Critique of Modern-Schooling

[Puffy]

I do not feel my “education” truly began, in auto-didactic form, until I had left school and college (high school equivalent) and had the free-time to direct it myself. I learnt basic language skills, basic number skills, basic computer skills, but little else, beyond mere superficiality, while in school. For having spent the majority of my time from the age of 5-18 in the public school system, I do not believe I learnt that much, and that the essence of it could have been taught much faster. I was an average student imo (potentially of latent capability), but excelled under my own guidance at University.

Education, imo, could be phrased as the traits, habits and capacities cultivated by the development of a continued process. What “Education” was to me in school was a process of committing to memory arbitrary, disconnected facts that teachers determined were important for me to know for arbitrary reasons. I never felt it “Connected” with me, and so it felt dull and irrelevant. Like being forced into some arbitrary design, cut-off from my natural curiosity and instincts, like an animal in a cage. You sit in one class disinterestedly absorbing arbitrary facts for an hour, then alarm bell, disconnect, and now for something completely different, alarm bell, disconnect, and now for something completely different, alarm bell, disconnect, etc, go home. No intelligent overarching structure just now... this, now... this.

That’s the process.

 What does the process result in? Boredom (consequent reinforcement for life that education is uninteresting), dullness, confusion, distractedness, indifference, passiveness, emotional and intellectual dependence on an authority figure as the dispenser of facts. That’s the education — what’s actually being taught, what actually results from the process. I personally find it difficult to believe that it doesn't have social conditioning as its primary purpose.



So long as there is no intelligent or creative guiding framework being cultivated in the student — actively systemising, integrating, and piecing the information together towards some productive or creative end — all that is being taught is useless trivia, that if not grounded in some practical skill or application will be forgotten quickly.

Why does that need to take up 13 years of the most impressionable period of someone’s life?

I am not an expert to give specifics at all, but if I was designing a curriculum, beyond the basic foundations of language skills, number skills, et al, I would be designing it with two primary aims in mind if I truly had someone's "education" at heart:


1. Different methods of cultivating and applying intelligence/ creativity: critical thinking and problem-solving (grammar-logic-rhetoric), scientific method & experimentation, an art of choice.
I.e. a focus not on “what to learn” but “how to learn” with original work/ synthesis as its output on subjects that the student has the option to align with their own developing interests. My logic is that if you teach someone “how to learn”, they can learn anything they need to post-education, and will have the self-confidence to do so.
2. Identifying the passions and predilections of that student so that from the earliest stage their education can be guided towards the direction/ fields/ apprenticeships that is right for them. This would widen the possibility for self-motivation and consequent desire/ relevance to learn.


Is it just me or does it seem strange that we’ve gone through thousands of years of pedagogy to evolve as incompetent a system as modern schooling? (Maybe you disagree that it’s incompetent?) Surely something better must have been developed somewhere along the way, and surely given the West's obsession with history it would have been maintained in some form?

I'd be willing to wager that if anyone here cultivated intelligence and creativity in their lives, it was a matter of your natural curiosity surviving school rather than being nurtured by it. Arse about face.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

I do not feel my “education” truly began, in auto-didactic form, until I had left school and college (high school equivalent) and had the free-time to direct it myself. I learnt basic language skills, basic number skills, basic computer skills, but little else, beyond mere superficiality, while in school. For having spent the majority of my time from the age of 5-18 in the public school system, I do not believe I learnt that much, and that the essence of it could have been taught much faster. I was an average student imo (potentially of latent capability), but excelled under my own guidance at University.

Education, imo, could be phrased as the traits, habits and capacities cultivated by the development of a continued process. What “Education” was to me in school was a process of committing to memory arbitrary, disconnected facts that teachers determined were important for me to know for arbitrary reasons. I never felt it “Connected” with me, and so it felt dull and irrelevant. Like being forced into some arbitrary design, cut-off from my natural curiosity and instincts, like an animal in a cage. You sit in one class disinterestedly absorbing arbitrary facts for an hour, then alarm bell, disconnect, and now for something completely different, alarm bell, disconnect, and now for something completely different, alarm bell, disconnect, etc, go home. No intelligent overarching structure just now... this, now... this.

That’s the process.

 What does the process result in?...

AHHH...but you learned conformity to the nanny state. At the hands of your nannies of the state no less.

This is the real point of the centralized education system today. This they do extremely well.

