes Kids Dumb ( Or why school really doesn't make us any smarter)

[jasonlee3071]

Here is an interesting video I saw on youtube.
While some of you watching may or may not agree completely with this video it does make some very good points.
One is that our system of education in public schools is a relic of the industrial age, when it was designed simply to produce a mass of obedient conforming factory workers.
Therefore it doesn't encourage individuality, thinking outside the box or even questioning authority.
Rather you learn instead by rote, that is by remembering a bunch of data or facts then simply write them down a test paper (with scantron tests you don't even have to write them out).
As this video points out most students will forget up to 95 % of what they studied within just a few days of taking the exam.
Obviously if they forget that much then it can only show how irrelevant such information was to them personally.

Also the public schools especially today don't even do a good job of teaching you the very basics of English, Math or science.
Which of course is the reason why everyone has a low opinion of the public school system in regard to quality.

 

[Politicallyinsane]

Seeing how the right no longer gives two craps about the rule of law anymore. That includes you on the right. It is really sad.

 

[Jackson]

When I was teaching Language, I would throw in "logic". It started out very easy: "There is a red house and a green house. I don't live in the green house. What house do I live in?" (First grade) Is would slowly get more advanced and require thinking "outside the box", instead of memorizing or parroting.

 

[Unkotare]

.....
Therefore it doesn't encourage individuality, thinking outside the box or even questioning authority.
Rather you learn instead by rote, that is by remembering a bunch of data or facts then simply write them down a test paper ...

Ignorant nonsense.

 

[Jackson]

Here is an interesting video I saw on youtube.
While some of you watching may or may not agree completely with this video it does make some very good points.
One is that our system of education in public schools is a relic of the industrial age, when it was designed simply to produce a mass of obedient conforming factory workers.
Therefore it doesn't encourage individuality, thinking outside the box or even questioning authority.
Rather you learn instead by rote, that is by remembering a bunch of data or facts then simply write them down a test paper (with scantron tests you don't even have to write them out).
As this video points out most students will forget up to 95 % of what they studied within just a few days of taking the exam.
Obviously if they forget that much then it can only show how irrelevant such information was to them personally.

Also the public schools especially today don't even do a good job of teaching you the very basics of English, Math or science.
Which of course is the reason why everyone has a low opinion of the public school system in regard to quality.

You know, one has to learn by mimicking or be rote, once you have your foundation, use it in different ways. Just as math...learn you number and solve equations or look at a situation and create your own equation to solve a dilemma you have. It's just teaching and someone showing you how to use that info to open more doors.

 

[Unkotare]

When I was teaching Language, I would throw in "logic". It started out very easy: "There is a red house and a green house. I don't live in the green house. What house do I live in?" (First grade) Is would slowly get more advanced and require thinking "outside the box", instead of memorizing or parroting.

And of course they would need to have some idea of what "house," "green," "red," "I," "live," and "to be" in both the affirmative and negative in the simple present tense meant.

Not as simple as it seems, and requiring a significant degree of memory and review.

 

[Jackson]

When I was teaching Language, I would throw in "logic". It started out very easy: "There is a red house and a green house. I don't live in the green house. What house do I live in?" (First grade) Is would slowly get more advanced and require thinking "outside the box", instead of memorizing or parroting.

And of course they would need to have some idea of what "house," "green," "red," "I," "live," and "to be" in both the affirmative and negative in the simple present tense meant.

Not as simple as it seems, and requiring a significant degree of memory and review.

No, they don't even need to know the actual colors. Significant degree of memory? If they are learning to read, they are using the correct "degree" of memory already. It's as easy as, "I am thinking if an elephant or a dog. I am not thinking of an elephant. What am I thinking of?"

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Here is an interesting video I saw on youtube.
While some of you watching may or may not agree completely with this video it does make some very good points.
One is that our system of education in public schools is a relic of the industrial age, when it was designed simply to produce a mass of obedient conforming factory workers.
Therefore it doesn't encourage individuality, thinking outside the box or even questioning authority.
Rather you learn instead by rote, that is by remembering a bunch of data or facts then simply write them down a test paper (with scantron tests you don't even have to write them out).
As this video points out most students will forget up to 95 % of what they studied within just a few days of taking the exam.
Obviously if they forget that much then it can only show how irrelevant such information was to them personally.

Also the public schools especially today don't even do a good job of teaching you the very basics of English, Math or science.
Which of course is the reason why everyone has a low opinion of the public school system in regard to quality.

Your post describes education about 40 years ago, not today.

 

[Unkotare]

When I was teaching Language, I would throw in "logic". It started out very easy: "There is a red house and a green house. I don't live in the green house. What house do I live in?" (First grade) Is would slowly get more advanced and require thinking "outside the box", instead of memorizing or parroting.

And of course they would need to have some idea of what "house," "green," "red," "I," "live," and "to be" in both the affirmative and negative in the simple present tense meant.

Not as simple as it seems, and requiring a significant degree of memory and review.

No, they don't even need to know the actual colors. Significant degree of memory? If they are learning to read, they are using the correct "degree" of memory already. It's as easy as, "I am thinking if an elephant or a dog. I am not thinking of an elephant. What am I thinking of?"

