High School and Public Education in general

School, College and Child development
1

As a 16 year old, I’m right in the middle of high school education. Many of you are older and have gone through this era, so this is mostly whom I am targeting.

It is extremely hard to see any value in the “education” I receive at my high school. Every last bit of information is aimed at getting enough points to secure that A. The idea of learning is lost amidst the big point scramble. There is no make up work in almost any of my classes, which basically means, any concepts we cover essentially don’t matter as long as you get so many questions right. Whether I eventually grasp these concepts after a test or not, my grade can’t reflect it due to the “points.” Even more angering to me is the material we learn seems utterly pointless for the type of career I wish to pursue. Why am I in calculus classes when I want to go into accounting? Why am I learning about Puritan history in a literature class? What’s even more disheartening is that I have a 3.9 GPA, and I have never studies for any of my classes. I work 30 hours a week, and still perform better in a system I don’t understand than many of my classmates. The only thing average about my grades is my SAT score (something else that bothers me).

So, I was wondering if anyone who’s been through this (and can decipher my horrid ramblings) can tell me how important high school and public education really are.

2

I’m going through the same thing right now, so unfortunately I don’t have an answer. What I do have is this post. It gave me a bit of perspective and some ideas for how to cope. I am still considering dropping out, but this is a valuable alternative.

[Edit: I should have said “viable alternative” not “valuable alternative”. Not to say that the alternative isn’t indeed valuable.]

3

So, I was wondering if anyone who’s been through this (and can decipher my horrid ramblings) can tell me how important high school and public education really are.

Getting good marks in high school, and participating in a variety of activities, is important for guaranteeing admission into a good college or university. Plus, there’s a lot to learn and do in high school that’s not directly part of the course material. For me, participating in sports, making friends, and just figuring out more about who I am were some of the most rewarding parts of high school.

If you think it’s easy, take advantage of the extra time you have to pursue other things you enjoy. You’ll definitely wish you had that much time to do things of your choosing when you’re older.

Also - I’m a firm believer that you can study for the SAT and vastly improve your score.

4

It is extremely hard to see any value in the “education” I receive at my high school. Every last bit of information is aimed at getting enough points to secure that A. The idea of learning is lost amidst the big point scramble.

Yes, public education is usually a god-awful mess, with thoroughly disintegrated curricula and classrooms whose most valuable service is to keep the thugs and punks off the streets for a third of the weekday. (This varies across the country, of course, because public education is very decentralized in the US, with a good deal of local control and influence that can outweigh the homogenizing, dumbing stream coming out of our Deweyite schools of education.)

Even more angering to me is the material we learn seems utterly pointless for the type of career I wish to pursue. Why am I in calculus classes when I want to go into accounting? Why am I learning about Puritan history in a literature class?

This contradicts what you said above–either that or you’re equating the value of an education with straight-out job training, in which case what’s the point of studying literature at all if you’re going to be an accountant? In other words, just what is the idea of learning, anyway? Why is it utterly pointless, because you can’t see how it will help you pull in the big bucks and get ahead in financial circles? Whether your high school actually delivers on it, the education you get there should be intended to teach you the basic facts (at the very least) you need to know as a reasonably intelligent adult, train you how to think and write logically and clearly, and introduce you to the history and culture of the society you live in regardless of your eventual career. And frankly, I think anyone who comes out of high school not knowing basic calculus has been miseducated, and not knowing enough Puritan history and thought to appreciate their significance in, say, Milton or Hawthorne, much less American history before the Civil War, has been shortchanged. Of course, that includes the great majority of American high school students, but then much public education in this country really is a god-awful mess.

5

Why am I in calculus classes when I want to go into accounting? Why am I learning about Puritan history in a literature class?

It’s all part of the great egalitarian, democratic movement that typifies the US (I assume that they haven’t covered this in your social science classes). There used to be an assumption that certain people, the lower classes, were incapable of learning abstract thought and therefore they were only fit for specific job training, e.g. learning to be a coal miner or a hod carrier. We in the US decided that the benefits of a general education (as opposed to just job training) should be available to all, thus they should be available in public schools. In the olden days (into the 50’s), they used to have tracks so that students would be directed into different classes depending on their aptitude and therefore you would not be faced with the problem of trying to teach calculus or American literature to people who could not learn these topics. Tracking became unpopular, and now we have the mess we have now, where the competent and the incompetent alike are mixed together in the hamburger grinder that is education.

