What do you guys(and gals) think about the school systems. Personally i think there Bull but so lets hear what you guys think
Why, using at least three paragraphs, do you think they are "bull". The Mobius Forum is a discussion forum, and we can only discuss things if you give your opinions. Feel free to lay them down as coherantly as you can and people can discuss their own opinions and the pros and flaws in yours.
Or, if like the PETA thread, you will only reply with one liners, we can just ignore this and spend our time and energy elsewhere.
Why, using at least three paragraphs, do you think they are "bull". The Mobius Forum is a discussion forum, and we can only discuss things if you give your opinions. Feel free to lay them down as coherantly as you can and people can discuss their own opinions and the pros and flaws in yours.
Or, if like the PETA thread, you will only reply with one liners, we can just ignore this and spend our time and energy elsewhere.
well the school system have just pit-fell to the darkest hole in existence the reason for that is there not teaching anything but a test
my opines are short and sweet.
**puts mod hat on**
As Craig stated, this is a discussion forum. Regardless of whether or not your opinions are "short and sweet", one-liner opinions are spam and belong elsewhere. Discussion requires facts and arguments, and support for both. If you want to start discussion, I suggest you check your sources and bring in some intelligent conversation, 'cause you found the right place. If you just want to ramble, the SPA is that way.
Please try not to confuse the two forums.
~Shadowed Spirit Sage
well the school system have just pit-fell to the darkest hole in existence the reason for that is there not teaching anything but a test
my opines are short and sweet.
content wise i can think of another word beginning with s and ending with t...
And i agree with creg, fill out your opinions with at least 3 or 4 paragraphs of contents/views/perhaps sources and your own experiences to backup your opinions...
Which country are we talking about here. US? I wouldn't know a monkeys about the US system. So here's my point of view on the UK system.
I think it's alright actually. You've got the government paid version or the i can afford to go to fancy private versions. There is no bias in universities of one over the other. And I think tests are to see that the teachers are doing their job properly and to see how bright a student is, not as some sole purpose.
How else can universities and employers and other misc further/higher ed places tell who'll suit the course/job placement or not?
The state of the Oklahoma school system is abysmal. I got little cousin's and nephew going home with bruises and cuts from school sponsored bullies, kids being expelled for drawing a PICTURE of a gun, kids being sent to shrinks for saying they don't believe in God. It's ridiculous, pathetic, and disgusting. I'm sure Corky can give specifics if he makes it on.
[Back in the day]Our marching band uniforms were from 1976. I'm not joking. This was the mid 90's I should note. The football players had new uniforms every year.
Personally I'd like the US to adopt a variant of the Japanese system. Stick with the current school year, vacations, and whatnot as those are part of our culture. But I would like to see everything after elementary school become voluntary. Kinda like a free college. Why should we pay for kids that don't want to learn, don't want to make something of themselves, etc. One of the primary reasons I think Japan's students perform well is because their students, on some level, WANT to be there.
NOTE: I'm kinda talking outta my butt due to the fact that I almost never ignore information. Even if it doesn't interest me I tend to make a mental note of it.
~Rico
i wish i could have renounced all my education and gone to work in the mines at the age of 12
unfortunately thatcher ruined this before i was even born
now all i have in life is the possibility of education at cambridge what sort of life is that for an aspiring youth
My post was mostly to keep this thread from turning into the PETA one ^^ If other people want to discuss, that's totally cool.
Anyway.
I've heard the horror stories, but in my experience, the school systems are excellent when you've got money. I was fortunate to go to some of the best public schools in the state, but that's because the parents who live in this area wouldn't have it any other way. We get the occasional bad apples, but our high schools have a 97% graduation rate, 70% move on to universities, and everyone is given the benefit of excellent education with the highest standards.
This district also heavily supports the arts. Music, drama, fine art, literature, you name it, we support it. The sports are okay, but even they get pushed aside when 27 students from our high school were selected to participate in the All-State Music Conference, 15 of those selected for the Honors divisions. (which happened. I was there.)
Not two districts west though, and you get to see the darker side of schools where gangs and racism are rampant. >> It really is a mixed bag.
~Shadowed Spirit Sage
you guys want me to give you a paragraph or 2.....ok
Exams are the final thing that are supposed to test how well you do in whatever subject, and your results will decide whether you pass or fail. Actually, it rather seems that what they really test is how much you can cram into your head at any one time.
