So socialism

[amadeus]

quality of education: pretty good
quality of experience: el sucko balls

YMMV

 

[Narz]

You can read, can’t you?

I could read before school.

It's not necessary to be detained 7-8 hours a day for 13 years to understand writen language

Two years max and most of the rest is busywork and learning how to take commands and figure out bare necessity that you know the teacher wants to hear so you can be done w it (again w the exception of good teachers who inspire learning rather than pollute the notion of it)

 

[Gorbles]

I could read before school.

It's not necessary to be detained 7-8 hours a day for 13 years to understand writen language

Two years max and most of the rest is busywork and learning how to take commands and figure out bare necessity that you know the teacher wants to hear so you can be done w it (again w the exception of good teachers who inspire learning rather than pollute the notion of it)

It's not necessary to do what a lot of schools put children through, but "no school" is not a viable alternative. If you want to focus on the most negative interpretation of public schooling possible, while advocating for homeschooling and yet not focusing on the negatives there, I'm guessing you've just got baggage about it all.

 

[Narz]

It's not necessary to do what a lot of schools put children through, but "no school" is not a viable alternative. If you want to focus on the most negative interpretation of public schooling possible, while advocating for homeschooling and yet not focusing on the negatives there, I'm guessing you've just got baggage about it all.

No denial of that.

But I find it strange the idealization of public school when the outcomes of such indoctrination are bemoaned. How to those celebrating public schooling as mankind's greatest achievement square how often those w this level of education's actions very often go against their own best interest? It's all well & good to learn how to memorize (altho memorizing facts outside of any practical context to ace a test that you'd score 10% on a year later seems like bad practice) but shouldn't education prepare people to think critically? To be able to avoid mental traps & maximize well being? Public education is synonymous w "uneducated" in public discourse (no college/university).

I'm not advocating no school, I'm advocating improving of schools, better pay of teachers & updating ideas about schooling that predate automobiles. As for me, if I had the means I would choose an alternative. I figure almost anyone else in this thread would as well (choose an alternative to public school for their kids if money wasn't a thing).

 

[amadeus]

Two years max and most of the rest is busywork and learning how to take commands and figure out bare necessity that you know the teacher wants

I don’t totally agree with this assessment: schooling, and to some extent the busywork helps with the process of learning how to analyze information and apply it at a level suitable for their cognitive development. Yes, you can teach a child how to read in two years but putting a book in front of them and have them understand it is something totally different.

I’d guess there is a substantive body of empirical research on this—take some children out of a poor country that could only finish primary schooling and compare it to their peers, or even children in other countries. How do you suppose they’ll fare?

I think there are problems with what we are doing and how we are doing it, but K-12 being as long as it is isn’t the problem itself.

 

[Gorbles]

No denial of that.

But I find it strange the idealization of public school when the outcomes of such indoctrination are bemoaned. How to those celebrating public schooling as mankind's greatest achievement square how often those w this level of education's actions very often go against their own best interest? It's all well & good to learn how to memorize (altho memorizing facts outside of any practical context to ace a test that you'd score 10% on a year later seems like bad practice) but shouldn't education prepare people to think critically? To be able to avoid mental traps & maximize well being? Public education is synonymous w "uneducated" in public discourse (no college/university).

I'm not advocating no school, I'm advocating improving of schools, better pay of teachers & updating ideas about schooling that predate automobiles. As for me, if I had the means I would choose an alternative. I figure almost anyone else in this thread would as well (choose an alternative to public school for their kids if money wasn't a thing).

Advocating improvement of schools while describing the outcome as "indoctrination" don't seem like compatible viewpoints. Plenty of teaching can amount to indoctrination, and homeschooling is in no way an exception (arguably, it's more susceptible). So let's try and put the baggage aside, and I'll do the same. Public schooling is idealised because it's an equaliser. Public services in general are.

The same applies for higher and further education. The fact that education is so absolutely terrible in the US in particular (among other countries) doesn't mean that public education is or should be synonymous with "uneducated". Again, people can be homeschooled and uneducated. People can be rich and uneducated. We both agree that public schooling can be improved. Why would you want to improve something, if you didn't think the concept had merit? I can only assume the context has merit and you're complaining about the (current, localised) outcomes (i.e. specifically relevant to your own experiences, etc).

