The Western Education System.

[peter]

At work the other day my workmate said her 16yo son was doing his GCSE physics exam that day and was not expecting to do well in it as he had no interest in the subject and had done no study or revision toward the exam at all. Asked why he had taken the subject she replied that "he had to do something didn't he?", and it occured to me that we might be barking up entierly the wrong tree when it comes to educating our kids.

How much time is wasted, both from the kids point of view and the teachers, in trying to ram information down kids necks in subjects that they have no interest in and will serve them no purpose when they leave school. Why not try a different approach. Say instead of having a minnimum school leaving age, you had a maximum one and coupled this to a minnimum [but high] level of achievement in just three subjects - [you've got it] Reading, writting and Mathematics. This would serve as a mandatory basic education to a level which all kids would have to achieve before being free to leave school [at any age]. This would equip them with the tools to pick up any subjects they liked at a later stage when they were ready or had the desire to do so. Kids who wanted to could study other subjects either within the aforementioned areas, or as separate classes but these would not be mandatory for those who chose to limit their study to the 3 core subjects. Examinations in these subjects would demand considerably higher levels of achievement than are currently exhihited - readers would for example be expected to be able to read aloud, and proficiently from authors as diverse as say Dickens, Plato and Tolkein. Maths would require demonstrations of being able to deal with and manipulate numbers [long division and multiplication of large numbers etc] and higher levels of algebra and geometry than are currently required at secondary level - some scientific use of mathematics would perforce come in here as would say, historical and geographical work in the reading/writting exercises. As stated there would be a maximum age - say 19 where beyond which the student could no longer attend the school, but prior to that learning could, subject to attainment of the core modules, be a more flexible and 'user-friendly' experience.

Any comments?

[I'm Murrin]

Mandatory science lessons are worthwhile and necessary. Otherwise you end up with people just ignorant enough to buy into the kinds of bullshit you hear about from the anti-science folks over in the US.

[Vraith]

Mandatory science lessons are worthwhile and necessary. Otherwise you end up with people just ignorant enough to buy into the kinds of bullshit you hear about from the anti-science folks over in the US.

The anti-science thing is weird...like some other things it seems more prevalent and virulent among the Poli's than the people [though obviously it isn't absent from the peeps.]
OTOH---the U.S. is pretty good for adult science literacy, relatively. Here's some info---there is newer research somewhere that I saw recently, but now I can't find it.
The bad news is that though relatively better, the rate is freaking abyssmal for everyone.
www.aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/summer2009/hobson.cfm

Anyway, I agree science. Not just the material, but deeper/better understanding of the method, and even more importantly the logic and justification of the method, the philosophy of it. How/why it works. Of course math is needed to support/work the science. But I'd focus more on logic than math, particularly in the early years. Cuz there seems to be a belief built into the systems that learning math encourages thinking logically and problem-solving. I think that is backwards. Logic first.

I think things need to be broader, peter.
I'd propose these inclusions besides reading/writing/math:
2 languages [preferably as different from each other as possible] from day one all the way through graduation. One good thing about reading/writing and languages is that you can fold many of the other topics into them---history/social studies/"civics"/political-world events/philosophy, etc. etc.
Another thing with that: you can run a team/co-teaching structure, which seems to have significantly better outcomes overall.

Musical instruments, beginning to end.

Phys. Ed., and not just playing around, real physical training.
[[dance and/or yoga and/or martial arts would count for this]].
Doesn't have to be extreme training, but it does have to be daily, active, and at least moderately intense.
Arts---drawing/painting and sculptural/constructive particularly.
[[this isn't just for "creativity" or "culture"---like music relates/connects to some kinds of math, these visual arts relate/connect to geometric/spatial thought/capacity].
[[what we used to call "shop" could be part of this---metal/wood working and things that grow out of such.]].

If I had my way, I'd also get rid of long summer break---pretty much everything I've seen shows that the months off have serious negative effects on education.

