School: Preparing for life or Babysitting?

[Tsuwabuki]

Next time you read the newspaper or go to an online news site, every time you read a magazine, every time you look at information for places you'd like to go... try doing it without photographs.

[xyzone]

Originally Posted by Salvanas

I want to comment on the "loss of creativity" in schools that Tyrien brought up.

Personally, I despise artists (Of many kinds), and art critics. Someone who bases their life on such pointless things and brings nothing to the society just angers me.

And you'll be surprised. You say that creativity is diminishing, but I see a load more students leaning towards the arts as careers. Why? Because they fail at the other more daunting courses.

I'm not saying artists don't bring anything to the world. Because they do, but that effect is minimal. We have no need of artists. We don't require 500 people trying to draw paintings for us. We require teachers, doctors, lawyers, and many others.

I've always said, and always kept to this saying.

"People go into the arts because they failed at the more challenging career choices. People who fail at art, become photographers."

People WILL find that offensive, and I couldn't give two s***s to be honest.
This is my view, one I will never change. Artists will always be at the bottom of the grid.

Note: Artists as in photographers, and painting. There are some arts, like literacy, which is needed in life.

Well, what can I tell you. Around 11-13 I wanted to be a research biologist. I was an A+ student until sometime in high school. After high school I could barely be assed to spend any time in college, then I became an aspiring artist.

[Salvanas]

I'd just like to re-quote this paragraph.

I'm not saying artists don't bring anything to the world. Because they do, but that effect is minimal. We have no need of artists. We don't require 500 people trying to draw paintings for us. We require teachers, doctors, lawyers, and many others.

I am not saying they are useless in a whole, but the amount of people going for it is immense. In my college, I have around 70% of my year, going for some sort of Art. Biology, Chemistry, and Physics classes only have 3/4 people in it, whereas the Art classes ave around 20 people per class.

Yes, artists are useful. To a point.

But we don't need huge amounts of them.

Next time you read the newspaper or go to an online news site, every time you read a magazine, every time you look at information for places you'd like to go... try doing it without photographs.

I read the news, both with papers and online, and I do them without photographs, cause there is no point. The Paparazzi are trained to snap shots of whatever they want you to see, not what is happening.

Looking for information for places to go? You use a map. Directions will do. Are you telling me that you get a visual map for whenever you go to new places?

[xyzone]

In all fairness, though, creativity means more than drawing or painting. In the basic sense of it, creativity plays a large part in inventing things. Also in self preservation of a culture, and maybe even the species in the long run. Think of wars: the more creative ones usually win, even just for being more creative than the enemy to organize more massive numbers, or obviously to build better weapons or better tactics.

With that said. Caring about nothing but creativity is just going to make you and your society fail. The same goes for being homogeneous with any other trait. It's a balance.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by xyzone

Go look at the the staggering ignorance of high school level students and many comedic anecdotes about it. In one instance, many high school students quizzed didn't know who Thomas Jefferson was and could not name the 2 houses of congress or even the 3 branches of government. Are the Japanese students of equal grade that uninformed about their own government? I doubt it.

That's a bold statement. I hope you can back it up. As you state later, you know more about the Japanese government than many of your Japanese neighbors. I am curious why you think Japanese students would know more about their government system than Japanese students. If voter apathy is any indicator, I think you know what the answer would be.

Originally Posted by xyzone

I know the general differences. Stuff is actually taught there and the system is actually dedicated towards discipline to achieve it. Less creative thinking? Less music and art? You think most public schools in the US are Socratic campuses of thought or orchestra halls and art shops full of highly skilled and dedicated music and art teachers? That's not correct. It's absurdly false. They're full of cliques who go there mainly to socialize. Japan may be rigid and not value creativity much in schools, but quite frankly that's none of my business. I just know that overall it's better education, if only because it's competent at something other than putting kids together to socialize and keep them out of their parents' way.

Your tone here is a little over the top...so let's try and reedl it in. Don't put words in other people's mouths. Speaking in such black and white terms doesn't help either side of the argument or your credibility.

As a former teacher in Japan and in the US, I can say with confidence that Japanese public schools are places to learn to be obedient Japanese citizens, and not creative thinkers. That's Japanese Education 101..

Originally Posted by xyzone

You just also described public school teachers in America. If you think otherwise you must either be or acquiescence to teachers union leeches or you must have romped exclusively in yuppie schools, not the average ones.

