You can't have it both ways!

[coltle6920]

It's either the system or the student.

There have been numerous threads about our education system and just as many about teenagers who can't make change for a transaction. Frankly I'm tired of hearing about it.

The education system produces the failures of our youth. Isn't it time to give them some slack instead of gloating about how good we are with fractions or making change and realizing these are different times?

The education system has changed from when we were in school. It no longer educates the student but rather tries to indoctrinate them. Basic skills such as Reading and Arithmetic should be more than enough to get todays youth on their way to a productive life. All i have is a high school diploma and I've done pretty well for myself. In fact, I will even go so far as to brag that I consider myself smarter than a lot of people with degrees. Being out in the real World teaches one more than what one would learn in a classroom.

How about giving our youth the same opportunity we had growing up. Some will surely fail but many will go on and succeed.

 

[Kiwi cop]

There is one big difference between now and when we all went to school.

We were taught how to think, which allowed us to find a successful path in life.

Today's youth are taught what to think.

There is a big difference.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

How about giving our youth the same opportunity we had growing up. Some will surely fail but many will go on and succeed.

In 2001 gave several an opportunity. They, on average, were 1/2 hour late 75% of the time. The ones that showed up were by and large pretty good!

In 1974, hired 24. First day fired 21, they wouldn't follow simple instructions! Of the 3 that I kept, all 3 stayed until college started in the fall. One of those worked for me the next three summers after that. I still see him around, at the 4 or 5 businesses he bought or started! that 12% very good and 4% fantastic from that sample 48 years ago. I really think it's down from that, but I would be happy with those numbers. (Everybody can't be the boss, but everybody needs to follow simple instructions!)

Ivan

 

[ZGrand]

My daughter teaches English Lit to juniors and seniors in high school. She asked them recently to write their signatures on a piece of paper. Every student except one printed their name! They had no idea how to sign their name in cursive. She told them if they couldn't write in cursive, they should at least develop a signature. Several replied, "What for?".

 

[fordson]

Well, guess it depends on where you look for them. My association with younger generations has been primarily thru the military. The volunteers we are getting today are, on the whole, rather amazing. These young man and women do this nation proud - their attitude, intelligence, fortitude, determination and overall military bearing are are truly exemplary. Admittedly, being a volunteers, they do not represent a cross section of our society but rather the ones that want to achieve some goal. And it maybe unfair to compare them to their contemporaries who have another value system. So, l guess I'm saying there's still "hope", all is not lost just yet.

 

[Moo Moo]

Education in Australia went through a review a few years ago. We have gone "back to basics". Bigger efforts in grammar and literacy skills. Yes, we still get a bit of a left-leaning system but that's just the price you pay for a free public school education.

 

[ACORN]

My daughter teaches English Lit to juniors and seniors in high school. She asked them recently to write their signatures on a piece of paper. Every student except one printed their name! They had no idea how to sign their name in cursive. She told them if they couldn't write in cursive, they should at least develop a signature. Several replied, "What for?".

I think we'll see a return to people making an X on their car loan and mortgage papers.

 

[Maddog 521]

I firmly believe that I Q of said people is the factor that should be considered.

 

[Greyman50]

Sorry but current situation regarding todays young folks failures are due to lack of or poor parents. Then add what they get drilled into their heads at school, Wa La!! we have what we have. nuf sed.

 

[Lonegle57]

Being a retired teacher, 33 years in a vocational field, the biggest change I saw was parents slowly quit working with teachers to meet goals of their children. Instead of helping meet education goals, teachers were now blamed for all in regards to the students, not only educational but all aspects of life. My view for what it is worth.

 

[Jon651]

There is one big difference between now and when we all went to school.

We were taught how to think, which allowed us to find a successful path in life.

Today's youth are taught what to think.

There is a big difference.