Where I'm from, the final exam is the only thing that actually counts. The rest of your yearmark doesn't mean all that much. So you can work your ass off all year round, and come to the exam room after a really bad night, and you're screwed. Or you can loaf all year, and cram it all into your head a couple days before the time, and do reasonably well. There's obviously something wrong with the exam system. It's inaccurate - your marks could depend on how well you slept the night before, or how many other worries you have in your head. If you're unlucky in the exam, the rest of your yearmark can't really save you either.
Einstein had this to say about exams:
"I soon learned to scent out that which was able to lead to fundamentals and to turn aside from everything else, from the multitude of things which clutter up the mind and divert it from the essential. The hitch in this was, of course, the fact that one had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect [upon me] that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
Exams don't test how much you "know", they simply test your memorizing skills. That's why some schools have extra classes that actually teach "effective learning methods" which are nothing more than methods of memorizing. Learning all the stuff taught at school might actually have been interesting if it wasn't forced on us, and made into a way of testing memory. If we could discover it for ourselves, and choose for ourselves which parts are interesting to us, and concentrate on those parts it would be great. If it was that way, school might actually be a place of learning like people keep assuming it is.
I've heard about a new system coming in that doesn't have exams, instead you just do lots of projects. Well, in a way that's good, in another way it's bad: good because it's a year-round thing which means there's no cramming, bad because it's a year-round thing and there's less chance of getting away with daydreaming in class, and I bet there'll be lots more homework too. The bad side of that will only apply to those who don't like school anyway, so that system will work perfectly fine if school itself was voluntary. If only...
quoited form SoulRiser
Like Trudi, I can only comment on the UK. Primary school seemed pretty good considering it was in a village in the back of beyond in rural Gloucestershire. They managed to get me out of the temper tantrums sparked when I moved primary schools after only 1 year in my first one. They helped get me interested in reading (Tim & Tobias books, anyone??) and let me have pretty much free run of the library. They managed to educate me sufficiently to pass the local grammar school entrance tests (although apparently I'd be hard pushed to pass them now, nearly 17 years later!). I only got concussion falling off the adventure playground once (I was a quick learner and didn't do *that* again).
Grammar schools have their pros & cons. Mine was girls only and great for focusing study, rubbish for learning how to co-exist with the other half of the population - but I have a set of friends from there who I'm still in close touch with. Plus in the sixth form they did share common rooms and some classes with the boys' school across the road.
You can also argue that their very presence "creams off" pupils in the area, pushing the comprehensive schools downwards. Personally, I was glad not to have to go the local comprehensives as I imagine I'd have been bored and therefore disruptive. Some comprehensives are models of education, but ours weren't. If you couldn't pay to go private, you were pretty grateful to get into the grammar schools on merit.
I think the current idea of keeping people in education compulsorily until they're 18 are absolutely crazy - there are folk who hate school and can't wait to get out and in the meantime they amuse themselves by interrupting the study of those who want to be there. If you ask me, it's being done only to reduce the unemployment figures. Not to mention if I'd had to do the A-levels that involved having to keep up sciences, maths etc. I probably wouldn't have been doing A-levels full stop (Spanish, French & Business Studies, thank you very much, that was quite sufficient).
On the other hand, I'm also loath to use my tax money to pay benefits to people who couldn't be bothered to learn and now can't be bothered to work - a situation that is at least avoided for a short while if they're still stuck in school.
Mind you, I wish they'd paid *me* £30 a week just to stay in school 
Basically, the education system in the UK has done me many favours - I went to university, including a stint in Spain, got a job with a Big Four accountancy firm and (touch wood given the economic climate!) I'm still there. I wouldn't say I come anywhere near loving my job, but I live comfortably so I've nothing to grumble about.
DW
So instead of giving us your own opinion, you're just showing us one from a website that labels itself as an "Anti-school site". Excellent tactics!
I can't speak for the American education system, but a lot of subjects in Britain are marked both on examinations and on practical coursework through the year. This is mostly true for Science subjects, as well as the majority of arts (although I can't vouch that with certainty being that I'm not at all involved with them). On top of that, if an exam consists purely of memory then it is poorly written - in my experience most examinations expect you to remember - and moreover, understand - a method of attaining an answer from given information. Questions that are pure memory give only minor marks, and generally can in theory can be completely ignored without having a negative impact on your final grade. I'm fairly certain that some one who had not paid any attention to a subject whatsoever could conceivably get a high mark simply from a midnight crammer session beforehand, since they simply wouldn't have the understanding of the subject to put across ideas, observations, calculations etc. coherently and appropriately.
There's probably been about 10 posts between this and the one i was meant to be replying to because i took my time gathering my ideas and it's probably still come out crap but OH WELL
Wes speaks the truth about the UK system. Coursework is worth about a third of the grade, exam is about 25% Q&A 75% essay answers. Essay answers should be stuff you know if you were paying attention, if you know it and understand it, there is nothing to worry about.
The ability to understand things that are taught is a vital part of the working world, employeers need to know you can, and without giving every single interviewer a trial period, it's the only way to measure how capable a person is.
Of course, that's Britain.
well i wasn't gonna type all that over.
anyway why would i need to know about DNA RNA proteins and such
that should be a college thing
my school is falling apart ok and they get a new tennis court and they wax both of our gyms 2 time a year.
they just care about scores i made Ds and one F in my biology class and i made an advanced score on the SOL
ah so you dislike schools because you don't make very good grades? Welcome to my world.
If I got good grades I wouldn't be doing an art class right now - my passion is in human health and genetics, so I love knowing about DNA and RNA!
Unfortunately I needed a B+ A-level in Biology and due to a poor student teacher in my first year (and a disinterest in plantlife and yeast) I only got a C. My Chemistry grade was poorer still at an E and it's just blocked that whole career path off for me.
Open University here I come.
ah so you dislike schools because you don't make very good grades?
no y do i need to learn this stuff and im in advanced art myself im in 10th grade
well i wasn't gonna type all that over.
anyway why would i need to know about DNA RNA proteins and such
that should be a college thingUm, possibly because DNA and RNA are essential to know for any biology class. They ARE the essential building blocks for every organism on the planet after all. The entire biological world depends on them.*
my school is falling apart ok and they get a new tennis court and they wax both of our gyms 2 time a year.
I'm not understanding what you're trying to say here.
they just care about scores i made Ds and one F in my biology class and i made an advanced score on the SOL
Why is bad that they care?
*My responses in bold because I'm too lazy to mess with Yuku's quoting mechanism.
overlordkiwi wrote:
anyway why would i need to know about DNA RNA proteins and such
that should be a college thing
What do you suppose they do with the college level sciences then? As for my school, I have really no complaints about the school itself, The only problem are some of the teachers. For some of them it's like teaching isn't really what they wanted to do.
well i wasn't gonna type all that over.
anyway why would i need to know about DNA RNA proteins and such
that should be a college thingUm, possibly because DNA and RNA are essential to know for any biology class. They ARE the essential building blocks for every organism on the planet after all. The entire biological world depends on them.*
my school is falling apart ok and they get a new tennis court and they wax both of our gyms 2 time a year.
I'm not understanding what you're trying to say here.
they just care about scores i made Ds and one F in my biology class and i made an advanced score on the SOL
Why is bad that they care?
*My responses in bold because I'm too lazy to mess with Yuku's quoting mechanism.
i know about DNA and RNA
my school cares more about look and the one test at the end of the year we only get taught what the government wants us to get taught
Pre-degree Foundation Art and Design here.
The point is to give you skills and knowledge to apply to life. You need arithmatic maths and english language pretty much every day. Science explains a lot and can actually make life pretty interesting, such as if you look into the sky at night and see millions of stars and galaxies and stuff. Of course, science is also working to cure disease. It may not be you who will find the cure but someone would which is why it must be taught. History is an extremely underrated and in my opinion poorly taught subject, I never had any interest in it at school but it should be used to make sure we don't repeat mistakes.
Every subject should be taught and you should learn a bit of it even if you won't use all of it. The only subject I think could be toned down is PE but that's personal distaste for getting footballs (soccer) kicked at me, rather than overall benefit. My school seriously overdid the "PE is the best" thing, putting sports stuff in front of everyone else. I'm just glad that in the UK you aren't expected to be involved in sports to get uni places.
Pre-degree Foundation Art and Design here.
The point is to give you skills and knowledge to apply to life. You need arithmatic maths and english language pretty much every day. Science explains a lot and can actually make life pretty interesting, such as if you look into the sky at night and see millions of stars and galaxies and stuff. Of course, science is also working to cure disease. It may not be you who will find the cure but someone would which is why it must be taught. History is an extremely underrated and in my opinion poorly taught subject, I never had any interest in it at school but it should be used to make sure we don't repeat mistakes.
