Interesting ideas. And you've touched on one of my pet peeves: that schools only really work for a certain type of person. This is a problem because it leaves a lot of people in the lurch. And in fact, if you take a deep look into things, you'll find that the current school system that we use was originally designed to socialize kids and teach them all of society's favourite paradigms and propaganda, and not to actually educate.
That being said, there are advantages to this. First off, it simplifies things greatly to see that someone did well in high school/college/university. I'm not disagreeing with you that many people can teach themselves much better than a school can. The problem is in proving that claim. As an employer, it's a lot easier for you to see that Johnny went to U of T and obtained a Comp. Sci. degree with a 3.7 GPA, than it is for you to test the claims that Johnny taught himself how to effectively program. On top of that, you have standardization. I'll be blunt, I *want* my nurses and engineers and doctors and electricians and so forth to be well trained and be vetted by an accredited school.
And this gets into why high school is useful. It's useful for universities to have a metric to decide how well suited you are for your biochemistry degree. If they can see you've taken biology and chemistry and done well, then things are a lot easier for them. Whereas if all they hear from you is that "I'm self-taught in chemistry and biology", they don't necessarily know how well you did that. I mean, for a one on one case, you can test them, but that doesn't scale up well, and is expensive.
Another problem is that you'll end up in a situation where people tend to learn only about what interests them, with no pressure to get them outside their comfort zone. I mean, if it were up to me, I never would have taken any English courses in high school, nor would I have taken those philosophy courses in university. But taking them was probably better for me in the long run.
All this being said, I'm not claiming that the current system is the best. I believe that there are many improvements we could make, starting with how we handle certain subjects being taught. I mean, the way we teach math is laughable at best. At the very least, grade 12 math should have a much higher focus on proofs and formal definitions, because that is *all* you'll do at the university level. And grade 12 physics should start introducing calculus, because for crying out loud, calculus was *invented* to be used in physics. But of course you can even look into changing the system itself, such as allowing people to chose whether to place more focus on presentations, tests, or assignments. I'm sure there are thousands of things we could do to improve schools in general.
I see the advantages to standardizes testing, and yes of course I agree I would like my nurses and doctors and electricians to be qualified. I think I am talking more about compulsory school rather than university. Because university and college is optional. (Though some people don't realize it :P) The point is if you want to become a doctor than yes, you will have to go through lots of schooling. But if you want it then you CHOSE to do it. Nobody chooses high school, it is forced upon us. We think we have no choice, lest we become junkies and die on the street.
As for universities using the high school diploma, yes it is useful as a measuring tool. However I also feel it is so very easy to bullshit your way through high school. I recall reading a story about someone who was illiterate and still managed to graduate by playing the system. As well, marks are relative to many things, whether he teacher liked you, whether you deal well with tests, whether you had emotional problems at the time, not your intelligence. There are so many examples out there of brilliant kids having low grades. And to take that highschool diploma as the ONLY measure of your adequacy is ridiculous. Which I know most universtities have mature and homeschooled student applications, and that is fantastic. But for example, one university my unschooled friend Kalina wanted to apply to here in the UK refused anyone who didn't have a diploma, regardless of ability. Regardless of the fact that she could demonstrate in an essay or in person her abilities. And that I think is a prejudice against people who learn in alternative ways.
As for people only learning what interests them, I can see what you are saying there. But then when we are young we want to learn everything! Could it be that it is the institution that crushes this in us? And really, as adults we know that we cannot be good at everything, why do we expect this from our kids? Why put so much pressure on little Suzie to take calculus when all she really wants to do is buy a farm and grow things? I know that I push my comfort zone on a regular basis and I don't need a system to help me do that. I do it simply because I would like to learn about something and see if it interests me. Kids are prone to try new things, they are naturally curious.
I think the biggest thing we could do to improve schools would be to make them optional. Give kids more choice. Give them a base knowledge of how to read, write, and do basic math and then let them choose what THEY want to learn, what interests them.
Interesting ideas. And you've touched on one of my pet peeves: that schools only really work for a certain type of person. This is a problem because it leaves a lot of people in the lurch. And in fact, if you take a deep look into things, you'll find that the current school system that we use was originally designed to socialize kids and teach them all of society's favourite paradigms and propaganda, and not to actually educate.
That being said, there are advantages to this. First off, it simplifies things greatly to see that someone did well in high school/college/university. I'm not disagreeing with you that many people can teach themselves much better than a school can. The problem is in proving that claim. As an employer, it's a lot easier for you to see that Johnny went to U of T and obtained a Comp. Sci. degree with a 3.7 GPA, than it is for you to test the claims that Johnny taught himself how to effectively program. On top of that, you have standardization. I'll be blunt, I *want* my nurses and engineers and doctors and electricians and so forth to be well trained and be vetted by an accredited school.
And this gets into why high school is useful. It's useful for universities to have a metric to decide how well suited you are for your biochemistry degree. If they can see you've taken biology and chemistry and done well, then things are a lot easier for them. Whereas if all they hear from you is that "I'm self-taught in chemistry and biology", they don't necessarily know how well you did that. I mean, for a one on one case, you can test them, but that doesn't scale up well, and is expensive.
Another problem is that you'll end up in a situation where people tend to learn only about what interests them, with no pressure to get them outside their comfort zone. I mean, if it were up to me, I never would have taken any English courses in high school, nor would I have taken those philosophy courses in university. But taking them was probably better for me in the long run.
All this being said, I'm not claiming that the current system is the best. I believe that there are many improvements we could make, starting with how we handle certain subjects being taught. I mean, the way we teach math is laughable at best. At the very least, grade 12 math should have a much higher focus on proofs and formal definitions, because that is *all* you'll do at the university level. And grade 12 physics should start introducing calculus, because for crying out loud, calculus was *invented* to be used in physics. But of course you can even look into changing the system itself, such as allowing people to chose whether to place more focus on presentations, tests, or assignments. I'm sure there are thousands of things we could do to improve schools in general.
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As for universities using the high school diploma, yes it is useful as a measuring tool. However I also feel it is so very easy to bullshit your way through high school. I recall reading a story about someone who was illiterate and still managed to graduate by playing the system. As well, marks are relative to many things, whether he teacher liked you, whether you deal well with tests, whether you had emotional problems at the time, not your intelligence. There are so many examples out there of brilliant kids having low grades. And to take that highschool diploma as the ONLY measure of your adequacy is ridiculous. Which I know most universtities have mature and homeschooled student applications, and that is fantastic. But for example, one university my unschooled friend Kalina wanted to apply to here in the UK refused anyone who didn't have a diploma, regardless of ability. Regardless of the fact that she could demonstrate in an essay or in person her abilities. And that I think is a prejudice against people who learn in alternative ways.
As for people only learning what interests them, I can see what you are saying there. But then when we are young we want to learn everything! Could it be that it is the institution that crushes this in us? And really, as adults we know that we cannot be good at everything, why do we expect this from our kids? Why put so much pressure on little Suzie to take calculus when all she really wants to do is buy a farm and grow things? I know that I push my comfort zone on a regular basis and I don't need a system to help me do that. I do it simply because I would like to learn about something and see if it interests me. Kids are prone to try new things, they are naturally curious.
I think the biggest thing we could do to improve schools would be to make them optional. Give kids more choice. Give them a base knowledge of how to read, write, and do basic math and then let them choose what THEY want to learn, what interests them.
Reply
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