It's worse than we thought

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SoonerP226

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So are you in England, or the USA? Having been called a damnyankee when I'm from the south, (admittedly, Southern California) I'm pretty sure most Americans default to our Civil War, or War of Northern Aggression. And I've got family who were on both sides, and others who got here long after that one was over.
Are y'all perhaps speaking of the Late Unpleasantness Between the States, suh? I may be the descendant of Confederates, but I am first and foremost a Devout Smartass.

Also, you don't have to say "Damn Yankee." The "damn" is redundant.
 

C_Hallbert

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Nope. I'm sympathizing. And I've been part of the public education system. Ten years working on getting educated to teach, less than three years actually teaching full time, and a few more subbing while trying to rescue a failing teaching career. And finally realizing that there was no point in continuing. The system is broken so bad that it needs to be scrapped. The focus seems to be on getting people who do not need and will not profit from a college degree to get ready for college. We need more mechanics, and machinists, and engineers, and plumbers and such, and fewer computer data entry people, businessmen, and education majors.

Bill
With respect to your remarks recommending that the system (public education system) should be scrapped and that technical/trade programs should be available for those incapable or uninclined to pursue a college education, I agree. In many public education systems there has been a long-standing emphasis on passing children up through the grades without insuring that they have achieved mastery of the intended curriculum. Even worse, curriculums have been diluted as a ploy to enable children to move up with apparent success while omitting the fundamental material that our education systems have traditionally sought to inculcate: the production of citizens with the ability to reason, function in various productive roles in society and to understand from where we have come as a culture and a nation. Instead, all too many School Administrations and ‘so called’ teachers are motivated to promote progressive social change rather than independent, intelligent, patriotic citizens through the education process. If our nation is to survive in the form in which it originally evolved, teaching will have to redirect its objectives back to the basics (Reading-Writing-Arithmetic, World History, Civics, and Sciences). The performance of teachers and students should be evaluated through comprehensive testing and finally, standardized testing at the end of each school year. Homework, Class Participation and Notebooks should only count toward Attitude. Also, students violating criminal laws should immediately be reported to the police.
 

dennishoddy

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There is a whole genre of videos like this. You can find them about young people, democrats, republicans, Americans, Europeans....basically anyone you want. The format is simple: go ask people until you find the most clueless amongst them, and then only show the worst of the worst.

Generalizing a group based on videos like these is maybe not the best way to form opinions. If we want to say "gosh those people in the video were not the sharpest knives in the drawer" then sure. But to extrapolate to an entire population segment based on this is, in my opinion, a bad idea.
The point of the video is not to make fun of any political party but to illustrate how stupid people are now because of our education system that emphasized gender studies vs History, Math, and science.
Kids are totally stupid now about what is going on around them. I question my own grandkids all the time about current events and history. They are clueless, but they know every thing going on with tic toc and Instagram.
 

TerryMiller

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If our nation is to survive in the form in which it originally evolved, teaching will have to redirect its objectives back to the basics (Reading-Writing-Arithmetic, World History, Civics, and Sciences). The performance of teachers and students should be evaluated through comprehensive testing and finally, standardized testing at the end of each school year. Homework, Class Participation and Notebooks should only count toward Attitude. Also, students violating criminal laws should immediately be reported to the police.

That in bold....

....couldn't that lead to more of the "teaching to the test" rather than true education?
 

BillM

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Kind of gives one the idea of what a high school diploma is worth these days. These are the people that will march and demonstrate for anything.
These days? I graduated from high school in SoCal in 1973. About 50 of the other graduates in my class had F-averages. They got a diploma too. Not a certificate of attendance, a diploma. My GPA was not too good, I got a 1.78 GPA due to flunking every class but one my Freshman year of high school. Attitude problems. I needed a good kick in the... C-average sophomore year, B-average junior year, and A-average senior year. Still not too bright, like the guy said "but I got better!"
 

BillM

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That in bold....

....couldn't that lead to more of the "teaching to the test" rather than true education?
Yes, it could. Did, actually, in my limited experience. Been out of the teaching field since 2012, so can't say definitively, but probably still does. "Standardized Testing" generally amounts to multiple guess answer sheets that are computer scanned and graded. Most people can get a 65% or better just randomly choosing answers without bothering to read the test. I was taught, and told to teach, a method of doing this by comparing two of the answers, and eliminating the one that was obvious wrong, which if followed rigorously would give you a 50% chance of getting the correct answer by just marking one of the two left at random. You're supposed to format the test so the answers don't cluster. Makes it easier to grade manually if you must, and to tell who's cheating, among other things. Works best for simple facts, and rote memorization.

To accurately test comprehension is considerably more difficult and time consuming. Lots of essay questions, and a lot of reading. Not so easy to do for large numbers of students. When I was teaching geography at Del Crest Middle school, I had 6 classes per day, approximately 35 students per class, and about 45 minutes to do everything they wanted done besides teaching the subject. I thought I could make it a bit more interesting for them, since I'd been to some of the places they were studying. I found otherwise. I averaged one student per class who actually wanted to learn what I was teaching. The rest already knew everything they needed to know.

Couple of years after that, I saw one of my kids on the news, wanted for murder. Very rewarding time in my life.
 

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