The purpose of school.

[futurebird]

There were not as many responses to the 2nd post as the first. But, I think that something is starting to develop.

(Purpose.) What's wrong with the way public schools are used?

The first thing to fix about schools is the PERCEPTION of the value of schools, whether the kids think they can REALLY be successful, and to take it seriously. If you dont

Comments

[little_e_]

I think if we polled Americans, most of them would say that the purpose of schools is along the lines of teaching things, and that public schools in particular should teach useful things, especially those related to jobs and general adulthood survival. I don't think there's a problem here; most of us agree on the basic purpose of schools

[futurebird]

I think if we polled Americans, most of them would say that the purpose of schools is along the lines of teaching things, and that public schools in particular should teach useful things, especially those related to jobs and general adulthood survival. I don't think there's a problem here; most of us agree on the basic purpose of schools.Just becuase most people think this is the purpose of school doesn't mean that school *should* operate in this way. The purpose of educational institutions is to preserve disseminate and expand the body of human knowledge so that young people can

[little_e_]

99.9% of people are not going to be leaders. It makes no sense to design a system to produce an outcome which is useless to the vast majority of people in it

[futurebird]

99.9% of people are not going to be leaders.

Well, if we educate most to follow I guess that will be true. There are more ways to lead than heading a corporation. The things I list would be good for a plumber with a passion for establishing communities gardens to know. It would be a good level of knowledge for a hair dresser who runs her own business and goes to trade conventions.

--I don't know why you are getting sidetracked in to if people are forced to learn. This is what I think the purpose of schools should be. Clearly they can't reach everyone. But, I think we could reach most. The rest will learn to read and how to add and subtrct.

[little_e_]

It's not about education but simple numbers. Most people are not leaders. It's not in their natures and it's not something they particularly want or need to do. This whole "leadership" concept is all very male, anyway.

Coercion is important because once you give up on coercion, you realize that telling other people what you think they should learn is coercive. Your purposes involve judgments like "appreciating art". I'm sorry, but you will never be able to force people to appreciate art. The best you can do is make it available in case they want to know about it.

If you think the purpose of schools is to make people think and believe things, then you won't get anywhere, because coercion annoys people.

[futurebird]

So in your opinion not everyone need the kind o education I described. How can you tell who will benefit form it and who won't? I just not think it is true, though, that not everyone can benefit from that kind of education.

I went to a public school where everyone had that kind of education, and everyone benefited from it. I taught at a private school where everyone had that kind of education and everyone benefited from it.

In the poor kid's public school they did not have that kind of education and there were students who would have benefited from t, but their development was stunted. So, how can we tell who need this kind of education and who doesn't need it.

What kind of education do you think your child should have?

Your purposes involve judgments like "appreciating art". I'm sorry, but you will never be able to force people to appreciate art. The best you can do is make it available in case they want to know about it.This is not the best you can do. You can also model what art appreciation looks like so from young age they

[gunslnger]

Which is why we need multiple types of educational institutions. You've described a purpose for one type, which is essentially for the purpose of training more teachers. Other types include ones that teach a particular set of skills (which used to be done by apprenticeships), and ones that teach social and cultural norms (to supplement those taught by the child's family), etc.

[anfalicious]

I don't disagree with you, I just think that this could be done by the public system just as well as the private. In my experience private schools tend to be the ones more focused on pure academic results whilst teaching their own social and cultural norms, not those of the wider society. I think you'd find those who go to a Christian school would be much more unaware of the actual diversity of the country than those who go to a public school.

[gunslnger]

I went to a secular private school for junior high and high school. The high school was a college prep school so it was more academic because it was targeted at going to college and college is targeted at producing either researchers or teachers. So, I'm not totally disagreeing with you, but it seems that people want public schools to be the same way, they expect it to be getting them ready for college.

I think your opinion on Christian schools would depend on the local area more than just the fact that it's a Christian school.

[anfalicious]

I don't know what Christian schools are like there, but knowing that your ration of insane/sane Christians is far higher than ours is here, I wouldn't imagine it's much better, and the good Christians schools here generally don't spend much more than a term on other religious beliefs.

If there was more money so there could be more schools, so rather than having one big high school in a suburb to service the students (which would focus on academic) you could have one that was academically focused, one that was trade focused and one that was arts focused then you would have what you desire. However, this is shown to have pretty horrible outcomes. What you actually need is schools to be funded so they can offer all of these things on the one campus.

I'll give you one thing, at least your private schools don't get four times the amount of federal funding over public schools that ours do (although they get no state funding and public schools are mostly funded by the state, hence the extra federal funds to "pick up the gap").