Education system and validation

[Anonymous No.5761542]

(1 of 2)
Here are some of my thoughts on the education system and how it rewards certain types of students. Please tell me what you think.
Tl;dr: I dont think it is good for test scores and grades to be rewarded because it makes recipients validate themselves. And, those who dont
get the high test scores and grades feel ashamed and inferior. The students who don't recieve high grades/test scores are no less important than the students who do. The high scoring student is just as human (and potentially just as useful to society) as a low scoring student.

****

I think it is important to ask ourselves why we reward these high test scores.
Is it to motivate other students to do better?
This would imply that success in the world is directly determined by how well you do in school. They may be related, but
I do not believe that- beyond doubt - it can be proven that high scores and high grades cause success in society. One can make
an important contribution to society without having high test scores.

Often, the opposite is what happens. In order to rationalize their apparent inferiority, students will begin to tell themselves
that school, and more importantly inquiry and knowledge, are not important.

[Anonymous No.5761543]

>>5761542
(2 of 2)
Is it to reward students for their hard work?
High School is the beginning of the journey in life. Success in high school usually is not important to anyone in society or to the world
in general. It is, of course, important to friends and family. Friends and family should definitely celebrate a student's success. However,
a school Rewarding student's for helping themselves (Which is what doing well in school is- the student helping himself look promising to
colleges) is unnecessary and redundant. After all, a student's reward will be the college they are going to, or whatever other result they
have attained by the merit they have accumulated throughout their academic careers. Perhaps, this merit is not even academic. The point is,
when school's get involved with unecessarily rewarding students by criteria that is often misguided, good and curious and hard working
students often get overlooked.
No other reason should be important, because a school's job is to help it's student's succeed academically and in life. Giving student's
a sense of inferiority definitely does not help them. This is especially true for student's who miss an award by .04 points, or one or two
questions, or some other small margin. do these margins, which may have been completely arbitrary and momentary lapses, really call for the
often painful and disheartening differentiation caused by these academic rewards? Surely, the student with a GPA .003 points lower than another
is not considerably less capable.

[Anonymous No.5761546]

>>5761543
(3 of 2?)

I believe that getting rid of GPA will help student's to focus more on actual intellectual inquiry, instead of focusing on robotically memorizing
(what seems to be) mindless drivel in order to get accolades, and even worse, in order to get into college. It is a shame that colleges consider
GPA, which is often not an indication of any curiosity or higher level of thinking.

GPA is, however, a good indication of work ethic. If it were to be kept, this would be it's main purpose as a measurement. However, the nature of
the curriculum would need to be adjusted to be more intellectually stimulating.

****
Some of these kids dont even have any passion for their subjects. I have a problem with the education system for restraining intellectual
inquiry and I have a problem with those who are the sheep of the system. I sympathize with students who are passionate about knowledge
but are slighted because of the misplaced, backward values of the system. CHILDREN WHO DO WELL IN SCHOOL ARE NOT NECESSARILY SMART, MANY
DO NO MORE THAN COMPUTERS; MEMORIZING, PLUGGING NUMBERS INTO EQUATIONS, RECITING, ALL WITHOUT KNOWING THE IMPLICATION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF
ANY TASK THEY PERFORM. THEY DO NOT THINK CRITICALLY, CREATIVELY, OR LOGICALLY. They have no intellectual ambition. They're "success"
(in curriculum catered to their one-dimensional ways of thinking) often comes at a great price: the nourishment and fostering of their
minds in ways that will contribute to society through inventions and new ways to see the world.

[Anonymous No.5761553]

>>5761542
I posted this on /sci/ because I think the education system is hurting people who actually are curious and interested in science and other STEM topics by making them jump through their hoops.
Sorry if it seems a bit disconnected. Anyway, please share your thoughts and experiences

[Anonymous No.5761558]

Secondary school (British equivalent to high school) science teacher here. We do not test or assess as much as the American system, but here are some of my personal musings on this.

We, as teachers, are pushed to try to encourage both ends of the academic spectrum – both the high-fliers and the not-so-high-fliers; and both are are difficult jobs.

Every economy in the world needs scientists as much as mechanics or trashmen – both are essential as each other, and although I don't agree with the notion that school or education should be training *for* a job, that's the way governments around the world look at it. Not everyone can or should be astronauts.