You are not talking about the public school teachers I know in America, who spend hundreds of dollars at the beginning of each school year buying school supplies for their students that can't afford their own.

Let's agree that it isn't as black and white as all that.

Originally Posted by xyzone

I don't think you understood. The paperwork was a joke to her. She didn't neglect any schoolwork. I think it's well known fact among exchange students from certain countries that the experience to American schools is pretty much only social, and perhaps linguistic.

I would not concede to that one bit. Ask the exchange students I graduated with that graduated from American high schools, went on to American colleges and are now successful professionals.

Just as my experience is not holistic, neither is yours. Why don't we agree to that?

[noodle]

I think it depends where you are... Educational systems like the French and Japanese ones are rubbish in my opinion... it forces too much on students that end up being relatively crap to other systems like the British. I always hear random people say that, omg, the Japanese system is the hardest ever, they have to learn SO MUCH... The truth is, from my experience, Japanese students that are excellent in high school, end up struggling at French universities... I have a classmate here at uni that got accepted easily to Todai, yet the first year, he stuggled big time. I had to help him out... and it wasn't even a problem with languages... he had rubbish knowledge of Integrals, Differentiation etc. The only strong point he had in Math, was Geometry and basic Algebra.
Some French students are the same... they have such a broad education, that when they come to selecting a route/subject for higher education, they end up being too weak compared to the English who make you choose at Senior High School...

So, I think it comes down to the age old debate of, what's better, broad education, or specific education...

[MMM]

Originally Posted by Salvanas

I want to comment on the "loss of creativity" in schools that Tyrien brought up.

Personally, I despise artists (Of many kinds), and art critics. Someone who bases their life on such pointless things and brings nothing to the society just angers me.

And you'll be surprised. You say that creativity is diminishing, but I see a load more students leaning towards the arts as careers. Why? Because they fail at the other more daunting courses.

I'm not saying artists don't bring anything to the world. Because they do, but that effect is minimal. We have no need of artists. We don't require 500 people trying to draw paintings for us. We require teachers, doctors, lawyers, and many others.

I've always said, and always kept to this saying.

"People go into the arts because they failed at the more challenging career choices. People who fail at art, become photographers."

People WILL find that offensive, and I couldn't give two s***s to be honest.
This is my view, one I will never change. Artists will always be at the bottom of the grid.

Note: Artists as in photographers, and painting. There are some arts, like literacy, which is needed in life.

Oh Salvanas...

You do not understand that art is more than paintings and sculpture.

Without art, there would be no architecture. We would still be living in caves.

Without art, there would be no cuisine. We would still be eating twigs and berries.

Without art, there would be no clothing. We would still be wearing felts and leaves.

Without art, there would be no news or exchange of information. The telling of a story, the painting of a picture in the mind, is an art.

Without art, there would be no advances in science. We would still think we live on a flat rock in the center of the universe.

Without art, there would be no media. Imagine no games, movies, TV, novels, music...no entertainment whatsoever.

Without art there would be no technology. It takes creative thought to advance, and without art we would still be rubbing sticks together to start a fire.

To denounce artists is like denouncing oxygen. You may think you don't need it to live, but wouldn't last five minutes without it.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by MMM

You didn't learn about cooking and using tools?

No, as Robinsmask said, it was mostly only theoretical or highly abstract, which doesn't really work in practical classes like techs. That's why I think it's kind of dumb. We were having 'Woodshop' and 'cooking class', but neither actually taught us working with wood or how to cook. How to design packaging, yes. About the industrial food industry, yes. About industrial manufacture, yes. Nutritional analysis yes. But the only practical examples were, as you quite rightly say, pointless. I think we made biscuits and a salad, which we all knew how to do already.

Woodshop was slightly more useful, but highly focused on tools you'd only get in an industrial setting. Who has a band sander in their garage and tools for polishing acrylic? All the wood working and DIY i know I pretty much learnt from my dad and my grandpa. I'm pretty sure there's nothing I learnt from class that I still apply in use. Except to always chisel away from myself and that I hate acrylic.