In fact, I'd argue they generally do not want 99.9999% of those they purport to 'teach' to think at all. Behave according to their boundaries of their scripted linear algorithms? yes. Think no.

xSFJs run the world in this respect. They don't value thinking and they value thinkers even less. Thinkers represent trouble for them. Thinkers are enemies of the nanny state.

Any thinking outside the boundaries of their xSFJ imposed linear algorithms will not be tolerated.

Which is really not thinking anyhow.

Do insects think?

I am not an expert to give specifics at all, but if I was designing a curriculum, beyond the basic foundations of language skills, number skills, et al, I would be designing it with two primary aims in mind if I truly had someone's "education" at heart:


1. Different methods of cultivating and applying intelligence/ creativity: critical thinking and problem-solving (grammar-logic-rhetoric), scientific method & experimentation, an art of choice.
I.e. a focus not on “what to learn” but “how to learn” with original work/ synthesis as its output on subjects that the student has the option to align with their own developing interests. My logic is that if you teach someone “how to learn”, they can learn anything they need to post-education, and will have the self-confidence to do so.
2. Identifying the passions and predilections of that student so that from the earliest stage their education can be guided towards the direction/ fields/ apprenticeships that is right for them. This would widen the possibility for self-motivation and consequent desire/ relevance to learn.

Yeah but that would result in *gasp*...thinking

The nanny state wants insects for their armies of drones and zombies. Nothing more. They will do the thinking thank you very much.

...Is it just me or does it seem strange that we’ve gone through thousands of years of pedagogy to evolve as incompetent a system as modern schooling? (Maybe you disagree that it’s incompetent?) Surely something better must have been developed somewhere along the way, and surely given the West's obsession with history it would have been maintained in some form?

for the last 100 years the West has been intent on disintegrating the history (context) of its inhabitants. Thats the point of the centralized system. Destroy the history (context) and you destroy the identity of the individual. Destroy the individual's identity and what is left are insects for the drone army.

Tabula Rasa.

Its a great plan if you are the 0.0001% at the top doing the thinking in your own personal short term best interest. And its been working marvelously going on 100+ years in the West. I'd argue in the USA it really gathered steam during the Civil War and the subsequent Industrial 'Revolution' (I'd say Industrial De-Evolution)

 

[onesteptwostep]

I think the schooling system's fine. It depends on the country, but the one that I had in California wasn't bad. (Technically speaking the school district I attended has one of the highest rating in the country i.e. U.S. [top 5%?] don't think it did any good for me though). Maybe the UK has a more rigid system? In my schooling I was able to read into both British and American literature, which I think helped me shape me into who I am now.

I think the system more has to do with a lack of a wholesome mentor/parenting aspect however. Society and culture at large has moved away from a mother/father figure being at home to emotionally nurture the kids. The way one takes in ideas differ when the emotional component is missing. I'm not entirely sure on what the extent of this is, though.

In Germany I hear that their higher education has a lot of oral testing in it, as opposed to essays and fills-in-circle types of tests. Maybe that sort of education is better in some aspects? We know from history that a mentoring system was one of the better ways to educate. I mean that's how we got Alexander the Great from Socrates. (Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle -> Alexander).

We've come a long ways since the 1800s though. I mean back then (heck, even after 1900), people just crammed kids into barns, from ages 8 to 18, teaching them the exact same material.




edit: here's an article you might be interested in: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...bjects-heres-what-the-reforms-will-really-do/

The Fins are trying this new 'education by topics' thing.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Here is what Stefan Molyneux has to say about it (love this guy):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIejieCEfzA

 

[redbaron]

Steiner schools are supposedly less banal than the ordinary curriculum.

In a nutshell, the problem with schooling is that it's targeted at everyone within one standard deviation (or less) of the social and intellectual norm. It's the symptom of an attempt to educate the most people in the most efficient way possible, with minimal...casualties.

Problem is that even if we assume education works for one full standard deviaton, there's still some 32.8% of the population that it isn't working for. Unfortunately availability heuristic dictates that the majority of adults, when faced with a child who falls in that 32.8% won't really understand unless they too were part of that minority as a child.

So you just get the attitude of, "Well it worked for me so why not you?" In relation to the children who don't gel with the system. I'll post more later but I'm going to pot some plants now.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Steiner schools are supposedly less banal than the ordinary curriculum.

