What about those chubby kids who never move at all except in PE class?
Design your own ideal education system
- Thread starter aneeshm
- Start date
What about those chubby kids who never move at all except in PE class?
Oh, well, in that case, free post-secondary education, state-of-the-art facilities and a generous stipend for students..
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
I personally think parenting can do more for that than the school. Hmm...I just thought up of a labor camp for fat kids.
Ecofarm
Deity
80% private.
Verbose
Deity
If the objective is solely to give me, or my offspring, the best possible education?
For primary school:
The traditional European upper-crust situation where an "informant", usually some personable young man of an academic persuasion, is hired 24/7 to give one or a few young boys an education, i.e. the sole point of him being there is in order to as quickly as possible bring these kids up to a level of intellectual equality.
Who you chose and how you chose matters like hell of course (do you want some theologian or a natural science man for starters?), but it is the way to produce something like the von Humboldt brothers et al.
My first answer was a troll obviously. Here are some slightly more serious thoughts.
I see that most posters (predictably) focus more on their high school curriculum, or the affordability of higher education. Nobody ever really talks about elementary school, but I really think thats the most important. Thats where the "haves" and the "have nots" get separated at a pretty early age.
An "Ideal" system would understand the critical important of the early grades, especially when it comes to establishing litteracy. Preschool and Kindergarten are not just day care centers...they are places to develop certain skill sets before 1st grade to facilitate reading (like building vocabularies). Teachers and schools need to be held accountable for their student's ability to read in the early grades. It is beyond irresponsible to advance students who are not even close to meeting grade level standards.
If you don't learn to read properly in first and second grade, your ability to pick up math, science and writing skills in middle elementary is compromised. By High School, your confidence is shot, you are more than one grade level behind, and you might get left behind. Proper K-3 education is critical.
In an ideal system, the quality of your education is not decided by your zip code (like it is in America). Schools should be free K-12, and their quality should not be so grossly disparate. This is not merely a matter of funding, for those who simply want to commit more money (although that helps).
I don't think higher education should be free, although I think it would be beneficial if "good" schools were cheaper in my country. Ideally, I'd like to see the costs backloaded a little bit...giving familes a little more time to save, and to give an incentive for students to work during their undergrads.
I see that most posters (predictably) focus more on their high school curriculum, or the affordability of higher education. Nobody ever really talks about elementary school, but I really think thats the most important. Thats where the "haves" and the "have nots" get separated at a pretty early age.
An "Ideal" system would understand the critical important of the early grades, especially when it comes to establishing litteracy. Preschool and Kindergarten are not just day care centers...they are places to develop certain skill sets before 1st grade to facilitate reading (like building vocabularies). Teachers and schools need to be held accountable for their student's ability to read in the early grades. It is beyond irresponsible to advance students who are not even close to meeting grade level standards.
If you don't learn to read properly in first and second grade, your ability to pick up math, science and writing skills in middle elementary is compromised. By High School, your confidence is shot, you are more than one grade level behind, and you might get left behind. Proper K-3 education is critical.
In an ideal system, the quality of your education is not decided by your zip code (like it is in America). Schools should be free K-12, and their quality should not be so grossly disparate. This is not merely a matter of funding, for those who simply want to commit more money (although that helps).
I don't think higher education should be free, although I think it would be beneficial if "good" schools were cheaper in my country. Ideally, I'd like to see the costs backloaded a little bit...giving familes a little more time to save, and to give an incentive for students to work during their undergrads.
Ever heard of a phenomenon called the "brain drain"?
Cato the Elder
King
Won't such a system cause a "the richer you are, the better you are educated" effect to the extreme?
flyingchicken
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2007
- Messages
- 3,783
An educational system that will be geared towards the research and development of one technology and one technology only: INSTANTANEOUS BRAIN-TO-COMPUTER-TO-BRAIN INFORMATION TRANSFER.
