Do public schools kill creativity?Follow

I don't think anyone was advocating eliminating the availability of a "classical" education environment. We're suggesting that we allow other optional methods of education instead of forcing all students to confirm to a mold that simply does not work for everyone.

You are correct, that most kids will benefit more from 3 years of standard education and 1 year of apprenticeship. However, right now, that's not available at all. All you can get in our public school system is 12 years of standard in-school class-based instruction. There are optional classes, but all of them operate under the same constrainments. Every single graduating senior *must* meet a set of requirements that are designed around entrance requirements to 4 year universities.

That's the problem. You're still thinking in the "make every students environment the same", but that is itself why the school system is failing. We're not saying that instead of forcing every student to fit within a "university or bust" environment, we force them to fit within a "trade skill only" environment. What we're suggesting is that students and parents be given choices of what sort of education they want to recieve. They don't have to make that choice at age 6. They can gradually change over time to programs that suit them. My suggestion was to change the way the money flows to the education system (which I still think is the best way), but you could accomplish this simply by changing graduation requirements and curriculum choices. I think it would be inefficient, but you could do it.


The point is to acknowledge the simple fact that only about 20% of high school students go on to 4 year universities. Why do we then teach 100% of them as though they will? Why not allow the 80% that isn't going to go on to choose to pursue learning that will aid them at getting jobs right out of high school?

I know a guy who used to head up the ROP education system here in San Diego. It's a *huge* program. Want to know why? Because an enormous number of students leave high school with no ability or desire to continue their traditional education (they aren't going on to a university), but *also* with no marketable job skills. ROP classes give them that, but it's something that's tacked on after the fact, usually after the student in question has already floundered for a few years of their adult life. Take those courses and make them count as credits for High School. Let them take them instead of some of the core curriculum. All optional. All paid for. That way, those who decide they aren't going on to college can choose to gain marketable skills that will help them get a job immediately.

Right now, the most common path is that a student drops out of HS. He then floats around for a few years doing odd jobs (or getting into trouble with the law). At some point, he decides to do something with his life, gets a GED and enrolls in ROP classes. A few years after that, he can actually enter the work force and be productive. If we drop the "university or bust" mentality from our public schools and allow students to enroll in those courses as part of their education, we could dramatically reduce the dropout rate and the time between leaving school and getting a decent job for these students.


And we're talking about a *lot* of students.

He has to find out whether you're a liberal or conservative before he can properly argue with you.

Unless you say something he dislikes, in which case you're automatically a liberal.

It's funny that you put it in those terms, because with a certain childish spamming of the forum tonight, I was working on an epic post about how "politics shouldn't be a game" in my head. But it'll have to wait until I'm truly bored enough to write it.




Edited, Jun 21st 2007 12:02am by trickybeck

"Ripe with ignorance"?

The word that your ****-poor education should have taught you is "rife", that way you could use that phrase without looking like a complete cUntslap.

Seriously, that's as bad as people who say "for all intensive purposes".

Edited, Jun 21st 2007 11:14am by Barkingturtle

No, I wasn't using the cliched phrase. I intentionally chose ripe, as in:
"having arrived at such a stage of growth or development as to be ready for reaping, gathering, eating, or use, as grain or fruit; completely matured."

Good attempt to bypass the content of the post though.

Haha, I love my inner pedant.

Ok. Maybe Moe was, but he doesn't really count. ;)

I honestly missed that portion of his position. My bad. Um... His idea is flawed anyway since not everyone pays taxes equivalent to what they recieve in education. While I'm normally opposed to that sort of tax system, in some rare cases it *can* be benefitial. Clearly, there's a socio-economic value to having a more educated population. It's one of the few areas in which you'll hear me agree that taxing the general population disproportionately to the degree of benefit gained is worthwhile. Kinda like roads and police forces. It's an infrastructure issue that benefits all, but clearly some are going to pay more then they get back, and some are going to pay less.

If we were to take Moe's idea seriously, we'd have a decent percentage of our population that simply would never recieve *any* kind of education or training at all. That's kind of a step in the wrong direction IMO. I actually missed that part of his argument because he proceeded to talk about creating alternative training programs. If you assume that the parents get a voucher for their share of the education money, this all makes sense. You can then use that in a quasi free market system to ensure that the resulting "education system" automatically adjusts to the needs and wants of the parents and students. If you don't have a voucher process, then it just doesn't work.



Agreed on the Moe bit. I do think you're still looking at this as though there's some big government hand forcing kids to do something that they may not want to do. We wont be sticking any 10 year olds anywhere. The parents will choose what sort of school to send their kids to. Most schools (especially at the lower grade levels) will likely be identical in terms of curriculus to the schools today. It's not like we need to start teaching 10 year olds how to work with metal. The more important aspect of this is that students with special needs can attend schools that specialize in their particular needs. I'm not talking about breaking up kids into different curriculum tracks at that age. I'm talking about schools with different styles of teaching that may appeal to different students. Some students do extremely well in a classroom with open project-based learning. Other's do better with traditional lecture and class assignments. Some work well with strict period-based structures, some work better with a more open structure. Some may need special instruction (kids with disabilties and disorders).

