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.

The problem, I think, comes in the implementation. Coercion has come up a few times, coupled with the idea that you can't force people to learn things--and trying to "motivate" kids is really just another way of coercing them, and the kids know it. It says to them, "We know what you need to do and think to succeed, so think and do as we say because you're too stupid to figure this out on your own."

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, creativity and original thinking are very important skills for people to have, but the minute we start telling people, "you have to learn this," and "you have to do it this way," we start killing creativity (and motivation.)

So we can say, "here is the purpose of schools," but once we start trying to control people and make them learn the things we think they need to learn in order to acheive those goals, then we've started denigrating the learner's own choices and interfering with our own goals. Which is not to say that there's no place for structure in schools--many students do well or better with structure--but that trying to force people to do what we think is good for them just doesn't work.

[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:

1. Participate intelligently in our government by electing good leaders.
2. Use science and mathematics to understand and master their environment.
3. Make decisions about the future of our country that are informed by history and a solid understating of our culture and other cultures in the world.
4. Appreciate and contribute to the arts: music, paining, dance, theater, film, television etc.
5. Follow current events and spot bias in articles or manipulation in advertising.
6. Understand how the economy works, including loans, mortgages and the stock market.
7. Learn a physical sport, and cultivate healthy habits with respect to the body. (Including, and it should not need to be said, a fact-based understanding of human reproduction.)

...and probably some other stuff.

Some of these things might help you get a job, some have nothing to do with getting a job. And that's fine. Some will help you to "survive" -- but isn't that kind of a low bar? Should we expect young people to lead? It's going to be their world some day.

[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.

Your list contains plenty of good ideas, so long as we're talking about students who aren't physically disabled, mentally disabled, aspie, happen to live in/value participating in a democracy, trust the government to teach them how to evaluate the gov't, aren't interested in art, don't like people telling them what to do, and have no need to get a job and feed themselves.

Survival isn't a low bar when we consider that our schools aren't performing at that level for many students. (And I think that the focus on making people learn all of these things which we think are good for them really detracts from teaching really basic things people need to know, and demotivates them from learning.)

Beyond the basics that people need to survive, I see no ethical reason to coerce them into attendance. If people want to learn the things you've listed, fantastic, but if they want to learn or do something else, that's their business.

[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 pick up on it-- Though, art is a bad example since all people appreciate art. But that's make it easier since you can connect with students by helping them to see the role art already plays in their life then use that to help them become open to more diverse artistic experiences.

Of course some might say "I don't wanna." but in my experience that's pretty rare.

[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").