I tend to think we are failing as a nation right now. I don't blame a political party. In fact, I am not sure politicians can do much to fix it.
I tend to think that we are preparing kids for the wrong skills in life.
If I was in charge of education, kids would be learning programming languages in school. They would be studying Chinese and not Spanish. Why would you teach kids to communicate in Spanish when Mexicans are all poor?
They would be learning real skills that they could use in life.
Do you feel you have the skills to compete in the next 20 years?
Comments (69)
This post is way too overgeneralized to take seriously. Also if you learn Spanish, you are given access to an entire continent to make your livelihood, not just Mexico.
No but I am a survivor so I will scrape by somehow. Maybe I will become a Male Stripper...LOL....I will do what I got to do.
Did you also know that now in alot of schools (all in my state) they have quit teaching them cursive. Signatures anyone? Its like oh its ok, your not going to be writing soon since everything is on the internet, we need you to type everything.
I think we are all screwed and need to board the space ship to mars and surrender our brains, or what is left of them now.
Hello, I found you on the group Grown Ups with... I liked your thoughts. I agree, we are not equipping our children with the best education that is needed in our evolving world. Yes, we cannot blame any politician, nor even the school system in and of itself. We, as parents have a responsibility that cannot be continually fostered onto others, be it the school or elsewhere. We have to take the blame in a lot of ways. It has to start at home.
I don't agree with your thought of not teaching them Spanish, at least for the reason you gave. Poor or not, it doesn't matter. Languages should be taught, if not in the school then offered as something at home and very early on in their education. Not just Chinese either. How about Latin? There are lots of reasons why our children should have a more rounded and ratcheted up education to be able to compete in a world 20 years in the future. There are lots of programs out there to help a parent do that if the schools do not. I do not agree that learning of anything should be based on poverty or wealth. I mean no disrespect but in my opinion that is biased.
I'll look forward to reading more from you.
Namaste,
Barbi
I agree that children in school should be learning Mandarin. Or at least be given the option to. In elementary to middle school, we only had French or Spanish, and they both seem pretty useless to me right now. I took Japanese in high school, and it's been immensely helpful in work. I also think my generation's mathematics and science skills are seriously pathetic. We need to concentrate on those fields.
@TiredSoVeryTired - No. Not all Chinese people are poor. There's a huge amount of wealth in China, and it's still booming. If you go to Beijing, you'll find more luxury cars driving around (I'm talking about Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Aston Martins, Bentleys) than you'll find in the richest part of Manhattan.
I think people should learn skills that don't involve electricity.
I do, but we fail because we no longer value freedom and Liberty. That's why each american owes the federal government over $1,135,000.
No I don't but I am a survivor so I will survive somehow.
I think some schools aren't strict enough and go too easy on students. some of my high school teachers literally gave away most of the answers and told students what to study for yet some still managed to get low grades
and some girl in my biology class actually failed the 10 question quiz where we only had to memorize 10 simple definitions
some seem to be too busy messing around and not take their education seriously, because they can still pass with average grades. make it so they must have at least a B grade to pass in each class
nearly anyone can get a diploma even if they barely meet the requirements. then they might fail college because they weren't properly prepared. bootcamp their spoiled asses.
it's need time ,heh
I think the role that school should play is teaching people how to think and broadening their mind, not giving them a narrow skill set. Not everything we learn in school can be immediately applied in our lives post-grad, but the fact that we had to grow and learn to wrap out mind around new ideas will always be of benefit to us.
I have a nursing degree - which is a skill I can use anywhere, coz we are never going to run out of sick people, are we? But I'm not using that skill right now, so it's quickly disappearing. (Gave it up for a comfy desk job). Even so, I don't think I have the appropriate social skills and networking skills to make it succesfully through the next 20 years!
Please, please, please, in your curriculae, include critical analysis. One of the biggest reasons we as a society are failing is because people don't exercise critical analysis skills.
Also you should include empathy. As a society, we have become so individualistic that we cannot understand what or how a person thinks or feels. That also is one of society's chief failings.
@curiousdwk - How do you teach someone empathy? It seems to be a personality characteristic that you either have or don't; perhaps you mean that people should stop discouraging empathy?
As for critical analysis (assuming you mean the same as "critical thinking", maybe up a notch): I have read that it can be taught in a given area (linked to, say, analyzing literature, or using scientific methodology), since there are specific things to look for or ways to do it, but that it is relatively difficult to teach to someone as a general skill. Again, I think the best thing to do here would be to get any blocking factors (disencouragement of questioning attitudes, etc.) out and let people develop naturally.
Empathy is a skill - actually the greatest skill in the toolbox for Interpersonal Intelligence. (See Multiple Intelligences) As a skill, it can be taught just like all other skills. Yes, some may have more innate than others, but everyone has it. And everyone can develop it just like music. Music is an intelligence and music skills can and must be developed. People may have more or less music intelligence, but everyone has some and everyone can develop what they do have. (Empathy is actually taught in many Bully Projects as they have found that many schoolyard bullies are low in empathy. But they can be taught and so they can improve their interpesonal skills.)
Critial analysis is basically the art and science of asking the right questions. Not just any questions, but the right questions. So instead of parroting what some dusty book says, or some guru, or whatever, a person asks the necessary questions so that it makes sense according to his worldview in such a way that he can describe/explain it to someone else so it makes sense. This is called fitting the world into one's objective reality rather than just keeping it within himself for his own subjective reality.