Right now, our public schools have to deal with all of those kids and end up doing it badly. But smaller private schools recieving funding via vouchers can provide exactly that variety. And certainly, as students get older they may choose a path that moves them towards alternatives other then college. I'm not looking at 10 year olds, but certainly 15, 16, and 17 year olds may make a decision to focus their education on job skills rather then higher level courses in history, science, and math because at that age, they may have a better idea of what they're going to do with their lives (or may know that they don't have the grades/money to go to college anyway).

We have those sorts of programs (the ROP stuff I talked about earlier), but typically they're offered to people who've dropped out and/or got themselves/theirSO pregnant and suddenly realize that they need to support themselves and a family and can't spend the next 6 years on education. It would be nice if those sorts of programs were not just there for people *after* they've gotten themselves into a difficult situation (the "or bust" part of the equation). It would be nice to remove the stigma of such things as fallbacks for those who "fail" in our education system.





No. I think you're correct. I misunderstood part of what you were talking about. However, I think you're misunderstanding some aspects of what I'm talking about as well. Mainly it's somewhat annoying when an extreme counter is used whenever I mention my ideas about encouraging alternative education ideas, and I do tend to be overly sensitive in those cases. An example is the whole "making 10 year olds learn to work in a metal shop" statement. That's not remotely what I was talking about, but that's always the first response someone inevitably tosses out. While there's some merit to discussing the extremes (what does happen if a parent decides to start teaching their kid metal shop work at age 10?), I don't feel it's a valid counter to the idea of alternatively focused schools as a whole.

Yes, that's exactly what I did. I have no idea wtf I'm talking about.

Christ, I read the whole damn thread, and it is brimming with tripe, stemming from biases based on narrow personal experiences. You might as well be a bunch of backwoods rednecks talking about black people as if you knew something about them after having met all of five of them in your life.

I'm a little on edge today, idk why. As for the "ripe with ignorance" comment, it may not be Pulitzer material, but yes, that is what I meant to say.

Whether or not you have been in a "plethora" of classroom environments (a claim that could be misleadingly made by anyone who has made it K-12), the good majority of this thread is generalized observations based on personal perceptions that are clearly narrowed by something, so if it's not experience, education, I don't know what.

I am an educator, and school reform is a point of high interest for me to say the least. You'll excuse me if I get a little sick of uneducated opinions about what education should/should not be or do, and what is the best way to do it.

It's nigh impossible to make any meaningful generalizations of schools, because the dynamic is influenced by so many more factors than are points of discussion in this conversation. There are a million things to resolve from classroom to classroom before administrative differences even come into play. The interplay between teachers and students is the most influential factor within the schools. You want to fix the problems with the students, it's simple: be the best parent you can be to your own. You can't do much more than that. Beyond that, if you want to improve the teachers, well you actually need to be a teacher at some point, and then eventually in some way or shape you can teach other teachers how to do their job better.

This "the sky is falling" mentality is getting tired. Most schools are getting better by a fair margin because the people that are working in them care enough to do a good job, or at least not get screwed royally by a liability suit. Yes, there are a lot of ****-poor teachers out there. The problem with them is their training to a lesser extent, supervision. So if you don't know anything about pedagogy, you really aren't qualified to be a contributor to the solution, sorry. Just let the people who actually cared enough to make a living out of it (and not a very good one) do their job. They get enough feedback from eachother without the input of people who've never even heard of nickel B.

If you want to fix education, you need to get inside it and do your part; however, if you don't KNOW anything about education and aren't prepared to do a balls lot of studying, shaddup and enjoy the ride. It is getting better on the whole and it will keep getting better on the whole.

And I wasn't calling you a backwoods redneck. It was an analogy. I really do appreciate concern with schools wherever it comes from, but you have no idea the moronic suggestions made on a daily basis by people who know nothing at all about education except their personal opinion.

Gbaji has some good ideas too.

Don't teach critical thinking, I see.


Although we are primarily a fine arts school

Riiight. All makes sense now, carry on.

Fuck off, people told me that about the bible as well.

there seems to be a fatal flaw in this; the inner city children will still have a sub par education because the school systems are funded *in almost all cases* by property taxes. the people who are poor and/or live in apartments will get little, if any, money to educate their children with.

I also remember hearing about how funding for education was being funneled into other governmental projects so... I doubt that will ever pass with states.



I do think a fully privatized school system would be best for MOST people.

You can eliminate the bureaucracy, lessen the control the government has on the society, create a competitive work enviornment where teachers who slack at their job can get fired. (trust me, i would LOVE to see my physics teacher get fired; he taught us NOTHING. Talked about physics 1 time, and only because he thought the government was going to check on his teaching that day)

So, how much do they pay babysitters in your neck of the woods?

F'uck me, a member of the biggest bloat and most wasteful part of the education system in America, right here in our midst.

A great big f'uck you to you. When the revolution happens here, we'll line you c'unts up behind the lawyers and use you to increase the efficiency of poor marksmen.