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Access to a world of infinite information has changed how we communicate, process information, and think. Decentralized systems have proven to be more productive and agile than rigid, top-down ones. Innovation, creativity, and independent thinking are increasingly crucial to the global economy.
And yet the dominant model of public education is still fundamentally rooted in the industrial revolution that spawned it, when workplaces valued punctuality, regularity, attention, and silence above all else. (In 1899, William T. Harris, the US commissioner of education, celebrated the fact that US schools had developed the "appearance of a machine," one that teaches the student "to behave in an orderly manner, to stay in his own place, and not get in the way of others.") We don't openly profess those values nowadays, but our educational system—which routinely tests kids on their ability to recall information and demonstrate mastery of a narrow set of skills—doubles down on the view that students are material to be processed, programmed, and quality-tested. School administrators prepare curriculum standards and "pacing guides" that tell teachers what to teach each day. Legions of managers supervise everything that happens in the classroom; in 2010 only 50 percent of public school staff members in the US were teachers.
...
That's why a new breed of educators, inspired by everything from the Internet to evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and AI, are inventing radical new ways for children to learn, grow, and thrive. To them, knowledge isn't a commodity that's delivered from teacher to student but something that emerges from the students' own curiosity-fueled exploration. Teachers provide prompts, not answers, and then they step aside so students can teach themselves and one another. They are creating ways for children to discover their passion—and uncovering a generation of geniuses in the process.
Good, long article on how education could be reinvented for the 21st century.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @01:45PM
It's not as if no one had ever thought of, and even implemented in specific schools, better ways to teach children. Yet our schools are still largely following the same old model. So why should things be different this time?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @01:55PM
Because 'no child left behind'.
The idea was to test them and see if they needed help and free them up to teach however they needed.
Instead it turned into 'teach to the common core test'. As you did not want your funding pulled. So everyone follows 'the program'.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday August 24 2015, @04:23PM
Instead it turned into 'teach to the common core test'.
Actually, it was "teach to the state test" and paying schools by test results long before Common Core came along - possibly even before NCLB. In theory, Common Core is supposed to be the solution to this: If you actually look at the common core standards for, say, mathematics [corestandards.org] they're anything but "teach to the test". Unfortunately, they been launched into a culture that has already become obsessed with measuring student performance to inappropriate precision, using tests that have been dumbed down for ease and consistency of marking, statistical reliability and legal defensibility, to produce simplistic figures for by-the-numbers management and teacher accountability. By the time the Common Core standards have been "interpreted" into test specs that fit the requirements of school and state management for a stick to beat teachers with, the point is usually lost.
Few of the controversies around Common Core have anything to do with the actual standards (which, at worst, are a bit over-ambitious) - all the over-testing and teacher accountability stuff were happening anyway. No standards are going to work if teachers still walk into the classroom and announce "OK, today we are learning CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.EE.A.2.A which will be Question 26 on the test".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @07:29PM
If you actually look at the common core standards for, say, mathematics they're anything but "teach to the test".
You must be joking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @08:02PM
I said what it was meant to be. Then stated what it turned into.
You could tell what you just said to all my friends who have kids in grade school.
One of my friends had to go in and get ahold of the teaching curriculum to decide what his kid was NOT learning. He did that after he asked his 7th grader what time is it on the watch he had sitting on the dash of his car and his hands were full of a carburetor and grease and the kid couldnt do it. He then quizzed the rest of his 4 kids. Not one could tell the fucking time. Simple fractional division? Nope. Simple multiplication without a calculator? Nope. But they could subdivide a problem all day long. Suddenly the kid went from A/B student to probably having tutoring. As the real test his parents asked he could not even begin on doing. Plus the follow 3 kids getting the same education.
School districts have a LOT of leeway in what they teach. They also do not want to get shut down being 'the under performing one'. So they figure out mostly the things on the test and teach ONLY that. They do not walk in and say 'CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.EE.A.2.A'. They find a similar problem to that one change it up a bit and make sure the kid can answer that. Add in a mix of resentment of the school board telling them how exactly to do their jobs with helicopter parents. You end up with the shitstorm mess of 'no child left behind'.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 24 2015, @05:03PM
The real idea of No Child Left Behind was this:
1. Make sure public schools are considered failures. The formulas are pretty much guaranteed to have significant numbers of failing public schools, and particularly penalize public schools that handle difficult cases like kids whose native language is not English and kids who have severe learning disorders.