Everyone wants what's best for their kids, and yeah, this does involve a small amount of hypocrisy when given a choice about how their kids deal with public schooling. Nobody wants their kid to go to a bad school (allegedly or actual; optics matter immensely, which is another problem area to tackle in terms of improving schooling). There are two primary (elementary?) schools where I live. One is good, one is less good. Both of my kids are currently going to the good one. It's a vicious circle. The poorer school gets a worse intake, has less resources, which when it comes to being evaluated by the governing bodies (for us in the UK, it's OFSTED - no idea how much you know about that) means they're less likely to get a "good" rating. This in turn de-incentivises parents from sending their children there, and affects the funding the school gets. This repeats. Combine that with our ongoing privatisation of public schools, and you have a very grim outlook for the future of public education in the UK.

But that's not the fault of public education. That's the fault of treating it as a capitalist enterprise. Some things are going to cost more upfront, and take longer to see any kind of a return on, than others. Education is one of these things. Fixing a deficit in education means that any resulting progress often won't potentially be seen for years. In market terms, that's a failure. Put money in, machine goes brrrr, get money out. That's what "investment" now means. The slow maturation of interest has gone the same way as our expectations of investment in these long-running services. It's all get more money, as quickly as possible. Doesn't matter about the long-term harm, just get money. This applies to more than just public education, but public education is a fantastic example of it.

The reliance on rote learning is also symptomatic of this. Customising a learning schedule to every child's learning patterns and ability costs a huge amount. But most schools have set of levels they can apply per-subject to kids in their classes. Not every kid gets on with rote learning. I didn't. At all. In the slightest. Public education did basically nothing for me in terms of the education itself (it was valuable in a bunch of other respects, though - which is another argument for public education as a system for kids to experience, even if the schooling itself doesn't always turn out fantastic). But that's not a problem with the concept of publicly-available education. It's a problem of not investing enough in it. To go back to the schools near me, one has a far better set of stuff for kids to interact and engage with than the other school does. This forces the other school to rely more on "boring" lesson plans.

I went to a very fancy private school. It was paid for for me, because my parents weren't very well off at all (I had to pass an entrance exam, maintain certain grades, etc). The facilities and resources it had were night and day compared to any state school in the area. The amount it could spend maintaining and upgrading equipment was similarly far in excess of any state school's budget. That doesn't mean the state schools were bad. It just means the comparison needs to take the money available into the equation, when rating them. If my parents had had to pay even a portion of what my schooling cost, I wouldn't have gone there.

 

[Narz]

I’d guess there is a substantive body of empirical research on this—take some children out of a poor country that could only finish primary schooling and compare it to their peers, or even children in other countries. How do you suppose they’ll fare?

Definitely better but don't think the analogy necessarily carryover to 1st world because any kid getting an education in a poor country is going to be hyper aware of the privilege of it and their family will be advantaged enough they don't have to work.

Also they will.likely have a goal in mind rather than simply be forced to go (highly self-motivated or @ least motivated to help their family)

Advocating improvement of schools while describing the outcome as "indoctrination" don't seem like compatible viewpoints.

why?

Plenty of teaching can amount to indoctrination, and homeschooling is in no way an exception (arguably, it's more susceptible). So let's try and put the baggage aside, and I'll do the same. Public schooling is idealised because it's an equaliser. Public services in general are.

It's not an equalizer tho, if anything attending a public or private school is a differentiator between social classes

The same applies for higher and further education. The fact that education is so absolutely terrible in the US in particular (among other countries) doesn't mean that public education is or should be synonymous with "uneducated".

But it is seen and used that way

Again, people can be homeschooled and uneducated. People can be rich and uneducated. We both agree that public schooling can be improved. Why would you want to improve something, if you didn't think the concept had merit? I can only assume the context has merit and you're complaining about the (current, localised) outcomes (i.e. specifically relevant to your own experiences, etc).

not everything is about my own experiences

i never said the concept didnt have merit but theory vs practice are quite different

Everyone wants what's best for their kids, and yeah, this does involve a small amount of hypocrisy when given a choice about how their kids deal with public schooling. Nobody wants their kid to go to a bad school (allegedly or actual; optics matter immensely, which is another problem area to tackle in terms of improving schooling). There are two primary (elementary?) schools where I live. One is good, one is less good. Both of my kids are currently going to the good one. It's a vicious circle. The poorer school gets a worse intake, has less resources, which when it comes to being evaluated by the governing bodies (for us in the UK, it's OFSTED - no idea how much you know about that) means they're less likely to get a "good" rating. This in turn de-incentivises parents from sending their children there, and affects the funding the school gets. This repeats. Combine that with our ongoing privatisation of public schools, and you have a very grim outlook for the future of public education in the UK.