The solution is to eliminate mandatory education laws, as well as eliminating government support of (and restrictions on) education. Many people think that education is of no use to them, and for some of them this is probably true. I think the best way to concretize the consequences of being uneducated is, simply, to refuse to become educated, and then get on with your life, doing whatever it is that you are capable of doing. In the old days when apprenticeships were more common, a bright lad who was paid to sweep up might also be given some kind of trivial job checking ledgers, and if he proved able to do that he would get harder and harder tasks, and eventually he would have learned the basics of accounting, by on the job training. We may be returning to the old ways, but it’s happening very slowly, too slowly to help you.

As a concrete suggestion, I suggest finding a way to occupy your mind while you’re marking time. I know it will seem to take forever, but eventially you will be break free of the tyranny of education and can get a job.

[bTW the answer to the Puritan question is that Puritan literature is the first American literature, and of course it is senseless to study a kind of literature without also studying the society that caused it. That doesn’t tell you why you would want to know anything about Puritan literature or any other type of literature, but at least it explains the relationship between history and literature]

6

The solution is to eliminate mandatory education laws, as well as eliminating government support of (and restrictions on) education. Many people think that education is of no use to them, and for some of them this is probably true.

I should point out that I agree with all of David Odden’s posting, and wholeheartedly with this sentence. Keep it in mind when reading my earlier posting; to my mind at least he and I agree except in emphasis. (Whether he thinks so, I don’t know.)

7

I am 27, gladly finished with school. I wish I could give you some encouragement, but all I can say is:

ITS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. College is even more worthless than high school. I went for almost four years. Please listen to a short poem I wrote about why i dropped out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAKKJsynnFw

And here is a five-minute monologue on self-educating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgwKNSYg71k

Brandon

8

I would just like to echo what was said above, the SAT is a test in which it is very possible to greatly increaese your score. Tutoring companies like Kaplan are best for that.

9

Please listen to a short poem I wrote about why i dropped out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAKKJsynnFw

And here is a five-minute monologue on self-educating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgwKNSYg71k

I thoroughly enjoyed these and recommend others view them as well.

10

College is even more worthless than high school.

What were you studying? There’s some discussion about college in another thread, and I wondered if you were studying a science. Also, what type of college was this? Would it be typically rated as, say, amount the top 50 colleges in the U.S.?

11

What were you studying? There’s some discussion about college in another thread, and I wondered if you were studying a science. Also, what type of college was this? Would it be typically rated as, say, amount the top 50 colleges in the U.S.?

I majored in philosophy and then History later when I changed my major. I studied philosophy, logic, history, anthropology, geology, astronomy, fiction and poetry wrting, drama, sociology, urban politics, psychology, the legislative process, and more history and philosophy. It was certainly not among the top 50 - maybe in the top 500 - maybe.

From my experiences and speaking with other people from other colleges including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, my experience was typical. The colleges are dominated by marxism and anti-rational, anti-american, anti-reason dogma.

This is a Dark Age, by any reasonable measure of the term.

cropperb

12

This is a Dark Age, by any reasonable measure of the term.

Does that include the original Dark Age, and what is your evidence that it is worse now?

13

Does that include the original Dark Age, and what is your evidence that it is worse now?

I wouldn’t say its worse now, because we still have science, but even science is under attack today.

Yes, I am reffering to the original Dark Age. Here’s my reasoning:

We have just finished a century where art and literature were abandoned and destroyed, dominated by Picasso and James Joyce and e e cummings. Those examples are as bad as (or worse than) anything the real Dark Ages produced.

We have just finished a century where, at the begining, we had two full-scale world wars in under 40 years. That’s two generations in a row that saw all-out total war dominate the world for years.

In the century we just finished, Hitler killed perhaps 15 millions people, if you don’t count russian death, and 40 million if you do count Russian deaths.

Stalin killed at least 40 million if you give Hitler credit for WWII deaths, but if we give Stalin the credit because of his half-assed bugling in the war then he killed closer to 60 million humans.