2. Use the failing public schools to justify completely replacing them with privately run charter schools that don't have to follow the same rules as public schools, particularly (but not limited to) union contracts and restrictions on in-school religion.
3. Lay off the unionized public school teachers and let them compete with the recent college grads for those generous $28K-a-year teaching gigs at the charter schools.
4. Run off with what used to be the teachers' union pension fund, and pay charter school company CEOs big bucks from the taxpayer trough.
The system doesn't work because it was designed to not work.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @08:32PM
The tests are constructed and administered by a privatized profit-driven entity.
The contents of any given test is "intellectual property", so, if a parent wants to see why his kid's score was different than expected by looking at the questions, no dice.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 24 2015, @02:15PM
Oh, no. I'd broadly disagree. We've had a lot of changes in various ways to education.
I remember being placed in an experimental classroom in 2nd and 3rd grade that was evaluating the effectiveness of mixed-grade hands-on education. Very different from the traditional approach. It wasn't a fun transition back to traditional education the next year(I can't speak to the efficacy of that particular study, I was too young to care). And that was decades ago.
We've been trying a lot of things, and some of it has been working. Believe it or not, there's a lot of ways in which school kids today are collectively smarter than we were 2 decades ago(though internet induced attention disorders may hack away a bit at that result).
Now, the most wide-spread changes have gotten huuuuuuuge populist and teacher-backed backlash. Common core math standards and standardized testing being the easiest to see. So it's not hard to see where the traditionalist force is coming from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @02:24PM
Believe it or not, there's a lot of ways in which school kids today are collectively smarter than we were 2 decades ago
We'd need an objective way to measure intelligence before we could determine that. I don't think they are worse, but I also currently don't see good evidence that they are truly better. More knowledgeable, perhaps, but that differs from being smarter.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 24 2015, @02:50PM
We have lots of objective tools for measuring intelligence. They all measure something slightly different from each other.
The Flynn effect is the term of the described inter-generational increase in one of those measures(IQ). So I'd say the bigger problem isn't the lack of objective measures, but that you personally don't have a definition of "smart" that satisfies you. You should find one. Then we can look for evidence one way or another.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @03:00PM
We have lots of objective tools for measuring intelligence.
I've seen no good evidence that IQ is actually a measurement of intelligence. We'd first need to actually understand what "intelligence" actually is, what exactly makes some people more or less "intelligent", etc.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 24 2015, @03:01PM
You could read the rest of my post before raising an objection I addressed directly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @03:06PM
"Believe it or not, there's a lot of ways in which school kids today are collectively smarter than we were 2 decades ago"
Citations? Maybe the key to your claim is "2 decades ago"? I really, really, REALLY don't think they are in any way smarter than high school grads 4 decades ago. And, I'm half sure that those of us who graduated in the 70's were already dumbed down from the previous generations. Have you ever seen the tests given to 8th grade kids from the late 1800's and early 1900's? The damned things are tough!
Kids back then only went to school for 8 years, mostly. Somehow, knowledge was crammed into their little skulls pretty damned quickly, for them to pass those tests. Schooling was obviously more efficient back then.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/13/1230894/-Most-Adults-Would-Likely-Fail-This-1912-8th-Grade-Test-Try-It-VIDEO [dailykos.com]
What are kids learning today that makes them "smart"? I'd really like to know. What do they have that replaces the Vo-Tech schools that the government did away with? And, the magnet schools? It's a long, LONG time since I've heard of a "gifted and talented" program. It's like, the system doesn't even want to identify the really smart kids, let alone give them an avenue on which they might excel.
Pretty much every child can read today, but at what grade levels are they reading? I guess it was the mid-80's when it seemed every college in the nation started offering "remedial english", because kids were simply not prepared to read on a college level.
http://educationnext.org/us-students-educated-families-lag-international-tests/ [educationnext.org]
Ahhh, here we go - "the sat score began to decline in 1962" - even earlier than I thought. That would be just about the same time that the Departments of Education around the nation started their "headstart", "preschool" and "dayschool" programs. They knew then that the education system sucked, so they threw money at it - and throwing money at the education system has not worked.
http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Adams.pdf [aft.org]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 24 2015, @03:11PM
The SATS started declining the because participation rates have been increasing.
It's a shallow analysis to say "Oh look, raw scores are going down and they readjusted, so kids must be dumber."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @03:23PM
Sorry, yours is a shallow response. The greater participation is accounted for in the PDF. The demographics are accounted for. Bottom line - our most privileged and gifted students in the USA today are ONLY on par with other first world nations, AT BEST.
