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Journal HanzoSan's Journal: How to better educate children via the public school system 35

Journal by HanzoSan

Alot of people say (well mostly conservatives), that pouring money into schools is not the answer. They say that more money cannot buy better teaches, make classes smaller, make children learn faster/better, etc.

The problem in my opinion however is not so much that we arent spending money, its that we are wasting money on solutions proven to not work. When most politicians talk about public schools, they refuse to think out of the box, colleges think out of the box, why cant our highschools and middle schools also think out of the box?

The current situation, basically millions of kids are not being educated at all in the public school system, essentially its a waste of their time, so in most cases they drop out. I was lucky, I finished school, I did not drop out, but in general most of my success is due to my ability to understand technology and use it as an equalizer. This is why I am all for technology in the classroom.

So here is a brief list of my solutions to the problem, and these solutions should be tried before people actually shoot them down.

1.

  • E-learning software

2.

  • The use of technology to allow teachers to give instructions to more students at the same time (chalkboards just arent up to date)

3.

  • The tools should be upgraded when the material we are teaching our kids gets upgraded. This means if we plan to teach our kids intergral calculus, c++, and advanced writing techniques, we need to actually spend the money to develop the software to support teaching this via both E-Software and via physical means.

4.

  • Students should be rewarded for teaching other students, one technique to help teach a big class is to give students credit for teaching their peers, tutoring their peers, etc. Team Oriented Learning, thats what I want to call it.

MOST IMPORTANTLY
5.

  • The education system needs to focus on the fundamentals. We keep complaining that our kids arent good at math or English, well the problem is we arent really teaching them math or English. Kids are forced to learn alittle bit of everything, from history, physical education, biology, science, anatomy, genetics, geography, and many other "elective" courses designed to waste a kids time which could be spent mastering the basics. My knowledge on geology sucked as a kid, my biology knowledge still isnt perfect, I did not memorize the tables, ultimately these classes would be considered a waste of time however in the case when I went to good school B vs bad school A, in the good school we actually had to write papers, submit high quality work, and we got graded on the quality of our work. I had to actually focus on my writing ability to submit higher quality scientific papers. Most public schools however focus on how well you memorize the table instead of the results you come up with, or the papers you write and I think the best thing we can do for the education system is to change it so that electives are no longer pre-requisites.

    I'd instead double the hours of math and English, why? Because solid math and English are the core basics which allow an adult later on to learn all the garbage they didnt learn as a kid. Right now I can decide I want to learn Geography because I can read the book, and if my math skills were not so weak(wish I had balanced my skills when I taught myself) I could decide to learn pretty much any science.

    Treat education like you treat computer AI, or software, you do not flood the software with endless information and let the software figure out whats useful and what isnt, instead you'll have a stronger program if you give it precise focused information it needs and allow it to specialize in that area. Chess software works because people feed it the opening book, with all the common openings, the software learns the core openings in chess, this could be 1-50 moves in the opening, and the software itself once it learns all the major rules, and memorizes the openings, can then proceed to beat just about any human because the computer knows the basics and can rely on its pure calculating ability to win games.

    Humans are the same way, if I were to teach a kid to play chess, I'd start with the absolute basics, I'd teach the rules of chess, then I'd teach the kid one opening line, when the kid learns the absolute core of chess, the kid on his own can decide how he wants to play the game or if he wants to play at all, but without knowing the rules of the game, the basics, the kid will NEVER figure out chess.

    The kid has to know how to read the notation in the most basic way before this kid can ever learn an opening line, if you try to teach a kid the opening lines before he fully learns the notation, sure the kid may use a few based on short term memory, but this kid will not have the ability to master chess later on by studying games and learning openings on his own.

    This is what I see as the biggest problem in the school system, it does not teach a kid the tools needed to teach himself, and it does not really do the best job of teaching every kid. I cannot expect schools to be perfect teachers, but I demand schools teach kids to educate themselves and really the only two fundamental tools that exist for a person to teach themselves anything is the ability to understand English(read), and the ability to understand math (logic).

    I get by just knowing English, sure my math skills are weak, I'm not well rounded, I will not pretend to be, but if I would have memorized all the crap taught in school instead of focusing on the core knowledge, I wouldnt be able to decide now to learn Math, you cannot learn Calculus if you cant read the book, and you cannot learn science if you dont know Calculus.

Comments appreciated

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How to better educate children via the public school system More

How to better educate children via the public school system

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  • Step 1: We must reevaluate our current and desired culture and determine new goals for our nation as a whole. We need a consistent curriculum across the country that addresses these goals.