In a nutshell, the problem with schooling is that it's targeted at everyone within one standard deviation (or less) of the social and intellectual norm. It's the symptom of an attempt to educate the most people in the most efficient way possible, with minimal...casualties.

Problem is that even if we assume education works for one full standard deviaton, there's still some 32.8% of the population that it isn't working for. Unfortunately availability heuristic dictates that the majority of adults, when faced with a child who falls in that 32.8% won't really understand unless they too were part of that minority as a child.

So you just get the attitude of, "Well it worked for me so why not you?" In relation to the children who don't gel with the system. I'll post more later but I'm going to pot some plants now.

This is such a solid post. Thanks for sharing that intelligent analysis.

 

[Hadoblado]

RB sums up the argument against one-size-fits-all very well.

If you strip the extremist overtone from DGH's post, it's also pretty spot on. I fiddle with the idea of an international body that regulates state indoctrination through the education system, but know it infeasible.

My grandfather had a primary role on the board of education in Australia. He was a demonstrably brilliant man, and it always struck me as strange that the education system was so fucked when the small sample I had indicated that it should have been in good hands. This was compounded later, when he gave me free reign of his personal library, and I read many of the experimental education journals he had played a part in producing. The science was good! Everything reeked of competence despite being from a time long passed. I am forced to assume that the problem of fixing our education system is far more convoluted than it seems on the surface, otherwise it'd be in a far better place than it is. These reasons might be political, or they might be inherent in the nature of large scale organisation, but I was strongly impressed upon that my understanding was (and still is) naive.

FWIW, I also fit the mold of someone that flourished post-formal education. I failed most of highschool. My one regret is that it took me a very long time to pick up good study habits of my own accord. If I'd managed to pick them up during schooling I'd have saved myself a lot of time and misery.

 

[Inquisitor]

1. Different methods of cultivating and applying intelligence/ creativity: critical thinking and problem-solving (grammar-logic-rhetoric), scientific method & experimentation, an art of choice.
I.e. a focus not on “what to learn” but “how to learn” with original work/ synthesis as its output on subjects that the student has the option to align with their own developing interests. My logic is that if you teach someone “how to learn”, they can learn anything they need to post-education, and will have the self-confidence to do so.

Agreed. And you might not believe this, but virtually all teachers at some point have aspired to this. As a former teacher, I can tell you that bar none the most difficult challenge any teacher faces is how to deliver inspired teaching that will cultivate a love of learning in students. Problem is that the growing tendency towards orthodoxy and standardization has made increasingly difficult to make this happen.

2. Identifying the passions and predilections of that student so that from the earliest stage their education can be guided towards the direction/ fields/ apprenticeships that is right for them. This would widen the possibility for self-motivation and consequent desire/ relevance to learn.


Is it just me or does it seem strange that we’ve gone through thousands of years of pedagogy to evolve as incompetent a system as modern schooling? (Maybe you disagree that it’s incompetent?) Surely something better must have been developed somewhere along the way, and surely given the West's obsession with history it would have been maintained in some form?

In India they had a caste system. Before it turned into an evil/bigoted system of segregation, it had a benevolent purpose: train and educate people based on type. The warriors/rulers would receive a certain kind of education while the merchants would receive another.

Our current education system is actually the best in the world b/c it celebrates individual differences, and schools still have a lot of autonomy compared to those in say, China. The problem is that Common Core/testing/privatization are ruining the very institution that helped to cultivate some of the greatest luminaries the world has ever seen. Once orthodoxy sets in, schools no longer have much independence and are beholden to teaching a certain body of knowledge in a way that maximizes test scores. That makes it much more difficult for teachers to inspire their students.

 

[Haim]

As long as we keep checking if a student can solve specific problems,at certain time,there will be no improvement,as the way to check "improvement" is these tests.You can not teach well/let to learn when you need to teach people that can not think(most people) and people that can,by thinking I mean forming new anything,not just remembering knowledge and solving algorithms ways,when you put people that really do not want to study with people that do.As long it is mass produced factory in order to get accepted to other mass produced factory which purpose is filtering for employees.
The best experiences I had in school were not really part of it,few days of debate,making a Physics based safe as a team than going to a competition to break others safes,learning a game framework by myself(j2me) and making a game.The problem is that I am the exception,I am not sure that some could even write more than 5 lines of code on their own(in the third year,due I had more experience),not to mention studying without him.And no the school have no way to check if student are capable beforehand,Math is not so related,a mere indication,if they were to follow it I would not be in the class and if a magic test were to exist there will be less than 15 students in the class.
Conclusion,school is the problem not the solution,only were I done things which were practically not part of school it was good.