Many/most social and political arguments would be cleared if people asked the right questions rather than just accepting what is said by a politician or a Catholic Pope or minister or guru. Critical thinking is independent thinking but using the tools of logic rather than subjective criteria for explanations.
I agree that as a nation we are failing. I'm a computer programmer. That means coding, testing and debugging. With all the canned products out there to make life easier for web designers, they can't 'code'. So they rely on me to get the job done. This is how convenience hurts education. You don't have to learn it because it's all been simplified for you (drag 'n' drop). Use to be that you needed html to design a web page. Not anymore. Someone's made it easy for you at your educational expense.
First comment: Why learn Spanish? Why should I? It's not necessary as you say. There's no money here. These peope make on average $12.50 per day (lower-classes) and they work like dogs for their Mexican employers 6 days a week. I live in Mexico and I see the problems that pervade Mexican culture in terms of learning. Mexicans generally don't like to read, and additionally, they don't finish the jobs completely. And they allow social problems to fester. They don't trust the police or their government. So why do I live here? Because it works for me, it's cheap (the economy) and the weather's great and the people as a whole are generally nice. I don't teach english here because they can't afford me. Number one rule of teaching: the teacher never works harder than the student. Indeed, I tried to teach English here in the beginning, but they soon quit because they couldn't do the required diligent studying. (This problem does not seem to be evident in the bigger cities of Mexico where education is better.). And in China, they just gobble-up english learning. Two different attitudes toward learning.
I know basic chinese (spoken cantonese and 6 of the 9 tones) as well as basic spanish...and some french. I used to teach english in China at an all Chinese school so it was a necessity to learn some Cantonese to be able to communicate the grammar differences in their native language. TOEFL wasn't a big help. And Yes, you want to earn money? Get connected with a Chinese company...if you can. One day you will be washing their shirts.
America has lost it's edge by a wide margin, in many ways. It makes me sick that the people who make laws can't see it, or it's not in their best interests ($$$) to do anyting about it. It's a sinking ship. The best way to educate your children is to instill in them some talent or skill that no government can tax, or demand a license to use, and get them working via the internet with international clients. That's what I do. My current clients reside in London, UK.
America no longer works for me. Government of, by, and for the people...my ass! And it's not to say that Chinese society is perfect. No. It too has it's problems, but you can sure make money in some countries in Asia.
@curiousdwk -
"Empathy is a skill
- actually the greatest skill in the toolbox for Interpersonal
Intelligence. (See Multiple Intelligences)"
I found a page explaining the Multiple Intelligences Theory and took a brief look through it; it was not a system I was familiar with. I am not sure how much
stock I can put in something that appears to be an arbitrary
categorization of skills people develop. I haven't had time to do deeper research, though, so:
What is the
foundation of the theory? Can it predict with reasonable accuracy how someone very young will develop? Or is it intended to be mostly descriptive?
From Wikipedia: Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share
feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by
another sentient or semi-sentient being.
I'll grant that maybe you can teach someone to recognize emotions in other people, if you teach them what different facial expressions and things mean. What else is taught, though? Can you teach kids much about feelings? Can you teach kids the meaning or importance of feeling? Can you teach most kids to grasp empathy? Are kids trained in moral tenets? Etc...
From personal experience, I was a secluded, unaffected child who rarely disturbed anyone but I had little understanding of empathy whatsoever until far later in my life, when I learned more about emotions themselves, thought about their basis, and so forth; same goes for morals, as I reasoned out the golden rule for myself only in early adolescence.
"Critical analysis
is basically the art and science of asking the right questions."
I have a different idea of what analysis means; I consider it whatever method you use to break apart a mental construction into its consistuents to better understand it. I would call your idea "critical questioning", while critical analysis would seem to me to do this breakdown to get to the point of the matter. Nitpick aside, I'm accepting your definition of it for now:
"So instead of parroting
what some dusty book says, or some guru, or whatever, a person asks the
necessary questions so that it makes sense according to his worldview
in such a way that he can describe/explain it to someone else so it
makes sense."
Why is description or explanation to others a necessary part of analysis? It can prove the fact that something has been analyzed by the person, but strictly speaking, it appears to be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself?
"This is called fitting the world into one's objective
reality rather than just keeping it within himself for his own
subjective reality."
I don't quite get what you mean by "fitting the world into one's objective reality" in the first place. The external world -is- objective reality already, isn't it? By understanding something, do you not bring what you understood into the -subjective- realm, and what about the nature of the communication about it that you share with others, does it not potentially create a subjective, shared vision of reality between people? Common context? I don't think of people as inherently objective creatures...I don't know, maybe I'm missing something here.
Anyhow, I'd like an example or explanation, once again, of how you would teach a child critical analysis. If I saw your methodology, I think I would be able to glean a better understanding of your technique and what it actually entails. What -are- the right questions? I have a lot of questions when I consider something, which enables me to find for myself a more complete understanding of things, but I don't know if that counts by your standards.
"Critical thinking is independent thinking but using the tools of
logic rather than subjective criteria for explanations."
Teaching this would seem to involve introducing mental tools and teaching people how to think, which is an approach I would expect only some people to really take to, and a lot of people might forget after they leave logic class. I kind of wonder if thinking can be independent if it is leaning directly on and using the tools of others, but if that only provides a foundation, it can definitely grow to be independent.
Umm..sorry, rambled.