Mao Tse Tung saw over 50 million Chinese starve to death in the five catostrophic years of the “Great Leap Forward” when China reverted to the jungle. Besides that he killed perhaps another 10 or 15 million in war, executon, malnutrition and other forms genocide.

Those are the big three dictators. This has been the century of dictators. I didn’t even mention Mussilini, Castro, the Spanish dictator what’s-his-name, the Japanese emporors, Tito (the guy who ran Yugoslavia for like 35 years,) Saddam (who America put into power in the early 1970’s), Noriega, Iran’s Grand Ayatolla Culimania or whatever, and on and on and on.

But there’s a silver lining: Ayn Rand, though she lived in the midst of this Dark Age, has shown the way out.

Brandon

14

Okay; there’s no denying that that was bad stuff. Now, what era are you referring to that was the “light” age? To make this interesting, shall we exclude the height of Ancient Greek civilization? One thing I could conclude is that the Dark Ages started around 400 BC. Since the decline of Greek civilization, what has been the point of light, where modern civilization is worse than that? For instance, in the 19th century, there was almost nothing but dictators, so the existence of a handful of exceptional dictators in the past 100 years is by comparison insignificant. The cultural damage done by Kant in the 19th century was huge, compared to Joyce and Cummings. And BTW if you want to pick on cultural fiends, I’d start with Jackson Pollack.

My reason for asking is that I think this is really the greatest time to be alive (probably even compared to the much-vaunted days of Classical Greece), and that The Fundamental Problem stems from how politics corrupted education recently, not how education is the great evil that has corrupted politics.

15

And BTW if you want to pick on cultural fiends, I’d start with Jackson Pollack.

… Classical Greece…

LOL Pollock! Isn’t he a friggin jerk? I “honored” him with a line in a poem of mine:

As painterly genius they offer us Pollock,

Who, drunk, smeared his canvas in meaningless frollick. :ninja:

I hate that guy. I also give a line to James Joyce:

They give us James Joyce who penned Ullysses,

And tell us this nonsense is full of deep mysteries.

A mystery is right but they haven’t a hint:

The question is how did this crap get to print?!

Here’s the poem:

But seriously, Pollock is a result of Kant, as is James Joyce, and Hitler, and Stalin and…

So Kant is prolly worst. But I agree this is the best time in history to be alive. That said, isn’t it a telling fact of my evaluation of history that the best time ever to be alive is a modern Dark Age?

I don’t think this is a contradiction - it just shows how much further we have to go in the future.

A golden age? Well, let’s see… If Ancient Greece is off the plate, then the period following the birth of America and lasting until the year 1900 is probably my best pick for a golden age. During the Imperialism of the 1800’s the western nations competed with each other over how many countries they could westernize, and that is a noble goal in my estimate. Our own century (1900’s) has been a competition of how many foreign nations one can erect friendly dictators in.

Some comparisons:

In the all-important issue of travel, the 1800’s invented the plane (1903, give them credit for developing all the stuff that finally allowed Orville and Wilbur to do it) the train and the automobile.

The 1900’s by contrast invented the rocket (developed for purposes of war, though the USA used it to go to the moon).

The 1800’s saw an American Civil War to end slavery, as well as the final defeat of the wild, savage marauding indians.

The 1900’s saw the growth of socialism, income tax, the welfare state, the Potsdam conference (where FDR virtually gave Russia all of Eastern Europe), the hippie revolution of the 1960’s, and communism ruling over 2 out of 3 humans on earth. And so much more.

Still, I agree this is the time to be alive. Sad, isnt it? that i would want to be alive in a self-described dark age more than any other period? All other periods are darker , just by virtue of the comforts of modern medicine if nothing else.

But you have to admit that America is an island in the world today, a beacon on top of a hill, and it has been since its birth. The world at large is pretty shitty. <_<

brandon

16

A golden age? Well, let’s see… If Ancient Greece is off the plate, then the period following the birth of America and lasting until the year 1900 is probably my best pick for a golden age. During the Imperialism of the 1800’s the western nations competed with each other over how many countries they could westernize, and that is a noble goal in my estimate. Our own century (1900’s) has been a competition of how many foreign nations one can erect friendly dictators in.