 

[Puffy]

Steiner schools are supposedly less banal than the ordinary curriculum.

In a nutshell, the problem with schooling is that it's targeted at everyone within one standard deviation (or less) of the social and intellectual norm. It's the symptom of an attempt to educate the most people in the most efficient way possible, with minimal...casualties.

Problem is that even if we assume education works for one full standard deviaton, there's still some 32.8% of the population that it isn't working for. Unfortunately availability heuristic dictates that the majority of adults, when faced with a child who falls in that 32.8% won't really understand unless they too were part of that minority as a child.

So you just get the attitude of, "Well it worked for me so why not you?" In relation to the children who don't gel with the system. I'll post more later but I'm going to pot some plants now.

As in Rudolf Steiner? Odd coincidence as I read one of his books from start to finish yesterday.

(My intuitions lean towards agreement with you House; I would like to investigate the history of modern-schooling at some stage.)

In part my motivation for writing this thread is that I feel, if I suddenly had a child I was responsible for, it would be unethical of me to send them through the public-school system if I honestly thought it was damaging. Based on a quick wiki search, the Steiner system sounds more interesting, but I'd research it further and other possibilities.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

1. Different methods of cultivating and applying intelligence/ creativity: critical thinking and problem-solving (grammar-logic-rhetoric), scientific method & experimentation, an art of choice.
I.e. a focus not on “what to learn” but “how to learn” with original work/ synthesis as its output on subjects that the student has the option to align with their own developing interests. My logic is that if you teach someone “how to learn”, they can learn anything they need to post-education, and will have the self-confidence to do so.

I'm pretty sure I've voiced most of the observations you had about western education.
I agree that teaching and developing the framework of learning is one of the most important things to know in life, it's a good position to go anywhere one wants.

I think the quality of schooling is the outcome of many variables. It also relates to the quality of teachers, parents, economic situation, politics and their fear of reforms. The system works as a ladder for competition and it's adjusted to the industry needs well enough that improvements are largely not implemented.

Some personal experience:

Spoiler

The system in my country is designed to separate less driven, less ambitious and send them off to vocational schools, where they have a chance to pick up a useful set of skills for their jobs. High schools in my country have the goal of training individuals to get the best scores on their admission exams to universities, or to win admission abroad, there's a certain degree of head-hunting for the smartest kids from my country, who are later offered emigration prospects to UK, Germany or some other EU countries to study there.

People are sorted into distributions, some schools have entrance exams and higher standards, some schools are private and offer even higher prospects. Most of the schools though are assigned by default and it depends on the parents if they desire to send their children to better schools and prepare them for that.

There are large differences between young people and how they develop at this young age. I went to one of the better schools available, I had to pass exams and I got to meet people who were smarter, more driven and accomplished, because that's what was required to get there.

Not so long ago I met with my class from primary school, before all of the sorting happened and I was surprised to learn how differently our lives have developed.
There are many contrasts, some people already have children and were married, most of them are doing low-skilled work, very few went to uni or followed more demanding education.

If I compare it with people from my middle/high school, most of them are at their final years, doing their masters or starting their businesses, none of them married, most of them focused on their career and life quality, it's as large as class division right there.


I think the school didn't give me too much, there were two inspirational teachers that I can attribute some part of my interest in subject to, but mostly, what my better school offered, was the environment allowing better growth and exploration and friends with whom I could interact on a similar level and improve that way.

It wasn't much, but if I went to one of the worse-off schools it would definitely impact me negatively.

 

[Minuend]

Radically changing a system that's been used for such a long time is no simple feat. Apart from not knowing the outcome and possibly create a new system that's worse (though I guess you could argue that would be difficult), you'll have a myriad of people protesting any change for various reasons. The people with the right knowledge and who would be able to make the "right" changes are in the minority. Though if some started molding the idea the education system needed radical change it might be possible to get that with some 20+ years. Spreading ideas through blogs, debates, news etc.

I had the same experience of disconnect in school, even though I was very interested in learning as a child. I think for me some of the problems were my teachers and parents turning school into a performance thing, where I got praised for getting excellent results and talking about how well I would continue to do through the education system. So for me the important thing became getting excellent results. Memorizing facts, regurgitate, success.