After that, it will be smooth sailing, unless the costs are prohibitive and the people who studied for years begin rioting in protest ("Why did we have to waste half our youth?!").
More specifically, I'm gonna redirect all the education funds towards the important fields and projects, not caring about actual education. If it flops, I will go into hiding, change my name, have plastic surgery, then fake my death.
After that, it will be smooth sailing, unless the costs are prohibitive and the people who studied for years begin rioting in protest ("Why did we have to waste half our youth?!").
More specifically, I'm gonna redirect all the education funds towards the important fields and projects, not caring about actual education. If it flops, I will go into hiding, change my name, have plastic surgery, then fake my death.
carmen510
Deity
Now to steal a conservative quote from GTA IV's WTKK radio:
CALLER: You know what really concerns me about America? The educational
system. First of all, the liberals are making our children learn things like
geography. Who cares where the terrorists come from? If our children know
about other countries, there's less time teaching them about American
superiority. We don't need geography to kill terrorists!
BASTION: ...Public education is another lie, OK? You see it in the bunk they're teaching
as science. Now, science is good, when it teaches you how to turn a million
ungrateful foreigners into glass. That, I'm givin' a thumbs up to, OK? That's
a great discovery.
On-topic, I think we should do what Dachs said.
CALLER: You know what really concerns me about America? The educational
system. First of all, the liberals are making our children learn things like
geography. Who cares where the terrorists come from? If our children know
about other countries, there's less time teaching them about American
superiority. We don't need geography to kill terrorists!
BASTION: ...Public education is another lie, OK? You see it in the bunk they're teaching
as science. Now, science is good, when it teaches you how to turn a million
ungrateful foreigners into glass. That, I'm givin' a thumbs up to, OK? That's
a great discovery.
On-topic, I think we should do what Dachs said.
Slaughter
Paladin
Pretty much this.
My education system would also feature less emphasis on certain advanced stuff that IMHO should not be outside of university. Most mathematical subjects are pretty much useless to 80% of the population. The only things normal people need to know about mathematics are:
Four basic operations, exponentiation, rule of three (both simple and complex), percentage and financial math. Maybe basic probrablity. There, that's it. No need for trigonometry or other hard, advanced math. If done right, math would stop being a important subject with a lot of time after the eigth year, and become mostly resuming of important stuff while other subjects would get more screen time. Only people in university who want to become architets, engineers and other fields would learn advanced mathematics.
The main goal of this would be to teach people things they ARE going to use instead of just studying, getting good grades, then forgetting because its useless. That's just pure waste of time. University would be more focused, so no ridiculous things, like lawyers who need to know trigonometry.
gangleri2001
Garbage day!!!
Someone needs to take a trip to europe.
GoodGame
Red, White, & Blue, baby!
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2004
- Messages
- 13,725
What Fifty said. Except I want to learn advanced calculus from a cybernetic womb.
Fugitive Sisyphus
Escape Artist
I would greatly increase the pay of teachers. As it is now, except in the rare case of people who enjoy teaching above all else. the job of teacher goes to the people who are not capable of making it in the real world. Also I wouldn't put much effort in teaching students to be English majors and liberal arts majors. While a fundamental knowledge of those things are important it is Engineering, Computer Science, Medicine, etc that is useful and where all the money is.
JohnRM
Don't make me destroy you
I'll go with the one system that is tried and true over three million years of human history.
Kids learn from their parents.
Kids learn from their parents.
Integral
Can't you hear it?
Downtown, I'd like to throw a few questions your way, if you don't mind. 
What role do you see Head Start playing in this at the pre-K and kindergarten levels?
I agree that the quality of education needn't be so closely tied to 'your zip code', as you put it, but this would require a pretty substantial change in funding methods. What do you propose to do to funding? Centralize part/all of it at the state level? Federal level?
PiMan
Deity
That worked great when all kids needed to know was stuff their parents knew, but those days are in the past.