Every subject should be taught and you should learn a bit of it even if you won't use all of it. The only subject I think could be toned down is PE but that's personal distaste for getting footballs (soccer) kicked at me, rather than overall benefit.
well I hope that i will get a Scholarship for soccer or art but probably won't doesn't matter ether way
Kind of interesting to note, thanks for reminding me Trudi ^^
Illinois is the only state I know of to require physical education for all 12 years of required schooling. Up until sophomore year, you were thrown in a class with a bunch of other students and you did what the gym teacher told you to. From sophomore year on, you had the opportunity to select what gym class you wanted to be in. From that point on, the only sport I played was softball in the spring, and I took dance and personal fitness (weight training and other things like that) for the remainder of my high school years.
I complained about it until I entered college.
And it made me realize how beneficial that 45 minutes of activity was to my daily routine.
From that point on, I've made an effort to either sign up for a PE class in college or walk more often throughout the building, taking that parking spot in the far lot to get me to haul my butt to class and feel good about it.
~Shadowed Spirit Sage
He does have a point that under the ultimate source of evil and stupidity, Bush, the US school system was converted into a test cramming institution.
If I could have avoided every PE class without actually skiving, from year 7 to lower sixth, I would have. They made it voluntary in upper sixth and were then astonished when 99% of the year opted to spend those periods in the common room, in the warm, drinking tea and [alas] listening to Radio 1. Well, duh!
Sport always seemed wasted effort to me. Had they handed me a tennis ball and racquet and said "see how many times you and your friends can bat it back and forth" that would have been OK. All the rules about serving from certain places on the court, keeping score, placing your shot, blah blah - they all just turned me off sports completely.
Tree climbing, yes, roller skating, yes, ice skating, yes. Roller hockey would have been the coolest thing ever (for a while anyhow), but that was not allowed. But team games was merely an opportunity to get very cold in inclement weather, wearing indecent gym kit and watching the teacher wander up and down the sidelines in a jumper and trousers. I learned early on that the summer sports such as cricket or rounders were made for me to get "out" as quickly as possible, thus sunning myself on the sidelines with minimal effort. And when fielding, you had to volunteer to go deep. Really deep. Preferably as far away from where a ball might conceivably land as possible. At that point you could make daisy chains or sunbathe or whatever. Do not even get me started on the pointlessness of athletics...
So yeah, school taught me for many years a deep and abiding hatred of most forms of physical activity, such that I refuse point blank even to countenance wasting my money on gym membership, or going swimming, or doing the various other things our government seems desperate for us to start doing in order not to cripple the NHS with obesity.
Having said that, in the warmer months I *will* walk to work, mostly because that will save me £52.80 a month.
As for all the various compulsory classes, there were many that I hated, but I understood that you have to have at least a hazy knowledge of these things to function in society (although I'm pretty sure I've forgotten everything I ever learnt in art). You just have to focus on later on, when you get to choose subjects that don't make you want to claw out your eyes. And, unfortunately, remember that throughout your life you will have to do stuff you don't want to if you plan to get on with the rest of humanity in any way at all.
No, I'm not feeling cynical about the world this afternoon, why do you ask? 
DW
White washed
Male washed
Too much focus on stupid tests
That pretty much sums it up. 😛
they just care about scores i made Ds and one F in my biology class and i made an advanced score on the SOL
Hello, fellow Virginian!!!! =D
When I was in 10th grade, my biology teacher said the SOL in that class was more of a 7th grade life science test so that more people could pass. They really are not hard at all. I got a perfect score on the 11th grade US history SOL and didn't even study for it.
IMO, the problem with public schools over here is that there's waaayyy too much focus on these standardized tests, too the point where they cut out art, music, PE, and recess just to cram in more academics. I love that episode of Boston Public where one of the teachers said those tests are a load of crap and more about making the schools look good rather than education.
I got outstanding marks in all my classes. The second or third times around.
Where I live the Board of Education is completely full of crap, which is an understatement. My mom just happened to turn to the local public access cable channel airing a meeting where they were having a problem with their budget. Wanna know what they did? Fired all the district bus drivers and aides to hire an outside company and voted THEMSELVES pay raises.