But that's not the fault of public education. That's the fault of treating it as a capitalist enterprise. Some things are going to cost more upfront, and take longer to see any kind of a return on, than others. Education is one of these things. Fixing a deficit in education means that any resulting progress often won't potentially be seen for years. In market terms, that's a failure. Put money in, machine goes brrrr, get money out. That's what "investment" now means. The slow maturation of interest has gone the same way as our expectations of investment in these long-running services. It's all get more money, as quickly as possible. Doesn't matter about the long-term harm, just get money. This applies to more than just public education, but public education is a fantastic example of it.

The reliance on rote learning is also symptomatic of this. Customising a learning schedule to every child's learning patterns and ability costs a huge amount. But most schools have set of levels they can apply per-subject to kids in their classes. Not every kid gets on with rote learning. I didn't. At all. In the slightest. Public education did basically nothing for me in terms of the education itself (it was valuable in a bunch of other respects, though - which is another argument for public education as a system for kids to experience, even if the schooling itself doesn't always turn out fantastic). But that's not a problem with the concept of publicly-available education. It's a problem of not investing enough in it. To go back to the schools near me, one has a far better set of stuff for kids to interact and engage with than the other school does. This forces the other school to rely more on "boring" lesson plans.

 

[Angst]

not that you're - narz - arguing for it per se, but just sayin': homeschooling as a model is an awful, awful idea. sure one might know the different people doing it, but you can't as a system rely on parents to educate children - unless they're teachers

i get that you feel there's a lot of idiots around - and there are - but A) that's not really the failure of public education as a model in itself (whatever complex beast it is), rather that we deliberately choose to underfund, and B) boy do i have news to you about people before education

like don't get me wrong they weren't incapable or dumb - and they often know swathes of things that you don't - but i think it's important to underline the massive utility of public education.

also sidenote, you also talked about how public education teaches useless things. don't fall into the industrialist trap. knowledge has value in itself

edit: and a thing about my perspective - i'm from the danish model, which is far, far more conversational and inclusive to the behaviors of children than most western school systems. i speak from that perspective. i know of the rigidity of schoolings elsewhere. children here are generally more independent as such, but naturally, far less obedient to authority. yes you can have a school that deals in such a way.

 

[Gorbles]

why?

Because the quality of teaching has very little impact on whether or not it's being used to indoctrinate anybody.

It's not an equalizer tho, if anything attending a public or private school is a differentiator between social classes

Public school is an equaliser when the alternative is homeschooling (or not schooling). I wasn't comparing public or private, except with the bit at the end of my post where I pointed out a large difference in terms of outcome is dependent on resources. If a state school had a private school's resources, the outcome would be far less differential (if that's the right word).

But it is seen and used that way

And?

That's still not the fault of public education. In order to make something better, accurately diagnosing the fault is important.

 

[El_Machinae]

Homeschool kids I've met who can follow their interests are more informed than most 16yos by 10. Granted yeah it takes some privilege to have the time, energy and support to teach your kids full time or be part of a homeschool group but it's worth it if you can.

Any large effort will have gaping holes that are most efficiently plugged at the individual level. If it was easier to solve the holes en masse, it would be done. There's a selection effect, where the hardest holes to solve with the public effort will be the ones that remain as the institutions evolve. There's no causal correlation that these holes will be solved at the individual effort, but there will be times where it is and we will notice them.

This then creates a tension, since the ability to plug some of the holes will be variable based on the resources of the child's social circle, and anybody at the threshold of those resources will notice the opportunity cost of the various drains. If someone wants to (wisely) supplement their kid's lunches, but cannot really afford to, then they'll notice the various expenses in this lives - especially ones that they don't perceive a benefit from. This can be anything from the taxes they pay or the school fees for things their kids don't use all the way to the portion of their tax bill earmarked towards things they don't approve of.

Because the holes that are being perceived aren't best-solved by larger bureaucracies, it's often proposed that the bureaucracy has a larger budget, but this might not be the efficient allocation. And that's counter-pushed by the problem that these holes are going to cause differential outcomes based on the kid's resources.

 

[Narz]

knowledge has value in itself

Meh, the internet is full of knowledge & people are more ill-informed & gullible than ever. How to think is more important than being given information.

edit: and a thing about my perspective - i'm from the danish model, which is far, far more conversational and inclusive to the behaviors of children than most western school systems. i speak from that perspective. i know of the rigidity of schoolings elsewhere. children here are generally more independent as such, but naturally, far less obedient to authority. yes you can have a school that deals in such a way.