I’d be likely to vote for the Victorian Era as a golden age. That doesn’t include the American Revolution, but it does technically include the birth of flight by commonly being considered to end at the outbreak of WWI, which I think is a good stopping point. In the art world, this period includes both Sherlock Holmes and Victor Hugo.

The 1800’s saw an American Civil War to end slavery, as well as the final defeat of the wild, savage marauding indians.

On the other hand, the Victorian Era did witness the imposition of the Tariff of Abominations and the defeat of those who stood up for freedom from the tyranny of the U.S. government. <_< Not to mention the hypocritical deportation and slaughter of an entire ethnic group.

17

ITS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. College is even more worthless than high school. I went for almost four years. Please listen to a short poem I wrote about why i dropped out.

In the course areas you listed in your other post, your poem is right on. That is actually one area of school that I thoroughly disliked. I remember a Nazi history class I took where the professor would occasionally insert comments into his lecture comparing the Nazis to Bush and the Republicans. I have a bunch of other stories like that too. Fortunately for me though, my major kept me out of the liberal arts buildings most of the time so that sort of thing didn’t happen too often.

I was a Computer Science major so I had a lot of science, programming, and engineering type classes as well. In this area my school was very good. In fact, my internet security professor uses Ayn Rand during the computer ethics section of the course. I was very pleased when he started talking about Atlas Shrugged. :stuck_out_tongue:

I still have to disagree with you though. The problems you described are dependent on which school you go to and what your major is. College was extremely valuable to me despite the few bad experiences I had. It basically comes down to learning who the bad professors are that try to teach that crap and just try to avoid them.

High school was fairly worthless though. I remember constantly getting in trouble with my parents because I would spend all my time learning computer programming at the expense of my schoolwork. I did that for a reason: I knew they were teaching me worthless garbage so I decided to educate myself until it was time to get into college. That decision actually paid off. I would have had a *much* harder time in college if I hadn’t studied what *I* wanted to study in high school.

18

I still have to disagree with you though. The problems you described are dependent on which school you go to and what your major is. College was extremely valuable to me despite the few bad experiences I had. It basically comes down to learning who the bad professors are that try to teach that crap and just try to avoid them.

I will accede this point. Some classes are based so closely on empirical facts that there is little room for abstract theory, corrupt or not. I studied virtually nothing in the way of such courses, so I was constantly assaulted in nearly every single class.

But a finer point remains: the methodology of teaching, even in the strictly scientific classes, is corrupt. I have a brother who is studying web design and computer graphics. They teach him stuff like when designing a logo its best to have it non-symetrical. No reason is given. They insist on group projects much of the time, which dilute or negate personal initiative. They have concepts like “projection lines” which supposedly “catch the eye” and move it here or there. He and I tried some of these “projection lines” by him designing a poster or logo or sign according to “projecting” and then I would look at it, and not only did my eyes NOT go where they were supposed to first and second, but many of the purposeful “eye-catching” tactics went comepletly unnoticed until he pointed them out, using the terms of these crazy theories.

For example the lines were supposed to draw my eye to the company motto first, but my attention was on trying to figure out why half the graphic was skee-wompus up at the top of the page. the company motto in the center-right was just another detail in a disorderly mess. :stuck_out_tongue:

They also had rules like you can’t have a picture or image of something centered in the graphic or photo - it has to be going off the page on one side or the other or the top or bottom. Whe he first sarted studying it, and asked me for opinions on his projects, I would say, “Why is that side-ways” or “Couldn’t you center this here and put a border around, maybe,” and he was always mad… :huh:

Eventually he saw that they were basically loading him up with assumptions that are not only unprovable, but observably false. He dropped the attitude of “I’m the one studying this, how would you know anything?” and started to question the proffessors and do the work his own way as best he could while staying within the guidelines of the assignment.

Not to discourage anyone who may try college - just be aware that its full of stuff that’s innapropriate, even though sometimes it slips past undetected.

brandon

19

Isn’t the current controlling class wonderful. Everyone preaches that their curriculum is best, or that their way is the best. Yet none or very few have questioned the actual **sitting behind the desk** model of learning. For a model that is truely different and allows the students to make their OWN choices with what they want to learn might I suggest the SVS model.

SVS

SVS Network

Learning is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire