High school was pointless

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

i learned a lot in high school, arguably more than in college.

i think that there should be more vocational schools at the college level. when i got to college, the first 3 semesters were essentially all GenEds, and shyt that i learned in high school. my gpa in GenEds was like a 2.6 cuz i didnt give a fukk. my gpa in my major was like 3.85

 

[thekingsmen]

"In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply."

Rockefeller Foundation Director of Charity, Frederick Gates, 1913

 

[stealthbomber]

Really dawg, you trying to clown math and science......

How the f*ck are you going to teach people real life skills without challenging their ability to critically think.

At bare minimum students should be required to take statistics and a remedial version of physics......

Like if the guy said add in civics and logic I'd be with him, but he wants the US to fall even farther behind?

im not saying my system is perfect by any means. just starting up conversation about the school systems.

but i do believe we put a focus on too many irrelevant topics in high school. way too much history, maybe keep in 2 years of math and science, but everyone doesnt need to know chem and bio to the extent its taught. u could put those in 1 class. and physics needs a year.

 

[theworldismine13]

yeah lets take advice from somebody that didnt learn anything in high school on how to reform high school and make the us more competitive, yeah that makes a lot of sense

 

[Brown_Pride]

i learned more in highschool than college...i did go to a private highschool though. Shyt was 100x harder than college.

BUT my sister and my friends went to public school and that shyt was a joke. I had 2 hours of homework a NIGHT, plus reading. That same workload constituted a month worth of effort for half the people I knew in public schools.

Freshman year, the summer before freshman year actually I had to have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie's_World read plus 4 pages of essay BEFORE school even started. (that was a fuked summer)

Each year in highschool started and ended with a big paper....though senior year 2nd semester was a little..lax.
In highschool the max paper i wrote was 78 pages. I had to, HAD TO give a 20 min public speeches in front of THE ENTIRE HIGHSCHOOL, all seniors did. 4 years of math, a science, foreign language and english were required.

so yeah our education system is crap, unless you have the money to pay for it.

 

[The War Report]

They need to give talented people more incentives to want to teach, and have a reduced size of classrooms. 30 kids to one teacher is ridiculous.

 

[The War Report]

i learned more in highschool than college...i did go to a private highschool though. Shyt was 100x harder than college.

BUT my sister and my friends went to public school and that shyt was a joke. I had 2 hours of homework a NIGHT, plus reading. That same workload constituted a month worth of effort for half the people I knew in public schools.

Freshman year, the summer before freshman year actually I had to have Sophie's World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia read plus 4 pages of essay BEFORE school even started. (that was a fuked summer)

Each year in highschool started and ended with a big paper....though senior year 2nd semester was a little..lax.
In highschool the max paper i wrote was 78 pages. I had to, HAD TO give a 20 min public speeches in front of THE ENTIRE HIGHSCHOOL, all seniors did. 4 years of math, a science, foreign language and english were required.

so yeah our education system is crap, unless you have the money to pay for it.

You know what NYC public school kids would of said to that? Let me show you

 

[Dooby]

The education system As a whole is fukked, I graduated college and didn't learn shyt.

lol...who's fault is that exactly

 

[No1]

i learned more in highschool than college...i did go to a private highschool though. Shyt was 100x harder than college.

BUT my sister and my friends went to public school and that shyt was a joke. I had 2 hours of homework a NIGHT, plus reading. That same workload constituted a month worth of effort for half the people I knew in public schools.

Freshman year, the summer before freshman year actually I had to have Sophie's World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia read plus 4 pages of essay BEFORE school even started. (that was a fuked summer)

Each year in highschool started and ended with a big paper....though senior year 2nd semester was a little..lax.
In highschool the max paper i wrote was 78 pages. I had to, HAD TO give a 20 min public speeches in front of THE ENTIRE HIGHSCHOOL, all seniors did. 4 years of math, a science, foreign language and english were required.

so yeah our education system is crap, unless you have the money to pay for it.

The thing is, to be honest, I don't think your way is effective either. Students need time to grow as individuals as well. Furthermore, it's not as cut and dry and you're making it out to be. It's not just rigor and beating stuff in people's heads. In fact, I'd argue your system is completely wrong for most students. School days should probably be more focused and shorter, but kids should probably be doing their homework at school with guidance right after lunch (school day would end somewhere between 12:00 and 1:00 PM) and then playing whatever sport they play afterwards (get these b*stards outside an off the internet). The only thing I'd say is that summer vacation is too long and kids forget so much of what they learned the year prior in the summer and waste the first month reviewing.

As far as rigorous high school goes, I'm all for it, but there needs to be balance. I also don't agree with TUH about making kids take specific philosophy classes. If you're taking advanced placement English or any of the core classes and you're not being taught the philosophy behind it then you're being done a disservice. Furthermore, my high school was a magnet school and outperforms 99% of the private schools in our state. You're equating that curriculum with money and resources. No, it's just that. The curriculum and people willing to commit to it. We were predisposed to success in the first place.

You don't get it BP, you're buying into the idea that hurting US children in the first place. You're buying into this idea of "competitive education" and that education should operate like the free market. That there should even be a price on secondary education at all. There's no concept like Finland has that every single student no matter their socioeconomic background or race should have the same education. They have no private schools, and yet they're kicking our ass.

Engaged students, families, communities and highly educated teachers, combined with a shared national goal and you have the most educated people in the world.

Students WILL NOT react well to busy work.

 

[Broke Wave]

They had all the classes plus more at the HS I went to.


Americans lost

 

[Brown_Pride]

The thing is, to be honest, I don't think your way is effective either. Students need time to grow as individuals as well.

For sure. THe only thing is that they grow regardless of what they do so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Kids are going to grow in and out of school both mental and physically as individuals, i'm not sure i'm getting the point you were trying to make.

Furthermore, it's not as cut and dry and you're making it out to be. It's not just rigor and beating stuff in people's heads.

I agree.

In fact, I'd argue your system is completely wrong for most students.

I could see that

School days should probably be more focused and shorter, but kids should probably be doing their homework at school with guidance right after lunch (school day would end somewhere between 12:00 and 1:00 PM) and then playing whatever sport they play afterwards (get these b*stards outside an off the internet). The only thing I'd say is that summer vacation is too long and kids forget so much of what they learned the year prior in the summer and waste the first month reviewing.

i'm not sure how you reconcile saying school should be shorter with saying summer break is to long and then holding the hands of students to do homework while at the same time saying they need to grow.

For sure every child is different and a cookie cutter approach to education is part of what got us in this mess in the first place. Also part of that is the lack of parental involvement and the complete falling away from expectations on everyone's parts (teachers, students, parents, society.)

As far as rigorous high school goes, I'm all for it, but there needs to be balance.

agreed.

I also don't agree with TUH about making kids take specific philosophy classes.

I disagree here though. HOW we think is just as important as what we think about. Teaching a kid to appreciate their ability to reason is one of the greatest gifts you can give a child IMHO. A general philosophy class should be required IMHO.

If you're taking advanced placement English or any of the core classes and you're not being taught the philosophy behind it then you're being done a disservice.

you would be indeed but in english you should be focusing more on the literary aspects of it along with your ability to read and comprehend and develop your own ideas. This is similar but not the same thing as studying philosophy. BOTH IMHO are important.

Furthermore, my high school was a magnet school and outperforms 99% of the private schools in our state. You're equating that curriculum with money and resources. No, it's just that. The curriculum and people willing to commit to it. We were predisposed to success in the first place.

I will agree it's not always about the money and an environment were success is the assumed norm vs the rare exception will always, IMHO, foster more success. It's one of the many contrasts I noticed in going to a affluent private school vs my publicschool friends. The assumption of success. College wasn't a goal it was an assumed step, don't get me wrong it was a big step but anything less really wasn't an option. 100% college admission rate. I'm not trying to say MONEY is the answer, but I also know 6-12 people per class helps foster the idea of success in students especially when the teachers actually know you and can help you, THAT is about the only time i'll say money really comes into play. Some of these class sizes in some of these schools is just fukin ridiculous. 28-34 people is just to many damn people.