I think I saw a documentary on Danish schools once.

Because the holes that are being perceived aren't best-solved by larger bureaucracies, it's often proposed that the bureaucracy has a larger budget, but this might not be the efficient allocation.

Probably not

 

[sophie]

I could read before school.

The fact that your parents or pre-k teacher were able to teach you is down to the advent of public education. We have a very long history of what society looks like without broadly available educational resources. We also have a ton of examples of socialist countries implementing post revolutionary literacy programs and public schooling. Everything points in the same direction. Literacy is teensy tiny without it, more intermediate and advanced reading comprehension and composition skills were virtually unheard of outside of a small affluent minority that could afford to pay a tutor or governess to teach those things.

As soon as public education comes into effect literacy immediately shoots up in every country it’s implemented. The fact that we are having this conversation right now is down to public education and its knock-on effects.

It's not necessary to be detained 7-8 hours a day for 13 years to understand writen language

Two years max and most of the rest is busywork and learning how to take commands and figure out bare necessity that you know the teacher wants to hear so you can be done w it (again w the exception of good teachers who inspire learning rather than pollute the notion of it)

I disagree. I learned a great deal during my schooling. Maybe you just had bad schools or teachers.

 

[Angst]

Meh, the internet is full of knowledge & people are more ill-informed & gullible than ever. How to think is more important than being given information.

I think I saw a documentary on Danish schools once.

Probably not

education is superior to the internet because the knowledge ordained in education depends on a relationship of power.

and problems with wrong information is actually less prominent after its establishment. even if people are stupider today, don't blame the problems of the internet on a 200 year old institution

 

[Lexicus]

I could read before school.

Like you, I could also read before I went to school. Also like you, I learned from the sheer power of my own will and in no way benefited from my parents (or their parents) having gone to public school.

(oh damn sarcasm again...)

Well, I guess we don't see our patterns until they're all laid out in front of us

Community (2009) - S02E21 Paradigms of Human Memory clip with quote Well, I guess we don't see our patterns until they're all laid out in front of us Yarn is the best search for video clips by quote. Find the exact moment in a TV show, movie, or music video you want to share. Easily...

memes.getyarn.io

How to think is more important than being given information.

How do you learn to think without some information to think about?

 

[Narz]

education is superior to the internet because the knowledge ordained in education depends on a relationship of power.

What do you mean?

How do you learn to think without some information to think about?

? Information comes @ it every second. It helps to have information curated @ a young age but I don't trust government to make that decision for me.

If money was no concern would you send your (hypothetical) kids to public school?

 

[Gorbles]

If money was no concern would you send your (hypothetical) kids to public school?

Let's invert that. If money was no concern for public schools, would they still produce the outcomes you think are negative?

From that, what can we infer about the impact of money on decisionmaking?

(for the record, both my kids still attend a public school)

 

[Traitorfish]

I wouldn't say public education much to write home about. Anyone w means will avoid it generally

Even if we were to grant that this were true, it's surely better than the alternative, that the great masses of the population are simply left illiterate and innumerate? All questions of socialism and capitalism aside, how can any modern economy function without a baseline level of education, and how could this be provided without the state?

 

[Narz]

To summarize in a nutshell I'd say the main lesson most of my school's have taught is to be motivated by extrinsic motivators (grades, competition w classmates, teacher approval) and to follow set instructions. These are important skills for worker bees but terrible lessons to be drilled into someone who wants to be an entrepreneur or auto-didact.

All this makes sense as society needs 99% Indians and 1% chiefs but to act as if compulsively education is a benevolent gift bestowed upon the masses to make them wise & enlightened seems like a strange take. Basic education & literacy makes people easier to control and manipulate not less. You need literacy to share NY post articles w your social circle.

 

[Narz]

Let's invert that. If money was no concern for public schools, would they still produce the outcomes you think are negative?

From that, what can we infer about the impact of money on decisionmaking?

A society w unlimited money would be a utopia anyway so its a bit unrealistic scenerio

Even if we were to grant that this were true, it's surely better than the alternative, that the great masses of the population are simply left illiterate and innumerate? All questions of socialism and capitalism aside, how can any modern economy function without a baseline level of education, and how could this be provided without the state?

Any but the worst parents would teach their kids basic skills in such a scenerio

 

[Narz]

(for the record, both my kids still attend a public school)

The UK seems an awful mess but I'm impressed w the quality of schools I've seen so far vs US (granted just pre schools)