But the point is, as much as we can sit back and say "oh but that's the parent's duty to teach", that's rather narrow-sighted. There are kids without parents; there are definitely kids with parents who either weren't taught the skills (wrong gender, for example. My dad never did 'cooking' at school) in their day, or are otherwise just incompetent. And even in my generation, If I hadn't gone out of my way to learn, or been in a family where things like this were passed on (and in that regard, i'm pretty lucky), then I wouldn't have the skills to pass it on to my kids. I do think it's important, especially the cooking as the UK has such a bad problem with an unhealthy population, simply because they don't know about food, or how to prepare it for themselves, and this is a relatively recent development. Within two generations we've gone from a nation of 'growing your own' to not being able to identify a leek.

I do agree though that abstract learning like algebra has it's place in the world. Knowing a little of it does help as it can crop up in many different occupations.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by Columbine

No, as Robinsmask said, it was mostly only theoretical or highly abstract, which doesn't really work in practical classes like techs. That's why I think it's kind of dumb. We were having 'Woodshop' and 'cooking class', but neither actually taught us working with wood or how to cook. How to design packaging, yes. About the industrial food industry, yes. About industrial manufacture, yes. Nutritional analysis yes. But the only practical examples were, as you quite rightly say, pointless. I think we made biscuits and a salad, which we all knew how to do already.

I didn't say "pointless"...I said "seemingly pointless" in that a student can't see the point of a course of study, even if it becomes more clear later in life.

Actually learning about packaging design, industrial food industry, industrial manufacture and nutritional analysis sound fascinating and quite useful for some people in the future.

Originally Posted by Columbine

Woodshop was slightly more useful, but highly focused on tools you'd only get in an industrial setting. Who has a band sander in their garage and tools for polishing acrylic? All the wood working and DIY i know I pretty much learnt from my dad and my grandpa. I'm pretty sure there's nothing I learnt from class that I still apply in use. Except to always chisel away from myself and that I hate acrylic.

Learning that something isn't for you can be just as useful as learning it is.
Again, sound like useful lessons.

Originally Posted by Columbine

Within two generations we've gone from a nation of 'growing your own' to not being able to identify a leek.

I do agree though that abstract learning like algebra has it's place in the world. Knowing a little of it does help as it can crop up in many different occupations.

That's interesting, because at least where I live "growing your own" is becoming a very new and real thing (again) in local education.

[xyzone]

Originally Posted by MMM

As you state later, you know more about the Japanese government than many of your Japanese neighbors.

No, I never said that. I don't know where you got that. And I don't have any Japanese neighbors.

I am curious why you think Japanese students would know more about their government system than Japanese students.

This quote confuses me -but I assume you meant American/Japanese? If so, then change the subject from government to whatever is common knowledge to adults in Japan. Maybe the cause of tsunamis, or something like that. I don't know, you tell me. And is it a fact they teach nothing of the government structure in schools? Again, you tell me. The only reason I brought up government knowledge in the case of American students is because knowing the names of the 3 branches of government are ridiculously common teachings but that evidently nobody pays attention.

As a former teacher in Japan and in the US, I can say with confidence that Japanese public schools are places to learn to be obedient Japanese citizens, and not creative thinkers. That's Japanese Education 101..

So maybe Japanese/American could learn something from each other. This is something I already considered long ago and which I generally consider true. Either way my focus here was the broken public schools here. It needs to be said because it's the first step in fixing it, although I am just about finished caring because there doesn't seem to be any hope of that happening.

You are not talking about the public school teachers I know in America, who spend hundreds of dollars at the beginning of each school year buying school supplies for their students that can't afford their own.

Let's agree that it isn't as black and white as all that.

No, it isn't. I'm only vouching for what I know is the trend. I know for a fact there is no surplus of competent and dedicated teachers in this country. They are not paid enough and the contractors are indifferent. I also said many times in the mess of posts above that I am aware dedicated and even skilled teachers here exist, but they are not going to lift a broken system on their backs. Unless they are unlucky, they leave bad schools and go somewhere better. Sad -- but true.

I would not concede to that one bit. Ask the exchange students I graduated with that graduated from American high schools, went on to American colleges and are now successful professionals.

I never said the whole of education in the country had collapsed. The country would have gone along with it. University is actually the only true education left here. Maybe that's all there ever was. But one of the other polars to my point here is that the public education is now so bad that it's ruining a lot of potential students. That simply is not sustainable.

Just as my experience is not holistic, neither is yours. Why don't we agree to that?

Nope, I never said it was. But I do believe there is a serious problem, as do many others.