You’re glossing over all the complex cognitive processes of neurolinguistics in order to speak in simplistic generalities.

 

[Unkotare]

All this “doesn’t encourage individuality or thinking outside the box” nonsense is ignorant on several levels.

 

[jasonlee3071]

Here is an interesting video I saw on youtube.
While some of you watching may or may not agree completely with this video it does make some very good points.
One is that our system of education in public schools is a relic of the industrial age, when it was designed simply to produce a mass of obedient conforming factory workers.
Therefore it doesn't encourage individuality, thinking outside the box or even questioning authority.
Rather you learn instead by rote, that is by remembering a bunch of data or facts then simply write them down a test paper (with scantron tests you don't even have to write them out).
As this video points out most students will forget up to 95 % of what they studied within just a few days of taking the exam.
Obviously if they forget that much then it can only show how irrelevant such information was to them personally.

Also the public schools especially today don't even do a good job of teaching you the very basics of English, Math or science.
Which of course is the reason why everyone has a low opinion of the public school system in regard to quality.

Your post describes education about 40 years ago, not today.

Really? How is it that much different today than 40 years ago? Students still have to sit in class, listen to teacher, take notes, study and then take exam.
Which is the main gist of it.

 

[jasonlee3071]

Here is an interesting video I saw on youtube.
While some of you watching may or may not agree completely with this video it does make some very good points.
One is that our system of education in public schools is a relic of the industrial age, when it was designed simply to produce a mass of obedient conforming factory workers.
Therefore it doesn't encourage individuality, thinking outside the box or even questioning authority.
Rather you learn instead by rote, that is by remembering a bunch of data or facts then simply write them down a test paper (with scantron tests you don't even have to write them out).
As this video points out most students will forget up to 95 % of what they studied within just a few days of taking the exam.
Obviously if they forget that much then it can only show how irrelevant such information was to them personally.

Also the public schools especially today don't even do a good job of teaching you the very basics of English, Math or science.
Which of course is the reason why everyone has a low opinion of the public school system in regard to quality.

You know, one has to learn by mimicking or be rote, once you have your foundation, use it in different ways. Just as math...learn you number and solve equations or look at a situation and create your own equation to solve a dilemma you have. It's just teaching and someone showing you how to use that info to open more doors.

Great if the average student goes further than that as opposed to learning something just to pass an exam, then forget most of it within a few days.

 

[Unkotare]

.....
Therefore it doesn't encourage individuality, thinking outside the box or even questioning authority.
Rather you learn instead by rote, that is by remembering a bunch of data or facts then simply write them down a test paper ...

Ignorant nonsense.

The sensationalist media recently made a big stink about a report that supposedly shows Chinese students as the top in the world. Leaving aside the misleading nature of such comparisons, the fact is that many thousands of Chinese families with the means to do so go to great lengths to send their sons and daughters to study in the US precisely because our educational system is perceived as fostering individuality and creativity. The Chinese educational system that is supposedly so much better than ours relies more heavily on rote learning and very few high-stakes tests than whiners about American education could even imagine.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Here is an interesting video I saw on youtube.
While some of you watching may or may not agree completely with this video it does make some very good points.
One is that our system of education in public schools is a relic of the industrial age, when it was designed simply to produce a mass of obedient conforming factory workers.
Therefore it doesn't encourage individuality, thinking outside the box or even questioning authority.
Rather you learn instead by rote, that is by remembering a bunch of data or facts then simply write them down a test paper (with scantron tests you don't even have to write them out).
As this video points out most students will forget up to 95 % of what they studied within just a few days of taking the exam.
Obviously if they forget that much then it can only show how irrelevant such information was to them personally.

Also the public schools especially today don't even do a good job of teaching you the very basics of English, Math or science.
Which of course is the reason why everyone has a low opinion of the public school system in regard to quality.

Your post describes education about 40 years ago, not today.

Really? How is it that much different today than 40 years ago? Students still have to sit in class, listen to teacher, take notes, study and then take exam.
Which is the main gist of it.

I was a teacher for 21 years. The only thing constant about education was change. If you think that is all that kids in schools do today, I suggest you get in a school and find out what really happens in and out of the classroom.

 

[luchitociencia]

My best teacher of mathematics was a professor whom since first day of class told us continually the same phrase: "You don't study mathematics, you practice it". (Parasí Benitez, Mathematics school teacher)

When he called one of us to have a test at the blackboard, he gave us as a gift a theoretical question:

-What a equation is?
- A equation is an equality with two term...
-Enough! now, write the following equation...

He is the one who opened my eyes with mathematics. The classrooms under his teaching were the best in mathematics in the area.

And the teacher of Philosophy with the one teaching History were the ones who taught us to think. We never learned what was the philosophical tendency of Nietzsche, but we were the philosophers. We made the debates.

In our last debate to obtain the grade, ones arguing the roaches can think, the other group saying the contrary. At the end of the school year, he looked at us and said: "you were the roaches and you definitively can think".

The history teacher, he never ask us who was this heroe or general or whatever, his questions were, "what was the idiosyncrasy of the aborigines when the conquerors arrived in such and such year?"

Out of the book questions. For these teachers the books were to be read and be used as references only, not for being memorized.

Unfortunately from the 20 plus teachers we had in the school years, only those three were masters in education.