School

[RAGE KING!]

You know how some ppl say that eventually school will be a lab where they insert all useful knowledge into your brain, then give u a week to figure it all out?

Well some ppl say that then we should never do that, because our children will never get the emotional maturity to go with all the info etc. Well why don't they send kids to schools which are more like job training courses, then ppl can choose (slowly, and with a lot of thought), what job they would like, and then be able to work in a good job by 18 easily.


I realize this is pretty stupid, sounds rebellious, and has huge flaws in it. I'd just like an analysis of it.

[Brickwall]

1. This isn't a chatroom. You know how to spell. Spell things out.

2. This essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html) covers the entirety of the flaws in the high school system and more. Read it.

[hyperfreak497]

That article was great. Took me forever and a half to read, but it was well worth it. I'm going to print it off and give it to my friends. Hopefully, someday, a difference can be made.

[heretic]

I read it too and thought it was very interesting, although cynical and mildy inaccurate when I compare it to the reality of my high school.

[adanedhel9]

I'm at work, so I don't have time to read that article, but I will when I got home.

RAGE_KING, what you describe might work for certain jobs. But the issue is that not every job can be done by those with just training - education (being an altogether different beast than training) is important as well. I think everyone needs a little bit of both to be really successful.

I think that the US school system probably overemphasizes education at the expense of training - which is part of the reason so many foreign students come to the US for post-secondary studies. It seems to me that it's perfectly possible to get all the way through high school, and maybe even college, without getting any real skills.

I seem to recall (feel free to correct me) that Germany's education system runs the other way: too much emphasis on training. Germany is a world leader in industry because of this, but it seems to me that German students don't necessarily have the same opportunities for more "worldy" learning as US students do.

[Azrael]

People seem to forget that the basis of our education system is the concept that a liberal arts education is education for the sake of education. Back when public education was conceived, it was never intended to be job training ... that what apprenticeships were for. And even today, Liberal Arts colleges are not designed for job training.

[Ashtar]

Well, I don't know much about schooling in Britain or the US, but in Switzerland, at 15 you leave compulsory school and can go on to several different paths.
You can continue your schooling, which you will finish around 18-19 in time to go to university.
Or you can go into an apprenticeship where you have on the job training four days a week and spend a day per week in class.
Or finally you can go to a technical college and study 3-4 years to have a degree.

Once you have done one of these three options, you can still enter university if you want. Each has prepared you in a different way, with a apprenticeship you have been working already several years, with a technical college, you have had twice 6 months of work experience in a company and with school, you have the extra knowledge.

It works here...

(I went to a technical college, after which I went straight to university and have now got my masters'.)

[Pyro]

I read the article and thought it was interesting. Interesting, just that. His school experience may have been right then and there, but they certainly don't apply here and now (to me at least). Not to sound boastful, but I'm pretty smart. I always get high A's on tests, and people often say they wish they could be smarter like me. I'm also friends with some of the so called more "popular kids". In my school being smart will actually land you popularity points.

Just my two cents on the article.

[CrazedGoblin]

if you could insert information into the brain how would beable to meet new people and make friends.

[bosssmiley]

Rage', you might want to go read Peter F. Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction" sci-fi trilogy. It posits a society where tailored nanosites allow memories, skills and behaviour patterns to be encoded into the brain matter (and thus the minds) of human being. The net result of this: instant skills.

Schools still exist in that future however; partially as socialisation clubs to get the children used to dealing with others, partially as crechés to keep them out of the adults' collective hair (per this essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html) previously cited by Bricky).

Cheers.

[wojonatior]

would you rather be smart and have friends that you like hanging out with plus have a good job later in life but be "unpopular". or be "popular" and hang out with people you barely know and get a medieocre job later in life. i would take the first choice. for example i am thirteen and in 8th grade, i hang out with a group of friends i like hanging out with, i get straight a's and i have some hobbies i like. that is how you should live life not the other way.
and with that "its the quality that counts not the quantity."

[Vaynor]

I'd like to play the Aldous Huxley card. Brave New World, anyone?