You don't really believe that the US still has the best school systems in the world, do you? There is a long list of countries with better school systems, starting with S. Korea and Japan. Would you like to see that list?
1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. South Korea
4. Japan (joint)
4. Taiwan (joint)
6. Finland
7. Estonia
8. Switzerland
9. Netherlands
10. Canada
11. Poland
12. Vietnam
13. Germany
14. Australia
15. Ireland
16. Belgium
17. New Zealand
18. Slovenia
19. Austria
20. United Kingdom
21. Czech Republic
22. Denmark
23. France
24. Latvia
25. Norway
26. Luxembourg
27. Spain
28. Italy (joint)
28. United States (joint)
30. Portugal
31. Lithuania
32. Hungary
33. Iceland
34. Russia
35. Sweden
36. Croatia
37. Slovak Republic
38. Ukraine
39. Israel
40. Greece
41. Turkey
42. Serbia
43. Bulgaria
44. Romania
45. UAE
46. Cyprus
47. Thailand
48. Chile
49. Kazakhstan
50. Armenia
51. Iran
52. Malaysia
53. Costa Rica
54. Mexico
55. Uruguay
56. Montenegro
57. Bahrain
58. Lebanon
59. Georgia
60. Brazil
61. Jordan
62. Argentina
63. Albania
64. Tunisia
65. Macedonia
66. Saudi Arabia
67. Colombia
68. Qatar
69. Indonesia
70. Botswana
71. Peru
72. Oman
73. Morocco
74. Honduras
75. South Africa
76. Ghana
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32608772 [bbc.com]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday August 24 2015, @03:27PM
Where did I say the US was the best?
I said there's been improvement. I'm not going to defend a point that's not mine.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @03:45PM
No, you didn't say that - I ASKED if you believe that. There really are people who still claim that the US has the best schools in the world. I suspect that most of those people are the products of our public school systems, who don't want to admit that they've been ripped off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @03:29PM
You don't really believe that the US still has the best school systems in the world, do you? There is a long list of countries with better school systems, starting with S. Korea and Japan. Would you like to see that list?
How are you defining "better"? It seems to be that it's being defined as whoever does well on poorly-designed standardized tests that don't actually test for anything truly important, like a deep understanding of the material in question. Sure, the tests are pretty efficient and cost-effective to give, and they can give the appearance of testing understanding, but that doesn't mean they're actually any good. Not that I think the US would do well there, but I doubt these other nations would either.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @03:43PM
In head to head competition, students from those nations do better than our students. Is that a satisfactory comparison?
Fact is, the SAT tests are all the evidence anyone should need to recognize that our education system sucks. We grow less and less literate, as time passes. The PDF linked to above explains that the text books are ever poorer in quality, which explains much of the decline. If a high school science text book is written with the vocabulary of a 4th grade reader, how can we expect the students to LEARN? We've long been moaning about the "dumbing down" of America. It's right there - in the text books. Read 'em, and weep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @04:09PM
Is that a satisfactory comparison?
It's a satisfactory comparison if you want to compare who is better at rote memorization. But that doesn't seem very meaningful, even if it is technically a fair comparison.
It's right there - in the text books.
The very same text books that cost insane amounts of money. There's no real reason that schools shouldn't simply be able to copy and distribute as many as necessary for as much as it costs to do so, rather than pay these companies ridiculous prices for books. No real reason outside of silly copyright laws that put corporate profits ahead of education. That or pay experts to write public domain books, or use existing ones in some cases. If only you could actually get the schools to use other books, but the ones making the decisions seem to have been bribed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @04:15PM
Please show the evidence that the tests used for the ranking tested rote memorization. Unless you can show that evidence, I'll dismiss your comment as unsubstantiated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @07:45PM
Please show the evidence that the tests used for the ranking tested rote memorization.
That's like asking for evidence that the public school system mainly just requires you to memorize information without understanding it, or asking for evidence that the SAT/ACT test for rote memorization. If you need to ask, you aren't paying attention. I won't do your research for you, so go ahead and ignore the world's problems if you wish.
What I will say is that you should read the article that person linked to above. If you search for sample problems from that Pisa test they mentioned, for example, you will see that the questions do not actually require you to have a deep understanding of the material. Silly questions that force you to make all sorts of assumptions before you're able to answer how they want you to answer, and if you deviate, then you are 'wrong', even if their questions were ill-conceived. The same sorts of arbitrary problems that teachers try to train students to answer by having them memorize certain patterns. Maybe those are alright by your standards, but they are pathetic by any decent standards.
