I’m wondering, why should smart students stay in school when they could stay home and better educate themselves?
In this age of Google and the Internet if you took a smart kid who wanted to learn, they could self educate on the web and get a far better education than they can in public or private schools. School is like doing prison time to bright students when they have to endure teachers who are far dumber than they are. Smart students are forced to learn at a rate so slow it’s like watching grass grow.
I think that the school system is obsolete and that it’s time for bright people to quit wasting time and organize to self-educate. Let the first class be a social network of students and your first assignment is to organize into your own online school community.
Who likes this idea?
Zyb,Thomas… Typical uninformed comments.
I pulled my kids out of school at middle school. That was six years ago. The public education system panders after the least common denominator. Special education and sports gets a majority of funding,
Being in the tech industry we could afford my wife stay home and teach our children. The material was far superior to what is used in public schools. And thanks to Texas, their myopic decisions in text books trickle down to the rest of the US. You have a choice in well established, fully packaged training curriculum. Deep dives into science, Math, classic arts.
Yes my kids did not have the Social interaction as their peers. They did not have the daily harassment. The Daily humiliation. The teaching environment where ever school in the US has to have a plan to strip search a child in case they have a aspirin or worse, a plastic toy of a gun.
My daughter just tested in the top 10% of graduating people in the US and she could give John C a run for his money in deconstruction of any new article.
Of course this is because her mom was able to spend the time with her going through these courses.
I am purely useless and rate below the cats in the hierarchy of the house.
/p
“No child left behind” means no child gets ahead — Jerry Pournelle.
The real reason for school is to teach them to follow orders, to prepare them for the Pointy Haired Bosses to come. A college diploma shows you can survive the regime without giving up.
I think what schools should really do is provide the opportunity for kids to be exposed to as much ‘stuff’ as possible and then they can see where their interest lies.
At least that is what happened to me.
Once I learned a little about it, that was it! I was hooked!
Technology… not drugs…
#20
Typical generalist comment. Because you lived near crappy schools, all schools are crappy.
You sent your kids to crappy public elementary and/or high school. You could have moved or sent your kids to private school but you chose home schooling. Ok. You said that your daughter tested in the top 10%; bully for you. For the other 99.999999999% of America that A: cannot afford one of the parents staying home and B: that parent is not smart enough and disciplined enough to teach elementary through HS, they need to rely on the school system.
I went to private elementary and private HS and I considered my education to be pretty good. I base that on my experience in college competing against other kids from other high schools as well as the fact that most of the students with which I graduated HS also graduated from college. Do I think the public elementary through HS is broken? Absolutely and especially in CA but that does not mean that structured schools in general are broken.
Frankly, many people I met in college did not know how to discipline themselves to finish (which is why many did not). They did not truly grasp the concept of competing against their peers as opposed to just knowing the material. That is the stuff that **ought** to be taught at the Junior High and HS level but is not.
#22
To an extent, I agree. However, every student should finish HS having some basic skills:
1. They should be able to use the English language properly both in speech and in writing.
2. They should be able to do some math without using their fingers and be able to work through a problem.
3. They should be able to understand the fundamentals of the scientific method and how scientists go about finding truth.
4. They should have some basic grasp of their country’s history and especially how their government was designed and how it currently operates.
The problem these days is that public schools are graduating many students that cannot even do these things. The very concept of not graduating someone is an anathema to people. That is in part what NCLB was about: verifying that students are actually learning what teachers claimed they learned.
bill,
CORRECT..
tech schools..Expose them to EVERYTHING..
BUT UNDERSTAND THAT…
most places only need 1 person to do the job.
MANY labs have 1-2 persons that KNOW everything, and 40-100 idiots that run the tests under THAT supervision.
1 IP Pro, and 3-4 people to sit and WATCH..
1 RADIO ANNOUNCER, and 20 people to run the station..
4 actors and 100 to do the sets and makeup..
1 football star, and 10,000 wannabe..1million fans..
I like this idea a lot. So did my parents.
I was completely homeschooled until college. Now I have two Bachelors of Science degrees, yet no highschool diploma or GED.
K-12 schools are just terrible places to learn. I don’t think I could have stand them. I am so glad my parents were able to take care of me at home, hire private tutors and teach me self motivation for learning.
I remember some hot teenage chicks in high school.
It’s strange to see how much children in developing “third world” countries, love their school. For them, it’s a positive escape from the near hopeless poverty, of their home lives. And naturally, they don’t have access to libraries and the Internet (or Tv, radio, newspapers).
And it was once like that, in America, way back in the days of the little red school houses. Out in what was mostly wilderness America. But Americans now, have so much media access, that they’re spoiled and complacent about schooling. Problem kids get herded in with the rest. Because the public system isn’t prepared to deal with trouble makers. And it’s generally become a place to get the slightly better off students ready for some junior college. And the rest, ready for menial jobs or military service.