The high fliers are often the most insecure students in school. As with adults, their knowledge brings also the realisation of how relatively ignorant they are. The less academically able students or adults have relatively intellectual lives, although mundanely poor and hence less healthy, etc.

It has always been like this, and always will be, I suppose.

[Anonymous No.5761560]

>>5761558
*relatively happy intellectual lives

Ignorance is bliss, really.

[Anonymous No.5761562]

>>5761542
You are everything wrong with the education system, which is failing miserabley.

We are having serious issues with people's self-esteem now because there is a perspective in schools that you are NOT better than anyone else. EVERYONE is equal to everyone else and that they are all special snowflakes.

This is simply not true.

No, idiots are not "as useful" to society in academia. They might be outside of it, but not within it.

Take your humanistic bullshit and shove it up your arse.

[Anonymous No.5761568]

>>5761562
OP is saying that tests are the wrong way to measure intellect, he is not saying that everyone has the same intellect.
I mean, even in the tl;dr he implies that some people are more useful to society than others.

[Anonymous No.5761574]

>>5761562
I think the old British system of a test at 11 was the perfect way.

If one was deemed 'worthy' at 11, then you were off to 'grammar school' to learn academic subjects like English lit, the sciences, Latin, etc.

If not, secondary modern is where you learnt a trade (in much demand these days, and often more lucrative than 'hard' subjects) like carpentry, mechanics, etc.

This test at 11 would define one's life thereafter, but I've yet to be convinced of a better way.

[Anonymous No.5761580]

>>5761568
No, they are proven methods for doing it. We need MORE segregation, we need MORE pressure to perform well.

I don't give a flying toss how smart you think you are; if you cannot do well in tests, you are not "smart". Anyone who knows anything about IQ knows that it is relatively meaningless, agreed. But actual applicable "smarts" ARE measured by schools. You have to have the work ethic to succeed in life.

In fact, life success is VERY poorly mediated by IQ, but very well mediated by impulsivity.

If you cannot concentrate or learn lots of information, you will not succeed. End of story. We do not need mroe students in universities who think they are hot shit but have zero work ethic and cannot learn the massive amounts of information thrown at you.

[Anonymous No.5761585]

>>5761574
>If not, secondary modern is where you learnt a trade (in much demand these days, and often more lucrative than 'hard' subjects) like carpentry, mechanics, etc.

Exactly. People need to stop trying to force their kids into academia. You can be successful without it.

But no, instead we get the dickhead parents who think being a tradie that out-earns a professor is a BAD thing, and that we should hold back truely intellectually gifted children just to give their special little snowflake more of an opportunity to "spread their wings" and "follow their dreams".

[Anonymous No.5761590]

>>5761542
>>5761543
>>5761546
I find that frequent testing helps me to understand material that I work with. I add more tests and projects to my material.

[Anonymous No.5761594]

>>5761590
Yes, it is called the "testing effect".

Active recall is much better than passive learning.

Kudos on figuring it out this early. I hope you make it far.

[Anonymous No.5761596]

>>5761580
In America at least, many of these tests don't measure the applicable smarts that are actually needed not only in academia, but really in life any profession. Or, to use terms from your post (which I like by the way), they are segregating on the wrong criteria, and their segregation isn't helping anyone or anything.
I do believe hard work is necessary, but I also think curiosity and creativity in a profession is important too. And, to be honest, measurements like GPA barely take any thinking or interest at all.

[Anonymous No.5761599]

>>5761590
Well in this education system we test on a chapter once, then once more in the final exam, and then that's it- then it's flushed. We treat the sciences like they're completely exclusive from each other when there are often many important connections

[Anonymous No.5761600]

i wish i had more standardized tests growing up (along with getting to see the results) so i could know where i needed to focus more. the grading systems ive been through have been so bullshit. There was the check +/- system, the catholic school "you wont get your grades back ever", and high school youll find out whenever. i could never tell when i was doing bad or good

[Anonymous No.5761602]

>>5761585
jesus christ. would you fucking autismal idiots stop parroting 'the trades.' the average tradesman makes $20/hour mid-career per the bureau of labor and statistics. it's a shitty and dangerous line of work that is subject to the ups and downs of local economies. local welding or plumbing contracts die up? guess what, fuckhead: you're out of work for weeks or months. want to made the 'big bucks' in a union? great, you're now the low man on the totem pole who will get the shittiest jobs and will be the first to have his hours cut. want to start your own business? better have years of experience and the networking and business skills to pull enough contracts to keep yourself afloat, let alone make money.