Then in high school when we got graded, I didn't always get straight As (I think the high school I went to were somewhat against giving As the first year) and suddenly there was no reason for me to even try as I didn't get perfect grades. And then there were some muddling factors like anxiety, depression, being an outcast etc.

I did continue to read and learn about topics that fascinated me in my spare time. But school work was very distinctly facts to memorize and I never actively read it or reflected about it the way I did various internet forums. So in a way I'm relearning things now that I "learned" back then.

I was quite old when I first starting to learn how to understand and why the vast sea of information was beneficial to be familiar with.

 

[Yellow]

Education is tricky. As it's practiced by the state (any state), is not conducive to how we are intrinsically driven to learn. There are ways to mitigate this to have a formal system that accounts for development and individuality, but it requires either very high community involvement, or a lot of money to mimic the community a child needs to learn optimally.

I don't see much conspiracy in public education. They aren't trying to brainwash the masses in any overt way. It's just a massive babysitting system with tests that tries (and often fails) to meet public demand.

Why on earth do we have people in basic education all the way to 16 or 18 years old? It's preposterous unless seen as a convenience for society to have these kids "out of the way" as long as possible.

In some cases, our education is training children contrary to our desired outcomes for short-term convenience. Like giving instant gratification for every minor achievement to children, and then expecting adults to intrinsically value their work. But parents wouldn't have anything less. The only thing more annoying than having to deal with your pesky children during the day, is having to hear them complain about how unhappy they are with their 13-year sentence.

Modern schooling is what we demand it to be. Not with lofty ideals, but with the consumers' everyday, and easiest-to-satisfy expectations.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Education is tricky. As it's practiced by the state (any state), is not conducive to how we are intrinsically driven to learn. There are ways to mitigate this to have a formal system that accounts for development and individuality, but it requires either very high community involvement, or a lot of money to mimic the community a child needs to learn optimally.

I don't see much conspiracy in public education. They aren't trying to brainwash the masses in any overt way. It's just a massive babysitting system with tests that tries (and often fails) to meet public demand.

Why on earth do we have people in basic education all the way to 16 or 18 years old? It's preposterous unless seen as a convenience for society to have these kids "out of the way" as long as possible.

In some cases, our education is training children contrary to our desired outcomes for short-term convenience. Like giving instant gratification for every minor achievement to children, and then expecting adults to intrinsically value their work. But parents wouldn't have anything less. The only thing more annoying than having to deal with your pesky children during the day, is having to hear them complain about how unhappy they are with their 13-year sentence.

Modern schooling is what we demand it to be. Not with lofty ideals, but with the consumers' everyday, and easiest-to-satisfy expectations.

Wal Mart quality.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8zNsUTWsOc

 

[420MuNkEy]

I had a very similar schooling experience as OP, except I didn't do reasonably well and dropped out as soon as I possibly could.

The approach that sounds the most compelling to me is what Elon Musk is doing

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STt0dpgn900

I think humans have an intrinsic desire to obtain information, and for some, that desire to learn gets damaged by the traditional schooling model because learning is presented as a chore rather than a free exploration of ideas.

As has already been stated in this thread, there's probably not a very good "one size fits all" model and some people may benefit more from a more guided/structured approach to learning, but I think it would be really beneficial to others to have an alternative to this.

It seems to me that there's enough overlap in potential areas of interest that one would be able to get a reasonably well "balanced" education by simply exploring their interests. What I mean by that is, if someone were interested in carpentry, in the process of exploring that topic they'd run into walls where they'd need to learn a new subject/piece of information (e.g. geometry). Since it's being learned in pursuit of an interest, i.e, it already has relevance to the person learning it, it may be much easier to ingest that information and meaningfully understand it. I can't think of an example of a topic, when fully explored, that would not result in a "balanced" education.

 

[Sinny91]

I can only really speak on behalf of the UK,; But I believe that the educational system is fundamentally flawed, and is is currently dictated by the most out of touch individuals society has to offer.

I would love to be a teacher, and my friends (some of whom are teachers) said that I would make a good lecturer .

I told them that I'd rather get to the kids whilst they are young, but my friends laughed and said I would never be able to 'just teach the curriculum', I oppose it on many fundamental levels, and my employment would be mayhem haha.

One of the first things we teach our children in school over here is about the ancient civilisations, and every line we feed the children is false or flawed, but where I draw the line, is telling these kids that those 'lines' are fact, and that what the government says is the gospel.