(Score: 1) by jcm on Monday August 24 2015, @04:08PM
As an anonymous said, what is the best system ?
Perhaps Singapore and Hong Kong are the best places for education, but I doubt they are the best places for students, since there is incredible pressure to succeed.
Failure is not an option, thus people always try to game the system.
Your ranking is based only upon mathematics and science.
This may be useful for nurturing future mathematics and science researchers, but you have to realize the drawbacks of the system:
1) this encourages people having talent and passion in maths and science.
This means that all jobs not related to maths and science are shitty. Frankly, we need people to do manual jobs, like plumbers or farmers
2) only the top elite will be able to live from their talent, since only a few places are available each year in their country (I'm aware of that since I'm in France).
A lot of programmers I met came from other science branches, because they couldn't get a job.
What we need is people enough educated. All the talented students should be able to pursue their passion in elite schools, but they are only a few.
Perhaps you believe that working with computers is the best job in the world, but I can assure you that it's only your own point-of-view.
If more programmers appear in the computing field, the level will decrease a lot, and the pay too.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @04:45PM
Good response - despite the fact that you've pegged me wrong.
In an earlier post, I made mention of Vo-Tech schools. In 1972, I had the opportunity to attend Vo-Tech. It seemed pretty attractive at the time - learn welding, among other things, and upon graduation, I could walk out the doors, into a nice paying job. Three years of high school, actually preparing for a career in a field that actually existed, right in my home town, just down the road.
I chose to continue with the more academic studies - chemistry, biology, etc.
In the years since, I believe that all Vo-Tech schools have disappeared. Or, rather, those that exist are "college" level, or community college. High school students aren't permitted to play with fire, or knives, or screwdrivers, or anything that might conceivably cause an injurty today.
The funny thing about Vo-Tech students? The majority of them seemed to be near my own level of literacy. They understood geometry, algebra, and most certainly had mastered basic maths. The real failures were those students who shared the same school hallways that I used, in the main public schools. They knew they weren't going to college, and they just gave up. They didn't have any hopes and dreams for the future, so they had no need to study.
No, I am certainly NOT any better than those kids who study traditional crafts and trades. But, that doesn't change the fact that our schools are failing today. They are failing the less talented, just as much as they are failing the very talented.
(Score: 2, Informative) by plogerjb on Tuesday August 25 2015, @12:15AM
I attended Vo Tech for Computer Networking, which as a two year program prepared me completely for CCNA testing as well as a lot of other computer related tasks. That said, my teacher tried to skip me a year, but the school wouldn't have it. Gotta go through the rigors like everyone else.
I did get to see a good bit of what went on in other areas (photography/media design/etc, welding, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, CAD, nursing, dentistry, and much more. I do believe there was practical knowledge learned. All of us got to use equipment and learn hands on. I had a very exceptional teacher, so we got away with as much hands on as Computer Networking allowed, including running new cables in the building and working with outside companies to perform community service weekly to help those in need with computer related issues.
Do I think everyone had the same opportunity? No. Did I choose the right program? Who knows, I do tons of computer work still but do automotive work by trade because I enjoy it and I'm paid quite handsomely. That said, I think the exposure and even attempting to involve students with more than just "group activities" is a great thing. I loved the program, and think it's a wonderful thing. I'm rather disappointed this isn't a universal experience.
If you want practical people capable of exercising the knowledge they do possess, you have to let them try practical things (AND mess up!)
I believe in doing the right thing as well as being fair. Sometimes these don't go hand in hand.
(Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 25 2015, @02:48PM
Last I heard my old highschool still had them (I only graduated in 2008, so it wasn't *that* long ago); and I certainly don't expect they've eliminated them since. It's always been a fairly popular program. They had welding, networking, cosmetology, culinary, automotive, and a few others I don't remember at the moment. I know my currently girlfriend, who grew up in Vermont (I was in Pennsylvania) attending a similar program in her highschool so quite a few such programs definitely do still exist.
I went the other route though and took some classes at the local university. Which was pretty worthless to be honest -- how many times can you take introduction to OOP and still learn something? The assembly class was decent, but still easier than my highschool programming classes...the university has a decent reputation for other fields, but they're not much for comp sci. Credits didn't even transfer. It was fun though! :)
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday August 24 2015, @04:50PM
And you don't see the problem there?