[Anonymous No.5761607]

>>5761602
Well so then what should the kids who can only make it in trades school do?

[Anonymous No.5761614]

>>5761602
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/us/26montana.html?_r=0

muh academia
you move to where the jobs are. moving is not that hard

[Anonymous No.5761615]

Another two cents.

I know that the American education receives a lot of criticism, but the British system is also quite broken. The government *demands* that all pupils be 'above average', which (1) fundamentally misunderstands the concept of an 'average'; and (2) is quite impossible.

Pupils are pushed, regardless of inherent intelligence or aptitude to anything other than the 'academic subjects', to achieve across the board.

As a secondary school (high school) science teacher, I often find 15-16 year old children in my classes who cannot form sentences nor multiply two numbers together – with or without calculators, since the use of calculators is also a 'skill'. I often have to draw calculator buttons on the board to instruct them which buttons to press and in which order.

I have to teach the structure of atoms, the periodic table, etc., to children who cannot read and write. The whole system is ridiculous.

The same students, I think, would be better off concentrating on learning to read and to write, and perhaps to learn a trade, such as carpentry or whatever.

[Anonymous No.5761618]

>>5761607
since business seems hell bent on requiring an associates or bachelors degree to do mindless office work, today's dumbass kids should go to the cheapest school they can get into, grind out a 2 or 4 year degree in whatever the fuck, and then get a mindless office job pulling down $30-40k/year for the rest of their lives.

[Anonymous No.5761619]

>>5761542
>The high scoring student is just as human (and potentially just as useful to society) as a low scoring student.
i bet you're one of those "low scoring students" and you came here to whine about how the educational system is the problem and it's not your lack of trying.

needless to say, you disgust me.

[Anonymous No.5761621]

>>5761596
>measurements like GPA barely take any thinking or interest at all

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&UID=1998-11416-007

Among many others.

Success in school is correlated with success in many facets of life. It honestly does not matter how creative you are if you cannot function in the typical learning environment. They are there to provide you with information, that is it. Wait for uni to shine.

You have to have both work ethic AND creative thought capacity to succeed.

Also, if GPA takes no work, everyone should have a 4.0 GPA and be getting into uni regardless.

[Anonymous No.5761624]

>>5761614
i'm not in academia you stupid nigger. i live in the marcellus shale region and i work in a factory. i see first hand how much being a welder or a plumber sucks, so suck my fucking dick.

[Anonymous No.5761628]

>>5761624
Move to where the work is.

There is a HUGE demand for trades in Australi, for example.

[Anonymous No.5761633]

>>5761628
lol are you fucking kidding me? yes, i'm sure australia is just DYING to hand out work visas to uneducated american tradesmen. jesus christ, how old are you? i bet you're still in high school.

[Anonymous No.5761637]

>>5761633
>uneducated american tradesmen

Dude, I AM Australian, and if you have a trade, we want you.

Seriously, we fucking hand visas out hand over fist to illegal immigrants. Just for turning up.

[Anonymous No.5761638]

>>5761635
*rake in the cash

I was going to say 'all drive BMWs and Audis' which is also true.

[Anonymous No.5761635]

>>5761624
Move to any city in Europe. Welders and plumbers drive rake in the cash.

[Anonymous No.5761640]

>>5761624
all jobs suck. how is this not new to you?

[Anonymous No.5761651]

>>5761640
the difference is that working in the trades destroys your body whereas the biggest threat in doing 40 years in an office environment is turning into a fat piece of shit due to sedentarism.

[Anonymous No.5761659]

>>5761651
both end in you destroying your body. thanks for proving my point

[Anonymous No.5761668]

>>5761621
>I do believe hard work is necessary
Never said that GPA takes no work- I said it takes no creative thinking. That was, I admit, possibly an overstatement. But also, a cause for low GPA is usually laziness, not inability. Maybe college GPA is connected to high school GPA because college takes a lot of work ethic. Or maybe undergrad doesn't require curiosity anymore- maybe that is just for graduate school.
Either way, you make a lot of great points especially about functioning in the typical learning environment. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.5761681]

>>5761659
you ever work in an industrial environment? that's what i thought.