    Step 2: We need to determine the multitude of learning styles of children, consolidate these styles into several discreet methodologies, and thoroughly train our educators in these methodologies.

    Step 3: We need continuous improvement to address the problem of having educators who are teaching students with new method
    • Step 4: We must develop highly specialized educators and demand rigorous verification of their skills, abilities, and dedication. There should be no such thing as an "adequate" teacher. All educators should excel in their respective fields. No one would want to send his or her child to an "adequate" doctor or surgeon. We should demand the same superiority in our educational system.

      I disagree with this. I think its more important that someone is a good teacher, than it is important that they are knowledgea
      • Well, the reason we need "good teachers" today is that they have to deal with a wide variety of students and learning styles.

        My system (the one i play around with in my head) would eliminate some of this need by having the system set up ahead of time and children placed in the appropriate classes. This would reduce the need for "jack-of-all-trade" instructors and allow for more specialization. And not necessarily content specialization, but teaching method specialization. If you have a group of students


        • Yes but thats an impossible goal. We can never have 100% all good teaches. A better goal is to reduce the role of a teacher so that the teacher requires less knowledge to be good.

          This would reduce the need for "jack-of-all-trade" instructors and allow for more specialization.

          Your method wont work until we stop trying to produce jack of all trades in the school system, its like a catch 22.

          The current school system in highschool for example isnt very specialized, it tries to produce the jack of all tra
          • I see your goal, trying to teach people to teach themselves, giving them the skills necessary to continue learning on thier own, and I agree that the basics should be concentrated on heavily throughout a student's education.

            Our methods are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I don't even address what should be taught in the school system, only how.

            No, we'll never have 100% good teachers, just like we don't have 100% good doctors. But the ratio of bad:good docs is very low. The bar for being a doctor is


            • Well, I dont agree with raising the bar for teachers because its not the kinda job a person will make good money on or be rewarded by society for. This is the kinda job someone does because they care, or because they should care.

              I recommend we treat it like firefighters and police, I dont think a person has to be highly educated like a doctor to be a good teacher, what is most important is that they care about teaching.

              Just like firemen should care about putting out fires, so how do we get people to care
              • The problem with lowering salaries is that even the really dedicated teachers are driven *somewhat* by money. If they can teach at a private school for 20% more pay, most will probably do just that. I think that if you were to make teaching so unattractive that only those people who truly want to do it will, you will lose *way* too many teachers. Why not just make teaching completely volunteer-based? That would make sure that only the *extremely* dedicated would even bother.

                Now, going back to my doctor
                • My point of view is, any job I'm truely motivated to do will be for a reason. Because I want to improve society. Working at a private school would mean I'd have little to no impact on society.

                  Now, of course if schools were properly funded, private schools wouldnt have such a huge money advantage, I wouldnt pay the teachers more however than your average policeman, fireman, or construction worker. Teaching is not rocket science and if you try to weed teachers out like this, sure you'll have more intelligent
                  • I have to disagree most strenuously with what you say here. There are good and bad teachers. Going through NC public schools I had many from both. I had teachers with PhD's and I had teachers who could barely read from the book. Almost all of them were dedicated. Some of my absolute worst teachers were the most dedicated. Dedication is quite frankly, worthless and irrelevant if a person is not both knowledgable and a good teacher. And all the good intentions in the world can't change that fact.

                    and..

                    • what, because those kids aren't part of society??

                      A kid rich enough to go to a private school needs no help, I mean if you have enough money for private school chances are you'll be doing better than me in terms of income after you get your degree from Harvard or Yale.

                      As I mention earlier, I went through NC public schools all the way (and am now @ unviersity). Thanks to political machinations and a school system merger, the schools I went to for elementary and middle school are basically crap now. So my
              • *coughs*

                So you think the only people who are firemen and policemen are those who care the most? Here, try cutting their salaries in half and see how many are there for ideological reasons...

                We stop raising their salaries so that only the people who want to teach will teach

                This is a totally backwards and wrong approach. Let me recall some history. In early colonial NC the governorship paid very poorly. One of the reasons NC got off to such a slow and terrible start as a state was due to Governors


  • Firstly let me just note that you claim that conservatives are against funding schools. This is misleading, and you in fact take the conservative position later on. Conservatives are typically against just throwing money at an issue and hoping that will fix it. As you say, a plan is needed, and without a plan, throwing more money into the mix is worthless. If you've ever been around a university environment, dealing with procuring (or using) grants, I'm sure you know what I mean.