You don't get it BP, you're buying into the idea that hurting US children in the first place. You're buying into this idea of "competitive education" and that education should operate like the free market. That there should even be a price on secondary education at all.

I"m not sure how you arrived at me buying into that type of system; my post was more about how stark a contrast there was between people paying 20k a year for highschool vs public school in terms of rigor. Personally i think college costing anyone anything is a shame, it creates many invisible barriers and per my previous comment does less to foster true educational success than it does to promote it. I don't think competition in education is a bad thing per say, so long as the minimum standards are not only being met but exceeded. IF done correctly i think charter schools have a lot of potential...IF done correctly.

There's no concept like Finland has that every single student no matter their socioeconomic background or race should have the same education. They have no private schools, and yet they're kicking our ass.

on paper every kid here should be getting a decent education, private school or not. The problem is they are not. When you look at requirements for graduation and compare them to the actual kids graduating i'd be willing to bet 80+ percent of the graduates don't meet the minimum required knowledge to get past the 8th grade. THAT has nothing to do with free market that is just a fuked system.

Engaged students, families, communities and highly educated teachers, combined with a shared national goal and you have the most educated people in the world.

i agree but arriving at engaged anything in education is difficult in this country for any number of reasons. fixing those reasons IMHO is the crux of the matter. I cannot think of ONE teacher who would NOT want an engaged student and family.
The shyt is sad but when I take my kids to school and walk them in to talk to their teacher just to see how they are doing the teachers always freak out the first few times thinking i'm coming to start shyt and not just plug myself into my kids education. Apparently it's just not done like that anymore.

Students WILL NOT react well to busy work.

Nor should we subject them to it. All that stuff I wrote about was far from busy work and the amount of things i learned from the research and such IMHO is worth more than anything i've learned post HS.

 

[The War Report]

They had all the classes plus more at the HS I went to.


Americans lost

Public school?

 

[tru_m.a.c]

I simply thought the worse part about high school was that you couldn't advance faster than the course

then the second worse part is that, you pretty much went through 13yrs of schooling, only to get to college and realize you didn't want to learn that subject anymore. Instead of putting everyone on that same rigid ass schedule, why don't you let me intern/shadow for 6 months when I'm 16???

Think about it this way. You're told that grad school has more of an impact AFTER you have work experience. So how hasn't this concept trickled back into high school???

The major problem is the assembly line setting of our education. Don't even get me started on the NYS regents system. Our teachers hyped us since 7th grade about how important those test were. In 11th grade me and my dudes googled that shyt and confronted one of our teachers like "yo you straight up lied to us." Not even half of the states recognize the regents test. And fukkn St. Johns THROWS YOUR SCORES AWAY. So why, am I mentally focused on that? Those test were easy, but still, thats valuable time I could've spent out in the world actually applying skills.

 

[tru_m.a.c]

but i do believe we put a focus on too many irrelevant topics in high school. way too much history

breh....we don't have enough history if you ask me

or folks don't appreciate the history that is taught to them

hence why we still have to explain to a democrat what makes them a democrat and explain to a republican what makes them a republican

college history professors spend most of their time rewiring our brains cause we're so ill prepared

 

[tru_m.a.c]

They need to give talented people more incentives to want to teach, and have a reduced size of classrooms. 30 kids to one teacher is ridiculous.

the only incentive that will do that is money

but a school isn't run off a profit margin

teachers don't "create revenue" so it then falls on the tax payers shoulders

if this were a business, teachers would just charge a standard % above their expense and everyone would and say "but they're contributing to the economy! they're job providers!"

so the value of a teacher is simply seen as (-$)

and I can't even get into the size of a classroom thing, it'll involve way too much community development, and in places like NY thats damn near impossible

(sidenote: how crazy would it be if they created a system where teachers could claim income based on the future contributions of their students)