On The Topic of School

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Overall, I simply don't see the point in school. I do all of this crap for hundreds of days a year and what do I get out of it? A pat on the back? A singular letter that I could write billions of times within the months of time that I waste going to school? A good recommendation? That's nothing good compared to the hard work we put in. We need something else. We need something immediate. We need a new system.

You were around in the old forums, we've had this debate before. I used to think similarly to you...Remember this?

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In today’s modern society especially in North America, people think very highly of education. Many people from foreign countries come to Canada and America, so that they or their children can have a better life. They believe, as well as many others, that by getting an education, especially a higher education that they will become more prepared for what life throws at us, and will therefore be able to handle what comes their way leading them to a more successful life. But are these stories really what they’re all cracked up to be? Has anyone ever stopped for a moment and instead of just believing in what everyone says and following the crowd like a mindless sheep ever sat down and thought critically about what our education is really all about?
The education system is supposed to help people find what they are good at and what they like. It’s almost undisputed that certain people are better at things than other people. Some people are good at math, others at science, while others still at English or the arts. Then there are people who are naturally good at everything, but do not excel at any one thing. Most people are described as “smart” or “intelligent” in the field that they are good at. Intelligence according to Merriam Webster is “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations.”
The main goal however of education should be to prepare people for the real world, so that they can handle situations that come at them. Education should prepare people for all aspects of life, whether it deals with simple communication with other people, to learning things that will help them in their desired careers. The curriculum is supposed to help one build many skills, such as logical thinking, analytical thinking, creative thinking, punctuality, commitment, teamwork as well as many other aspects that can prepare people for the future in the real world. The board does this by making certain courses for student’s mandatory as well as implementing curriculum that helps foster these skills.
An example of this is math. Math is mandatory until grade 11. Anyone can do well with most jobs with a simple grade 6 math education. What more do you need in society than being able to budget, do some simple math for shopping and taxes? Why then must we take it? The purpose is to build logical skills in children so that they can then build rational skills, and then make rational decisions in the real world. However this is not what happens in reality. As a student, I know this personally, as well as from observing other students. Instead of learning the rationality skills for math, we end up learning how to continuously do the same set of problems over and over again. We end up doing hundreds of questions for homework, so when the problem comes on the test we already know how to do it, because we already have done it several times. If you ask almost any math teacher, you’ll see that the highest marks don’t go to the “smartest” people, or those who are naturally good at math, but rather to those who do their homework on a frequent basis.
Now I ask you, if the purpose of math is not accomplished, but some other purpose – how does that prepare the student for life? One could argue that math then teaches one to be prepared and to keep on trying. However it’s very hard to argue those who learn it naturally faster will ever be less prepared than those who do not learn it as quickly. However, who gets the higher mark? Who will be more likely to get into the better university – and therefore a “better career”?

That's something I wrote when I was ... what 16? Regardless, I think it was Zync who put a good perspective on this...He was talking about job flow and regulation and stuff. School isn't really meant to grade you based on your potential and capabilities. It's meant to show what you do produce. Why hire a genius for your business if he slacks off there? How do you know he won't? Because he's got a diploma, or a bachelors or a masters or a PhD. You work hard for a piece of paper which says you can do stuff. Otherwise, how else is someone going to judge you? You're right in that grades don't show someone how smart they are, but what they do show is a function. A function of two things, Work ethic and Intelligence. You need to show you have both, otherwise you're not useful. The systems not great...but it's the system. Do something about it, get into politics and fix it. It's easy to criticize, but hard to actually do something. We all work hard for a piece of paper. Deal with it. If you don't want to, work hard for the piece of paper and change the system so others don't have to.

Jay J just bitch slapped you ( once again ) SinisteRing. lol.

You're right, unintelligent people can get good grades.
Why?
Because grades do NOT reflect intelligence! ( And whoever told you that is unintelligent themselves )
What grades DO accomplish is a fairly accurate form of communication as to how well you would do in a productive society, namely, in a workplace.
And while I didn't actually take a look at your grades SinisteRing, I must admit, that if they are low, I would say they represent you quite well. After all, I wouldn't hire you as a WC3 map maker. You're not motivated, and your emotions fluctuate over it quite often. In fact, that's even how you talk about school. So ya, I'm going to go with the idea that your grades are a good reflection of the worth you have for OTHERS. ( not for yourself )
Live with it, or change it. But QQing about it doesn't do any good for anyone.

The problem with the public school system in America these days is that we're too politically correct, there is a huge trend towards laziness and procrastination recently. I believe this is a combination of teachers being completely incompetent, and the inability of teachers to single students out for great success or great failure. It has become a non-issue to fail classes in school related social standings. I think social pressure is the best motivator outside of survival (mostly due to sexual ambitions, but it is not limited to that).

I could be completely wrong, of course, I mean I did drop out of high school after all.