    Secondly, I have no dou
    • I forgot to mention--on the topic of conservatism and "thinking outside of the box" as you mention. You mention that universities are able to think outside the box--I point to the fact that all the best universities are private, and the best public schools emulate private universities. I assume you're liberal and therefore a democrat? Are you in favor of programs like school vouchers or charter schools? It's been my experience that conservatives are almost universally for such programs, while democrats (
      • I forgot to mention--on the topic of conservatism and "thinking outside of the box" as you mention. You mention that universities are able to think outside the box--I point to the fact that all the best universities are private, and the best public schools emulate private universities.

        I'm not a liberal but I'd vote democrat before voting republican.

        Are you in favor of programs like school vouchers or charter schools?

        I graduated from a charter school, charter schools are good, but only a limited numb

        • but I also know that republicans dont want to improve public schools.



          That, is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm a republican, and I would LOVE to see schools improved. You also forget that a large number of republicans are Christian (and being Christian is important to them)--and NOTHING is more important to these people than education. And no, most of them do not want God/No-Evolution, etc in the classrom.



          • I'm talking about politicians, not regular people.

            Also you seem to be a conservative to me, not a republican, someone like you would be better off voting libertarian, and in this election you might actually be better off voting for Dean over Bush.

            Bush is far from conservative.

            Now, if you are a religious right winger, well then you have to vote for Bush because hes pro christianity, but I dont think thats a reason to vote for any President.

            A large number of democrats are Jewish, Jewish people take learn

            • Well you're partially right--I do have strong libertarian leanings. The way I see it though, that makes me MORE of a Republican :p

              A large number of democrats are Jewish, Jewish people take learning seriously.

              this is true. And I will be VERY interested to see how the Jewish vote comes out next election. I think many are becoming Republican.

              Also, I wouldn't bet on Dean being the candidate just yet, but we shall see.


              • Libertarians believe in some kinda utopia where everyone works hard and no ones lazy. Libertarians think that "Well I worked hard and I earned everything I've got, everyone else can work hard and do the same"

                They ignore the fact that most people arent as smart as them, or just are plain lazy.

                In the same way a socialist thinks "Well if everyone worked as a team we could have everything, I mean I'm not greedy so lets all share"

                Problem is most people are greedy, in fact most people are lazy and greedy at th

    • Firstly let me just note that you claim that conservatives are against funding schools. This is misleading, and you in fact take the conservative position later on. Conservatives are typically against just throwing money at an issue and hoping that will fix it. As you say, a plan is needed, and without a plan, throwing more money into the mix is worthless. If you've ever been around a university environment, dealing with procuring (or using) grants, I'm sure you know what I mean.

      Progressives dont always
      • That is ridiculous. I've found absolutely NO correlation between teaching ability and electronic prowess. If anything I've found a negative correlation.

        Just to be absolutely clear, I got to Duke univ, a top 5 (or top 10, I forget where the rankings are this year) school. I've had some absolutely amazing professors, with untouchable credentials that have made the classroom a place of wonderful learning. And yet many of them can't operate a VCR to save their lives. Fire them you say?

        I'd rather forget t


        • I've had great teachers at community college who properly used technology and the internet.

          You are telling me you went to Duke and a school like that couldnt find better teachers than a community college?

          I'd rather forget the VCR and keep the GOOD TEACHER.

          Look, nothing is wrong with traditional education. What's wrong is that it has been dumbed down, and PCed down, and teacher standards have FALLEN. This is the problem, not the fact that suddenly we don't have eClassrooms.

          Everything is wrong with tra

          • I've had great teachers at community college who properly used technology and the internet.

            You are telling me you went to Duke and a school like that couldnt find better teachers than a community college?

            No, I'm telling you the opposite in fact--technological prowess has, in my experience, been irrelevant to the quality of the class. I guess this all depends on your defition of "better teacher."

            And also don't get me wrong, I've had not all technologically baffled teachers--my computer science profs



            • Thats why our kids are so stupid, I mean if you cant read you can never learn history, and if you cant do math you can never learn science.

              and woooooaaaa, I DEFINITELY don't agree that schools should be about english and math. What about history? Science? Writing? Logic? Heck, computer classes even? :)

              Let them learn that stuff in college. With a good foundation they can learn all these things, all they need to do is buy the book and take the course. I see no point in teaching History before a person c

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