[Anonymous No.5761689]

>>5761681
the leading cause of death in america is what?

heart disease

who gets it the most?

fatasses

[Anonymous No.5761691]

>The students who don't recieve high grades/test scores are no less important than the students who do

As a matter of fact they are less important.

[Anonymous No.5761697]

>>5761689
becoming a fatass is something slow, gradual, and easily avoidable.

getting third degree steam burns all over your arms while you're doing machine maintenance isn't slow or avoidable. falling off a lift or scaffolding structure while running pipe isn't slow or gradual. getting crushed to death while installing heavy machinery as a millwright isn't slow or gradual. getting lung cancer after sucking down welding fumes isn't slow or gradual.

admit it, you've never worked in an industrial environment in your entire fucking life. you dumbass kids and your fanciful idea of the trades are hilarious. for the most part being a tradesman fucking sucks because the pay is shit unless you're lucky enough to work under a union in a very high volume area. yes, you can make money...if you're okay with selling your time and body to do more training-intensive and dangerous work like underwater welding.

[Anonymous No.5761708]

>>5761697
The worst I've ever done is work at a petting zoo. Im sorry that you're work is the way it is, and I really don't see a solution

[Anonymous No.5761711]

>>5761697
what is safety precautions?

[Anonymous No.5761731]

>>5761542
bump

[Anonymous No.5761734]

>>5761711
you're naive and inexperienced if you think adherence to safety precautions mitigates all danger.

[Anonymous No.5761754]

>>5761697
>getting lung cancer after sucking down welding fumes isn't slow or gradual.
Yes, it is.
And tradesmen aren't paid very well because there isn't that much demand to them relative to the supply. Jobs like engineers have relatively higher pay because a good 80-90% of the population are just too stupid to be able to do them. Trades are much, much more accessible, only the truly idiotic are incapable of learning them. That means the pool of people who can choose to become tradesmen is several times larger than the pool of people who can choose to become engineers.

That's not to say being a tradesman doesn't require plenty of knowledge and hard work, it certainly does. But it's knowledge and hard work that is accessible to most people, if they want to do it and have the work ethic. Most professional jobs require a higher level of innate intelligence to even learn how to do an adequate job, hence the number of people who even have the option of choosing them is relatively small so those who do, get paid more as a result. Simple supply and demand. The much higher costs of professional education than learning most trades is a factor as well.

[Anonymous No.5761768]

>>5761543
what the fuck is the meaning of this?

[Anonymous No.5761791]

>>5761768
You got adware son

[Anonymous No.5761833]

>>5761580

That's a load of crap. Plenty of people know the material and don't do well with arbitrary time constraints, vague wording etc.

[Anonymous No.5761834]

I assume, then, you are also in favor of doing away with varsity letters and awards for sports, as these also discourage those who do not win them.

While GPA and standardized tests may not be the best way of accurately measuring someone's intelligence, it is honestly the best we have at the moment. We need a way to measure how smart students are, particularly because colleges need to be selective so that capable and interested students can challenge themselves alongside other intelligent people.

But yes, I agree that we need to de-emphasize memorization and put more importance on critical thinking and reasoning. We also need to give kids a chance to pick up an interest in academics and school a bit later in life; in my school district, you would know after a test in 5th grade that you would not be placed on the honors track and be unable to graduate with a class rank better than 50/350 in high school. That's ridiculous. But, even if it's not perfect, there is certainly a general correlation between GPA and intelligence, if only because intelligent people seem to realize the value of an education.

[Anonymous No.5761839]

>>5761833
I agree. I mean, I know there are deadlines in the real world, but they aren't arbitrary
>>5761834
>if only because intelligent people seem to realize the value of an education.
Agreed

[Anonymous No.5761914]

>>5761834
i didnt pass one of those tests in 2nd grade and it set up my whole mediocre high school career from then on

[Anonymous No.5761949]

>>5761637

ausfag here.

No we don't. Most visas given to refugees do not allow work at all. They're protection visas.

Work viasa (457's) are now doubling in cost to the employer. Economic migration is not something Australian policy encourages at all.

[Anonymous No.5761951]

>>5761651

Trade work doesn't destroy your body. It keeps you fit and active. safe work methods keep guys I work with working into their 60's comfortably.