You'll grow out of it, hopefully. They won't see what you're worth because you won't show them what you're worth because you don't think it's worth your effort. There are 360million people in the United States. Why should greatness be thrust upon you and not someone else if you're not willing to work for it.

School is a filter. It filters out people are not willing to work. It doesn't matter if it filters out gold along the way, because in the end it gets what it's looking for. If that gold wants to work to get there, then awesome. It helps itself and society. Society might lose a nugget like yourself because of you not working, but you lose a lot more than society does.

Get over yourself. School is a waste. But it's a necessary waste.

Also, Pyth you're a high school drop out??

I was going to say something along the lines of what Jay.J said, but I don't really see any point. Instead, I'm going to try something else.

The only thing I really agree with is:

"There's no good reason to drill something over and over again when you simply don't need to. For example, a Rubik's Cube. It's a very challenging puzzle at first sight, and when you figure out how to do it... it can be quite entertaining for a while. So you've solved it, you've figured out how to do it again, and you can do it in a decent amount of time. Fantastic. However, I see people who drill the same thing over and over again without stop to try and be faster and faster at doing it. The problem with this is that they become blind to the other possibilities, such as a larger cube, a different technique, a new way of solving it, etc. and instead focus far too much on something they already know. Some may be amazed when you first are able to do it... but that popularity quickly fades."

Because it seems a waste of time & effort to, as SinisteR wrote, to drill the same stuff over and over and over and over until you hate school. The problem isn't that you don't want to put the effort into it, really. It's just that you're sick of doing the same thing over and over...but then again, in a job, that's also likely what you're going to do: the same thing over and over.

Perhaps that's what they're trying to give you? The discipline to keep doing the same thing over and over? Regardless, back to what I was saying.

It seems to me that more time & effort would be better spent doing a NEW exercise. You master addition, now let's move on to subtraction. Let's not keep doing addition for an additional month, doing one sheet a day, and one test a week. There's no point. Once you master the test, you shouldn't have to keep doing it over and over.

Jay.J wrote:

Also, Pyth you're a high school drop out??

Yeah, I dropped out halfway through my junior year and got my GED.

@Drilling the same thing over and over again: Some schools will allow students to "test out" of certain drilling procedures, but I think political correctness is killing that off as well. The dumb students who can't "test out" will be left out, and that'll be unfair to them.

To Bart:

There is no such thing as true mastery of anything.

I'll grant that addition and subtraction is blah and incredibly boring and moreover quite simple, but one thing leads to another just as it should. Without the basics, you cannot do the advanced. I do agree that they should move on to new things, but, let's face it, the American public school system is not built to cater to people who are intelligent and talented. It is built to cater to those that are motivated and willing to set goals and achieve those goals.

Question:

Do you get bad grades because you don't turn shit in? (I mean, you don't turn in your homework)?

You know how immature that makes you seem. No question needed; it's a statement.

People might get hired about 5% of the time (probably less like 1%) because the person in question is "smart." More often than not, people get hired because they are motivated, reliable, trustworthy, or can get stuff done. Or, failing that, people will get hired that are easy to control. But that's the downside and a relatively negligible one.

I do quite well in school even though i sleep in most of the classes (I'm up when i want to read a book ) but i never understood the necessity of it. Right now i'm in the 11th grade and they are teaching stuff that i will never be able to use anywhere (Unless i become a teacher) and it's so annoying i will probably quit school and do something constructive.

Not much of a debate when neither the OP debates back, nor does anyone take his side...At least not fully.

Hey Sin, I only read your first post, and I COMPLETELY agree, school is just another part of the Capitalist System.

Way to not follow the actual thread...

Why do I feel like Bal is that crazy uncle whom no one really likes but accepts his RSVP with the sinister motive of making fun of him?

I dropped out at 16 and got my GED, never looked back.

Balnazzar wrote:

Hey Sin, I only read your first post, and I COMPLETELY agree, school is just another part of the Capitalist System.

Sin would hate a communist schooling system more than he hates this one, and this one is pretty socialistic. In a communist system the government would mandate your job based on your performance in their schools, Einstein in a communist school system probably would have ended up as a farmer or a miner, instead of a patent office clerk.

On the other hand, Einstein would have made a great farmer.

I get poor grades in some classes because I don't do the work, or half-ass what I do. This is because I don't care. This is because I no longer see the point in learning the information they attempt to teach me. Why waste my time putting effort into something that has no value to me? Why waste my time putting effort into "learning" something I'll never use?

SinisteRing wrote:

Jay.J wrote:

On the other hand, Einstein would have made a great farmer.

Completely agreed.

I'm a farmer, in name only though... He probably wouldn't be a half-bad miner either.

Quote :

SinisteRing wrote:
Jay.J wrote:
On the other hand, Einstein would have made a great farmer.

Completely agreed.

ROFL!!!!!

Aquaman wrote:

Why do I feel like Bal is that crazy uncle whom no one really likes but accepts his RSVP with the sinister motive of making fun of him?