For all I hear about how our schools indoctrinate students instead of teach them, it helps to remember that schools are under local control. School districts have boards that are elected locally, and they are the ones who decide on the funding, the curriculum, the books, the policies, the teachers, the administrators and the rest of the bits and pieces that go into making a school system work.

If our kids are getting indoctrinated in school, then perhaps we need to consider just exactly WHO is doing the indoctrinating, and who decides on what they are being indoctrinated in before we bring out the pitchforks and torches.

 

[Jon651]

My daughter teaches English Lit to juniors and seniors in high school. She asked them recently to write their signatures on a piece of paper. Every student except one printed their name! They had no idea how to sign their name in cursive. She told them if they couldn't write in cursive, they should at least develop a signature. Several replied, "What for?".

For all that I am a member of an "older" generation, I completely agree with those kids! Why bother learning two different forms of writing the same language??? Generally I have found that people who lament the lack of ability of today's youth to write cursive can't come up with a good reason why they should.

 

[steelslaver]

It is not the schools "JOB" to make sure your kid gets an education. The old saw, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, comes to mind. The school provides the setting and the information, if you do not instill any desire or reason to learn the kid will not learn.

The school is also not there to teach kids social manners, morals, and values. They are not supposed to be government funded daycare centers either.

I will say that both the parents and schools system should do more to teach kids how to actually think, reason and apply

A computer or a human completely full of information is totally useless unless the information held can be applied in a useful manner. While a calculator will give the correct answer to a mathematical problem, that is only useful if the user is able to correctly form that mathematical problem. Teaching a kid how leverage works is a waste of time with out teaching them how to apply that leverage and how to adapt that principle to various uses.

Both my step daughters are straight A students. But, I struggle constantly with getting them to actually think about and apply what they have learned. But, then that is my JOB

 

[WR Moore]

As to signatures, even with computerized documents, there are many items that still require an actual signature, not a typed name. Geeze, they can still use the mouse, what more do they want?

One of the problems in the US schools is that appropriate teaching methods keep changing. [All inspired by someone's Doctoral Dissertation which may not withstand scientific testing.] I've lost count of the number of "new maths" that have come and gone. As an example, memorizing multiplication tables (times tables to us fossils) seem to be akin to child abuse.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Too many parents are using the schools as a daycare center. Between the high divorce rate and the high rate of illegitimacy fatherlessness has become the norm. On another board one member said his schoolteacher wife noted that the teenage girls she encountered were intimately acquainted with the welfare forms, another told me she found for many of her female students "homework" is really housework-they're the maid, the cook, the babysitter, school is a respite from their dreary and unpleasant home lives. Then there's drug use. A young man graduates from high school, the most he can find is some low paying/no benefits job-probably not even full time. He has to keep living "at home", that leads to "the painful prolongation of adolescence."

 

[H Richard]

A few years ago a friend of mine was/is the High School Rifle team coach. He had one student trying out and not doing very well. The coach worked with him and instilled "You will get out of your practice what you put into it". The young man did listen, and did work hard and succeeded, not only on the rifle team, but in his other studies. Another teacher came to the coach and told him how the young man "turned around" and was doing very well.

It takes a teacher that cares to instill the right attitude.

 

[Laketime]

Proper education starts at the home first with morals and basic common sense.Teacher's should be teaching subjects only and not ideologies .Meanwhile home teaching should continue until they are old enough to leave the home.Anything else is harmful to the child.

 

[Nevada Ed]

We also had no "Tools" to help us get the correct answers until the higher grades
where we might be handed a slide rule.

How smart are today's kids ??

Wait a minute, my unit is still charging.

 

[tinkerer]

I wonder if there is a realization that most of the people running and working in the education system are our generations or the previous generations children.

 

[venomballistics]

These are not truly mutually exclusive conditions.
Yes, the state of public education is a crime scene that has made me do a complete U turn on the merits of homeschooling and other alternative education concepts.

Meanwhile, the product of the public education system will not work past its arrogance to realize they "do not know what they do not know" ... a critical first step in changing that condition.