There are overcrowded classrooms, underpaid teachers and whatnot that need attention and the BoE votes to put more taxpayers' money in their own pockets. Whoop de do. :[
*hugs to DW* ^^
i disliked P.E at school.. partly due to a total lack of co-ordination, partly due to being left-handed, and also due to the fact that the 'popular' girls got all the best spots in games like netball.. leaving me to something stupid like goal defence. (i'm short, how am i supposed to gaurd the net? gimmie center, i'm faster then half of you! 😮 )
rounders was annoying due to the left-handedness. they'd bowl the ball to the RIGHT of me, then the teacher would yell at me for not hitting it.
tennis consisted of me hitting the ball as hard as i could at the people i was playing against.
most of my 6th form dropped out of sports too, why be forced to go swimming/the gym/etc when you could just curl up somewhere, or go home for the afternoon? >>
Like DWUK and Bec, I too disliked physical education at school. It's not that I hate exercise in general (since I don't), it's just that I don't like that it was made to be compulsory when honestly, I could've spent that time much more productively by quietly studying in preparation for upcoming tests or something like that.
I don't think Education should be forced and that you should have more power over what they teach you.
Schools are supposed to teach you stuff, right? Teaching is, like, helping someone understand and remember a subject. Sure, I geuss we can understand it well enough but we won't remember that stuff when we get out of school. Usually you just remember stuff that you find interesting. Like, when I was 7 or 8, I think I found out Knuckles` favorite fruit was the same as mine... Grapes! I remember that from 9 or 8 years ago because I found it interesting.
Now they're just like, "We want you to learn this, so we're going to tell you about it over and over and hope you remember." Repetition doesn't necessarily mean memory. I mean, I've heard certain people`s names plenty of times but I don't always remember them. That's usually because I don't particularly care about the information.
Now, I know that just because information is interesting and you remember it doesn't necessarily make it useful, but most people are probably interested in something useful as well as something useless. Like, I'm interested in The Sonic Universe... but I'm also interested in Bugs and How the human mind works.
So, if we had a little more power over our education we wouldn't have to waste precious years of our life having people try to drill information into our heads that we don't care about and probably won't remember anyway and would instead be pursuing learning things that actually interest us and we'll more likely remember. Not only will we remember more, but it'd be heck of a lot more fun, too and some students wouldn't actually dread going to school everyday.
Now, if you're worried about us not having a wide enough range of knowledge, well... I think natural human curiosity would solve that. It's sort of hard to explain. Like... if you were reading a book and you were like, "Wow! This is really good... wonder how they did that." you'd probably try learning a bit about it.
I learn more from an afternoon on Wikipedia than a day at school sometimes, myself.
As for the whole mandatory physical education thing... yeah, I think you should be able to choose whether or not you want to take part in that. If you wanted to learn how to play golf or dance, you'd do it, right? No need to try to force it onto the students.
So, yeah... those are my thoughts on this whole thing. Kiwi asked me to come by and post... so I did. *shrug*
Starting this year I've been home schooled. It only takes me an hour to do my work. I've learned just as much as would be if I was going to the public high school; I just don't waste 8 hours of my life.
In my free time I've actually done some productive things. Like learning spanish from Rosetta Stone and lifting weights. I actually really need to know spanish too, but I don't know if I would have the time to do it after school.
Starting this year I've been home schooled. It only takes me an hour to do my work. I've learned just as much as would be if I was going to the public high school; I just don't waste 8 hours of my life.
In my free time I've actually done some productive things. Like learning spanish from Rosetta Stone and lifting weights. I actually really need to know spanish too, but I don't know if I would have the time to do it after school.
THIS. Just THIS.
to be honest, i hate the school system we have now. we're forced to take classes that might not actually have relevance to our career paths in life, and we also have little choice in the way in which we're taught. other than the occasional teacher i've had who were excellent at what they did, i've found a lot of my classes to be quite dull. also, there are a lot of classes which our public schools don't offer or have cut that people actually wanted to take. i was pretty miffed when our school decided to cut psychology, and i'm probably going to have to take it during the summer at a community college. the community college system, however, i approve of. we can take college level courses in high school, and we don't even have to pay tuition. we still have to buy books and such, but we can take a bigger variety of classes. i think our school system is long due for some reforms, but that takes time and money so in the state our economy is in we're pretty stuck. i just wish our school system was a bit more "user friendly" i guess.