That's so cool!

RSVP also stands for This. XD

Lagger09 wrote:

I get poor grades in some classes because I don't do the work, or half-ass what I do. This is because I don't care. This is because I no longer see the point in learning the information they attempt to teach me. Why waste my time putting effort into something that has no value to me? Why waste my time putting effort into "learning" something I'll never use?

Agreed.

Lagger09 wrote:

I'm a farmer, in name only though... He probably wouldn't be a half-bad miner either.

What...?

Jay.J wrote:

Way to not follow the actual thread...

Why everyone changes the subject towards me everytime I post...
I know I'm likable/lovable, but am I THAT likable/lovable?

P.S.: I'm only posting heere because I'm bored.

Aquaman wrote:

Question:

Do you get bad grades because you don't turn shit in? (I mean, you don't turn in your homework)?

You know how immature that makes you seem. No question needed; it's a statement.

People might get hired about 5% of the time (probably less like 1%) because the person in question is "smart." More often than not, people get hired because they are motivated, reliable, trustworthy, or can get stuff done
BECAUSE THEY WON'T OPPOSE TO OPPRESSION. Or, failing that, people will get hired that are easy to control. But that's the downside and a relatively negligible one.

Because every post you make is about how communism is better, and a lot of people don't agree with you comrade

No, it's the fact you don't back up ANYTHING you say Bal. At all. You just stroke out what Aqua said and put in your own shit. THAT my friend, is fucking propaganda. You're giving a bad name to communism. You're making me LOSE faith in communism because it relies on people not being idiots. It relies on people suppressing urges, such as trolling when they are bored. It relies on people explaining and having reasoning. You just say stuff without any proof. You're so twisted into your mind set, you're fucking etched in stone. You can't be swayed otherwise or even admit there's a possibility you're wrong. You're not very humble or modest about the topic where you say "O there might be some flaws, but as a race I think we can overcome them" you just....make it seem like communism is actually impossible.

And I wasn't talking about you just say "I read your post and your post only and agree with you, even though everyone else in the thread completely rips you apart and makes your points null" Then if you did read what everyone else said, you didn't really do much to defend him.

Hell, Sin doesn't even hold that position anymore. He has a stupider position. Since the worlds going to end in 2012, he doesn't care about school since it doesn't matter. Which is just putting all your eggs in one basket, and even then if he truly did believe that he should be out spending everything he has and getting credit cards that he can't pay back since it won't matter since the worlds going to end, and out partying. Not just....doing nothing. But I digress.

Sin can't get credit cards, he isn't 18 and therefore not legally responsible for any contracts he engages or is appearing to engage in. Credit card companies would not pay for his purchases unless someone who was liable would also be contractually obligated to pay the bills afterwards.

I didn't want to get that harsh with Bal because he appears to feel alienated from this community already, so I just threw out a one-liner about how I don't like the red agenda and called him "comrade", a nickname that I don't believe he was particularly opposed to.

Stop misquoting me.

I was terrified there that I had actually said "BECAUSE THEY WON'T OPPOSE TO OPPRESSION" in one of my extremely tired moments of anti-clarity/stupidity.

I think the funniest thing I just thought of is that Bal could easily be an anchor for Fox news. He always takes things out of context and almost seems to know that saying/posting those things will cause people to freak out. And he NEVER backs up his posts. It's got Fox news written all over it.

Address the entire argument rather than taking things out of context, comrade. (You've got me doing it, Pyth.)

Jay.J wrote:

No, it's the fact you don't back up ANYTHING you say Bal. At all. You just stroke out what Aqua said and put in your own shit. THAT my friend, is fucking propaganda. You're giving a bad name to communism. You're making me LOSE faith in communism because it relies on people not being idiots. It relies on people suppressing urges, such as trolling when they are bored. It relies on people explaining and having reasoning. You just say stuff without any proof. You're so twisted into your mind set, you're fucking etched in stone. You can't be swayed otherwise or even admit there's a possibility you're wrong. You're not very humble or modest about the topic where you say "O there might be some flaws, but as a race I think we can overcome them" you just....make it seem like communism is actually impossible.

And I wasn't talking about you just say "I read your post and your post only and agree with you, even though everyone else in the thread completely rips you apart and makes your points null" Then if you did read what everyone else said, you didn't really do much to defend him.

Hell, Sin doesn't even hold that position anymore. He has a stupider position. Since the worlds going to end in 2012, he doesn't care about school since it doesn't matter. Which is just putting all your eggs in one basket, and even then if he truly did believe that he should be out spending everything he has and getting credit cards that he can't pay back since it won't matter since the worlds going to end, and out partying. Not just....doing nothing. But I digress.

Why would you but your eggs in multible baskets? Why not just keep them in a fridge so they wouldn't spoil. I had a rotten egg in my room once, it smelled like a thousand dead skunks filled with horse crap.