I'd also get rid of sit-down desks. Because there is no advantage to them, and they MAY be actively harmful to the process.

The thing about students not being interested is problematic.
It would be great if peeps were all interested in knowledge/learning just for the sake of it. Or if what peeps are interested in was broad and useful enough for future needs. But that isn't the case, and never will be.

What is needed is motivation for learning things that peeps aren't necessarily interested in. And preferably self/intrinsic motivation---not imposed discipline/demand/"punishment. And that's complicated. Because it tends to be personal/idiosyncratic---and the peeps most likely to need it are almost always the ones who aren't motivated by ordinary institutional/structural methods.

[peter]

For some reason the Asian countries seem much better at motivating their kids to learn than we in the west. Singapore I believe tops the educational league tables, and much of this must be to do with parents instilling the importance of education into children from an early age. Perhaps the drive to do this is related to lower levels of age related welfare meaning that people are much more dependant on their kids for support as they get older?

I still wonder if education could not be approached more...... holistically to somehow give it more relevance to kids in their real lives. I love art, reading, history, you name it, but none of this relates to my schooling, from which I emerged singularly empty of anything that equated to knowledge. How did they so palpably fail to inspire me, as they are still failing to inspire the kids of today? I learned to read at school and that was it. The rest followed as night follows day.

[JIkj fjds j]

Is Singapore a realistic example?
It isn't so long ago you could've been publically whipped for spitting in the street. Imagine what might happen to someone in school making doofers!

I live approximately two hundred yards from a junior school, and most of the time the kids are silent, that is, until playtime. I can't help wonder what the long term psychological effect has on a young mind let loose for fifteen minutes or so into absolute chaos.

It gives me an uneasy feeling when I hear kids screaming their heads off and wonder that there might be an elementary flaw in our education system, right there, with the encouragement of this strange behaviour. Would the world be a quieter, more sedate and easy going place, if we were learn at an early age to be less noisy?

Or maybe I'm just getting grumpier as I get older.

[Vraith]

Is Singapore a realistic example?

I don't know much about the Singapore system in particular---except that
I know they tend to place high in the international kids tests.
Problem with that is that those particular tests aren't really that useful.

But if the system resembles the Chinese system, I don't approve.

[Avatar]

Standing desks, it turns out, might not be all that much better. www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-we ... story.html

--A

[peter]

One area that was definitely deficient in 'my day' was careers advice. It never occured to me that you could be a jewler, a clock-maker, that you could import oriental carpets, that you could bind books or restore old masters.

It seems to me that from an early age kids should be shown the array of wonderfull things on offer out there instead of the 'doctor, teacher, scientist, vet.....doctor, teacher, scientist, vet' mantra that they are fed day in and day out.

[deer of the dawn]

I don't think we can compare ourselves to Singapore, which still approves of corporal punishment and has a much more homogeneous society. Kind of like post-WW2 America, from which our scores have fallen year by year... (generally speaking)

I certainly agree with Peter about the diversity of options thing. And with Vraith that music, art, and physical education are not optional.

I agree that Mathematics is vital but really, how many of us have used a quadratic equation since leaving middle school?? Someone? As a paperhanger I did use a smattering of algebra, but as a teacher, speaker, and writer, I rarely use more than basic operations.

Several European countries still use a system where secondary schools are specialized to the student's aptitude and interest. I believe in Denmark students must test into schools that focus more on Science, or the Arts, or Literature, whatever.

At any rate, I look at Nigeria's current situation (their educational model is British; that is, 1950s British) and conclude that the best schools are ones where teachers who care about children are there every day with children who had breakfast and have not had the joy of learning beaten out of them.

[Vraith]

Standing desks, it turns out, might not be all that much better. www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-we ... story.html

--A

Yea, but I'm not talking about them for supposed "health benefits."
And even if I was, I'm not talking about standing in one place.