And so on and so forth, regarding every subject you can imagine.

 

[Puffy]

It seems to me that there's enough overlap in potential areas of interest that one would be able to get a reasonably well "balanced" education by simply exploring their interests. What I mean by that is, if someone were interested in carpentry, in the process of exploring that topic they'd run into walls where they'd need to learn a new subject/piece of information (e.g. geometry). Since it's being learned in pursuit of an interest, i.e, it already has relevance to the person learning it, it may be much easier to ingest that information and meaningfully understand it. I can't think of an example of a topic, when fully explored, that would not result in a "balanced" education.

I agree, that's what I meant by:

"2. Identifying the passions and predilections of that student so that from the earliest stage their education can be guided towards the direction/ fields/ apprenticeships that is right for them. This would widen the possibility for self-motivation and consequent desire/ relevance to learn."

I became fascinated with comic-books shortly after arriving at university, and my fascination with that guided my education. A lot of people would be surprised by how many fields I've been able to study and tie into it (then from tieing fields into it they then formed their own sub-interests, that I could explore other things in relation to, and so on).

A good teacher should be able to recognise what drives and motivates the student and encourage that as the foundation of their learning. Like you say, if they feel connected to what they're studying they're more likely to want to study other things if they're shown to be angles that will clarify their object of interest.

 

[redbaron]

As in Rudolf Steiner? Odd coincidence as I read one of his books from start to finish yesterday.

Yeah that guy.

 

[Frankie]

Radically changing a system that's been used for such a long time is no simple feat. Apart from not knowing the outcome and possibly create a new system that's worse (though I guess you could argue that would be difficult), you'll have a myriad of people protesting any change for various reasons. The people with the right knowledge and who would be able to make the "right" changes are in the minority. Though if some started molding the idea the education system needed radical change it might be possible to get that with some 20+ years. Spreading ideas through blogs, debates, news etc.

I had the same experience of disconnect in school, even though I was very interested in learning as a child. I think for me some of the problems were my teachers and parents turning school into a performance thing, where I got praised for getting excellent results and talking about how well I would continue to do through the education system. So for me the important thing became getting excellent results. Memorizing facts, regurgitate, success.

Then in high school when we got graded, I didn't always get straight As (I think the high school I went to were somewhat against giving As the first year) and suddenly there was no reason for me to even try as I didn't get perfect grades. And then there were some muddling factors like anxiety, depression, being an outcast etc.

I did continue to read and learn about topics that fascinated me in my spare time. But school work was very distinctly facts to memorize and I never actively read it or reflected about it the way I did various internet forums. So in a way I'm relearning things now that I "learned" back then.

I was quite old when I first starting to learn how to understand and why the vast sea of information was beneficial to be familiar with.

If grades were abolished for kids that are just starting their education (not sure those already in the system), maybe they will become motivated by their desire to learn the subject rather than getting the highest grades.

I agree that the current education system will need to change at some point in the future, primarily because a larger mass of information needs to b taught to students as more discoveries are being made and mere memorization of facts won't cut it anymore.

The problem, as yellow mentioned, is that it might be too expensive to develop an individualised system of education and it might also require heavy community involvement (which goes against the bedrock of western society: Individualism). As such, the society itself might have to change in order to achieve a better standard of education.
The trick is that, not everyone appreciates change.

 

[Analyzer]

I recommend the book The Theory of Education in the United States by Albert Jay Nock. It came out in 1932 right after egalitarian schooling became the norm in the US(and world). Nock's discusses how political democracy is one of the primary reasons to blame for our modern schooling problems.

 

[Ex-User (11125)]

If grades were abolished for kids that are just starting their education (not sure those already in the system), maybe they will become motivated by their desire to learn the subject rather than getting the highest grades.

yeah. i think one of the biggest factors that make modern schooling fail is the introduction of competition and hierarchy among the students through grades. this turns learning into a process of passive consumption, and the result is that educational success now means producing a group of elites in every student batch

 

[Fukyo]

Perhaps when society moves into a post work, post capitalist state, we will move on from the current educational model which serves to equip children to enter the workforce.



kuue kuu post

 

[Puffy]

kuue kuu post

You built my hopes up *sniff* )-;

Thanks for everyone's responses, I've been reading them. Only selectively responding for the moment as I'm more interested to read what other members say.