Here's a hint, you can't compare people across cultures using the same testing. That's the main reason why you see Black people doing so poorly on IQ tests, they're normed for something that's closer to the dominant culture and so you see the people in the dominant culture doing well and everybody else performing poorly.
That's not to say that there aren't changes that are badly needed, but trying to compare different countries like that is asinine. The reference you linked to is just a ranking, it doesn't show how far apart the results are. You're talking about a relatively narrow difference between the top and the bottom contenders. Most of those cases are separated by a relatively small percentage. These are human students and the difference at the top end is going to be fairly small.
As far as economic participation goes, that has little to do with educational quality. That's a matter of access to jobs. People that pick up bottles on the side of the road or wash cars are participating in the economy, but I don't think that anybody would claim that requires any education. Those are both activities that you can do with literally no education of any sort other than being able to speak the language. You don't even have to read the bottles if the boss tells you which ones to read.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @05:14PM
"Here's a hint, you can't compare people across cultures using the same testing."
Maybe, maybe not. I wonder though - would it bother you to know that Asian students know Western history as well as, or even better, than western students? While western students are far to arrogant to even bother with Asian history.
The various disciplines aren't culture-centric, either. Geology is geology. Physics are going to be the same in any language. Biology, and the human body, simply does not change from one continent to the next. And, the US is failing to produce top notch scholars at the same rate that half the other countries in the list.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @08:27PM
They don't. The Chinese barely know there own history and think of Hitler as that nice man with a mustache. I'm sure they've memorized a long list of events and dates, but that's hardly the same thing as knowing history.
As far as producing top notch scholars, 2/3 of the top universities in the world are in the US, seems to me that we're doing something right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 24 2015, @08:34PM
Yes, the *top* universities. The majority of colleges and universities are still quite bad in the US and other countries, however. If they were more like the top universities, the situation would be much better.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday August 25 2015, @07:50AM
The only way that would work is if we went down the road that most other countries did and told most of the students that they're not allowed to go to college at all. Or have to take years of remedial courses in order to get a second chance.
I've met people from various parts of the world and they really and truly aren't any smarter than Americans over all. They just happen to have a different set of incompetencies.
Most people just don't have the ambition and work ethic necessary to go to a top school. I went to one of the top schools in the US and they have an acceptance rate of about 96%, just because they have a reputation for being hard on students that aren't willing to do the work and think for themselves. For students that are willing to do their fair share of the work, the education is amazing, but for students that are just looking for a degree with as little thinking and effort as possible, it wouldn't work.
It's hardly the only school like that in the country, it's just that you sometimes have to do a little bit of digging to find them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @08:45AM
The only way that would work is if we went down the road that most other countries did and told most of the students that they're not allowed to go to college at all.
Education is important, so it would be worth it. Instead, most colleges are just half-assed trade schools in disguise, which doesn't provide real education and perpetuates the myth that colleges and universities are there mainly so people can make money and get good jobs.
But I don't see things like you do. I think if we had an all-around better education system, people would be far more prepared for good-quality colleges and universities.
For students that are willing to do their fair share of the work, the education is amazing, but for students that are just looking for a degree with as little thinking and effort as possible, it wouldn't work.
I'm thinking those sorts of people really shouldn't be in formal education.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 25 2015, @12:19AM
Well, I've lived in japan as a teacher and china as a grad student and have travelled extensively in korea and southeast asia. My wife and inlaws are korean. Based on that experience I observe that the number of dumbasses is more or less constant across all places. From the perspective of many in north america it might seem like "asians are smarter than americans," but that's often because you're comparing the creme de la creme de la creme of those societies to bubba the redneck who scratches his crotch in the piggly wiggly.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by meustrus on Wednesday August 26 2015, @03:00AM
(though internet induced attention disorders may hack away a bit at that result)
I think part of the point of this particular article is that the internet's "induced attention disorders" could very well be used for good instead of evil. I know I can get very easily sidetracked from "productive" efforts reading crap on Wikipedia or God forbid Soylent News. And that's called learning.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by twistedcubic on Monday August 24 2015, @03:14PM
I have two young children. I would love them to to have the "outdated" education I got in the 1980s. What exactly was the problem? My teacher taught us the square root algorithm in 8th grade. Oh, the horrors! (Curiously, whenever I show the square root algorithm to engineering undergraduates, they get *really* excited.) The only new exciting thing today is that, instead of owning a Commodore 128 which broke after a year like mine, you can program in any language at any age using GNU compilers, on computers more powerful and cheaper (even in real dollars) than the Commodore.