The much better off, go to private “finishing” schools. And then on to Ivy League colleges. There are very few, if any, trouble makers tolerated there. And being smart has got nothing to do with it. Look at the last US President. All his father’s wealth, political connections, and an Ivy League education, did make him any genius. And not being one, didn’t stop him from getting the very top US job.
So it comes down to money. Not smarts. Sure, plenty of smart kids, in the public schools, never get a break. And plenty of dumb kids, of the wealthier class, get groomed for high office or executive positions, they rarely deserve or do well at. That’s what America has become.
Want to fix it? Stop electing political candidates, chosen by huge, corporate financed parties. And investing in corporations, run by boards of family dynasties. We’ve put too much of our faith, in the wealthy class, to do the right thing for the rest of us. When they’re more likely just thinking of what’s good for themselves. And we should be happy to be along for the ride.
How does this fix the public schools? Well the politicians always talk of better funding, and equipping these schools. But they never seem to get around to doing it. And cut funding every chance they get. And perhaps if they weren’t so worried that there won’t be enough graduates, to fight in some war. They wouldn’t be keeping the trouble makers in with the rest of the students. It’s almost like they’re afraid decent kids will turn out too peace loving. So they keep the bad apple in, to rotten them all up a bit. England has had the same love affair with the “school bully”, tempering the rest.
Our society requires you to have a little piece of paper signed by the dean of your school in order to get a decent job. Doesn’t matter what you do (or don’t) know.
#30 Ghost
Absolutely! Stupid system to classify people in their appropriate social caste. If mom and dad are rich you go to a ‘good’ school and get a ‘good’ job. Or if you’re amazing, and get enough encouragement at home, you ‘might’ earn a scholarship. Then again you could get student loans, or you could work through school. But obviously it’s all a lot easier if your family is rich.
OTOH if you’re lucky enough to be able to afford higher education, you’ll have 20 years in schools. How long are you going to live? How much time are you willing or able to spend in this way.
Screw the system, dare to be a loser. Get off that exercise wheel little lab rat and be free! Or, in the words of the great Dr. Timothy Leary – tune in, turn on, drop out.
education should expose you to different points of view, not reinforce what you *think* you already know (there is a lot of arrogance on display here, much of it likely unwarranted). we often learn the most from other people and their ideas, even when they may not be as intelligent as ourselves. we’ve already seen what happens when people choose news coverage to match their own biases and opinions. what would happen if education worked the same way? this is, frankly, a stupid idea, and i look forward to the inevitable failure of home schooling as a movement, if not as an individual choice.
#31–amodedoma==Ha, ha. I recall coming home and complaining to dear old Dad that school was boring and a waste of time. After telling me for the 40000 time that “Boredom was the product of a dull mind” and “Your job is to learn in spite of the school” he said: “Life is a rat’s maze, learn to run it faster than the other rats.”
And I did. More Cheese.
#33 bobbo
Wow, personal anectdote, thank you! My dad, made no effort to encourage my education, couldn’t afford to. This was not an obstacle in pursuing my proffesional ambitions, or intellectual curiosity. I’ve never had much taste for cheese and have a thorough distrust of the guys in white lab coats. Big surprise, eh?
I think they should steer the smart kids toward the community colleges. I know a kid who got a associates degree before he graduated from high school.
If I could go back, I would take summer school classes to graduate early. I hated high school.
If smart kids do that they only end up like Bobbo and the many fanatics here. Discussions worth diddly squat because they read it on the internet hahhaha
Sounds like homeschooling.
From The Terminal Man.
Dr. Ellis responds to reporter “We’re trying to correct that violent behavior with surgery. I don’t think that’s a despicable thing. I think it’s a noble goal and an important goal.”
“But isn’t that mind control?”
Ellis said “What do you call compulsory education through high school?”
People wanted accountability so we got the tests. Now the tests can be thirty percent or more of a teacher’s evaluation which occurs annually. If those scores fall to low the teacher will be fired. Now many of you are complaining that the teachers are focusing on the tests to the exclusion of all else.
You guys wrote the rules. If you don’t like them change them. Teachers work for you and they do what you tell them to do. Don’t blame the system for doing what you said you wanted it to do.
Who understands that 90% of education is information that CHANGES very little.
History, science and parts of Math change.
reading dont,
Writing dont,
90% of history dont change, only the last 20 years fluctuate.
Arithmetic..dont change.
So, why dont we use the best formats to TEACH our kids?
Politics
religious groups
GRAFT..
WHO is incharge of what and HOW our kids are learning?
According to some sources, its TEXAS..