No, my reasons are the educational benefits...of which there are several different kinds.
Congruency effects, for instance. Did you know that research [though not massive at this point] shows that movement=math skills? Even to such strange little details like people do addition better when moving upwards, subtraction moving downwards?
That they work with small quantities turning/moving to the left, and large number work better to the right?
There was a very small piece---not big enough/random enough to really rely on, just a hint for places to go---showing gestures work, too.

peter, I agree with the last thing you said a lot.
The larger problem isn't that we keep trying to make them learn things they aren't interested in, the problem is we take inherently interesting things and turn them into boring, laborious crap and approach that now-dull junk by the most limiting method there is.

[Avatar]

Meh. I'm not jumping up and down while doing maths.

--A

[deer of the dawn]

Standing desks, it turns out, might not be all that much better. www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-we ... story.html

--A

Yea, but I'm not talking about them for supposed "health benefits."
And even if I was, I'm not talking about standing in one place.

No, my reasons are the educational benefits...of which there are several different kinds.
Congruency effects, for instance. Did you know that research [though not massive at this point] shows that movement=math skills? Even to such strange little details like people do addition better when moving upwards, subtraction moving downwards?
That they work with small quantities turning/moving to the left, and large number work better to the right?
There was a very small piece---not big enough/random enough to really rely on, just a hint for places to go---showing gestures work, too.

peter, I agree with the last thing you said a lot.
The larger problem isn't that we keep trying to make them learn things they aren't interested in, the problem is we take inherently interesting things and turn them into boring, laborious crap and approach that now-dull junk by the most limiting method there is.

Vraith, I am fascinated by the research you refer to about the kinetic component. (Not that it's surprising, it is already used for phonics.) Can you point me to any articles? I am always looking for better ways to teach. I teach grade 3, which is the first year math begins to get pretty complicated and tweak their little brains. It is and should be inherently exciting, but some struggle and will lose interest if it does not make sense.

A teacher's job is to teach. If they stand in front and lecture to desks, while that is necessary for delivery of some material, they need to add other techniques. If they aren't it's because they are mediocre teachers, not because the whole system is broken.

[Vraith]

Can you point me to any articles? I am always looking for better ways to teach.

Well, there's a fairly recent little blurb on congruency in particular [which I will put at the bottom...it really is a just a blurb, though].
And another couple takes on a recent U of Vermont that might be slightly more useful conceptually/generally.
[[with a couple links to some of the dry research]]

Do you have access to JSTOR or other research/journal database?
You can find a ton of the research there, if you do, and that's the thing you want---

But what I think you really want is something more practical, on actual methods/movements/activities/applications. And I can't help with that---I don't teach now, so don't invest in those practical handbooks.

www.psypost.org/2015/05/the-congruency- ... ties-34589
integratedlistening.com/movement-based-instruction-helps-students-learn-math/
www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=news&storyID=1 ... ommfeature

[Avatar]

If they aren't it's because they are mediocre teachers, not because the whole system is broken.

Amen. (Not that the system can't have something to do with it as well of course, but good teachers are good teachers no matter what the system is doing.)

--A

[Vraith]

For Deer, on the practical just in case:
I was talking with a friend of mine...who does still teach... about this topic/thread, and mentioned your desire for ways, and he pointed me to this:
https://www.teachingchannel.org/teachin ... ls-mission

Some caveats: He and I have some philosophical/methodological disagreements...but I've seen him in action, and he gets good results with very difficult students---and/or students with difficult situations/challenges [those that, for numerous reasons, have been removed from ordinary schools].

I have only peeked at the site...it looks like a ton of content.
My buddy says he spends most of his breaks wading through it all to find the really good stuff.

In my brief glance, it didn't seem to have anything related to the kinetic---but it was really only the briefest of glances.

Good thing: it is searchable by subject and grade level.

[Vraith]

Double, but literally just ran across this, preliminary and needs more research, but:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/don- ... reativity/

[Avatar]

Nice one, thanks for the link.

--A