[Anonymous No.5761962]

>>5761697

Construction manager here. Sounds like you've had some shitty employers who don't adhere to any guidelines for mitigating risk and work health safety for employees.

It's really shitty. I've been lucky to be employed in a country where work safety has been a major issue for a couple of decades now and risks like you describe just aren't tolerated. Sure, things still happen - they'll always happen but I think things are better now than they were in the 1980's.

[Anonymous No.5762538]

>>5761834
GPA doesn't mean shit. All of the high-GPA kids at my school are complete morons who can't score close to the 99th percentile on standardized tests. The freaking valedictorian got a 27 on her ACT, but people are somehow convinced that she's some sort of genius. She was the science student of the year even though she got a 1 on the AP Chemistry exam, dropped AP Physics (B - the easier AP Physics class), and probably bombed the AP Biology test as well. She didn't even score at least a freaking 30 on the science portion of the ACT. What the hell.

[Anonymous No.5762564]

>>5761558
>scientists
>mechanic
pretty much the same thing today.

[Anonymous No.5764783]

Calm down.
I hate being in a classroom, is the most frustrating thing you can be doing every day for at least 6 hours a day. i pass Monday to Friday at least 6 hours sitting in a horribly uncomfortable chair that is for rigth handed people, im left handed. watching someone that " knows" something and that is just telling you that A = A. school kills you.
But is like that because theres no business for them doing it in another way. Come on, having more less 40 young humans sitting and learning in a " female" mode, i mean, just receiving knowledge from someone that " knows " something. is a huge huge business. and because you need the paper, you have to pass trough that because corporations because of their "high standards" just can hire people with some kind of certification, so they are the rule, you could have no degree, and find your way but you learn something in school, very little for the so much amount of wasted time... the situation is very sad, you pass your best years of health and youth wasting your time in a horrible place. its very very frustrating. but theres no other way, or at least if you dont know another way you have to play the game.

[Anonymous No.5764798]

and the examinations, well, like someone said, they have to evaluate you some how so that you can get your paper, and the GPAs and all those stupid things , are the more cheap and fast way of doing it. alsoe the school system is just for logial mathematical inteligence, and you all know that there is scientific studys that say that there are many other intellgence, and i see it every day, theres a guy that is totally that intelligence so he is awsome in all the subjects, but he lacs sociall skills, he is shy. The situation is very bad.
The other day a professor said that they have to work at 1000 km/h, its crazy and stupid but if you want to survive you have to play the game and sacrifice something, its horrible but theres not much you can do, you have to eat, and dress, and have a place to live, and money to spend with friends, and taxes, and if you have kids you have to feed them so even if you hate how the state works, or you play the game or you die. so so sad.

[Anonymous No.5764806]

alsoe i hate the people that say that you study first and find a job and then think about a relationship with a nice lady you love, thats totally stupid... i know for real in person many cases of people that belive in this lie, and rejected love and a relationship and well, they got their degree, and a good job and money but NO LOVE. and now the say the would give all they have for a nice relationship with true love involved.

In my calculus class theres two mothers with their kids in every class and thats really great ! its stupid to try to divide school with family or personal life, its sick!

i can tell you that life gives you what you want but not in the order that you want it or the form that you wanted it, so when an oportunity for a nice love or life or job or what ever comes to you, accept it no matter the change or the difficulties you could pass at first or for some time, you will see that totally worth it.

[Anonymous No.5764815]

im a freshamn in chemical engineering and living with my girlfriend, she is a english teacher and we have a nice little dog in our small apartment, she is 5 years older than me, i love her, i love to live with her, im very compromise with her, and when it can be a little complicated to excel in school is just for a lack of hard work, with focus, cero procastination everything goes by just fine.

[Anonymous No.5764832]

i live in Mexico city and well, the univeristy system is a copy of the USA one, and the do it like that for being able to do student exchange and colaborations between universitys, but the infrastructure here is way more poor than the one in USA, and the system expect you to excel with what you have. Here is a big education problem, 80% of the students that get in university lack of good study discipline, focus and maturity and that is equal to lots of failure that its equal to frustration,etc.

[Anonymous No.5764847]

>>5761542
>The students who don't recieve high grades/test scores are no less important than the students who do

Incorrect, we need scientists, engineers, and doctors. The kid who can't break 2000 on the SAT isn't getting into Med School...