Excellent points all, but let's face facts. American schools are warehouse, babysitting factories masquerading as educational institutions. What little education is doled out has morphed into indoctrination over the past generation or so. It's not about learning what will help a student be competitive in an increasingly combative global economy. It's about learning what will create reliably compliant Republican Christian soldiers who will do what they're told without question. The oligarchy will need a constant supply of obedient workers who know their place, and that training starts in school. Independent, critical thinking is seen as a threat to the existing order.
I was good at school simply because I was good at memorizing all that shit. But I hated it, too! I loathed standardized testing, what a piece of crap. My SAT indicated I needed basic English in college, but then I aced the college course when I took it.
I pretty much loathed school...especially the getting up early part. Hah! Tenth grade was the only year I liked and respected the atmosphere. Out of all my school years (including university) there's only a handful of teachers I remember as being very good at what they did. I realize they can't all be stimulating AND instructive but, jeez, at least *try* to use some creativity and not just rote instruction........
In some respects, I was the ideal student: quiet, frankly catastrophically shy; the one others turned to for recreational humiliation. High school, at least, was not the daily horror show of Junior High. I graduated in June 1975 (for those uncertain of the history, Saigon fell in April of that year) and went into the army one week later. My intention was to make as absolute a break with my past as I was able. I succeeded and failed. It really was as absolute a break with my past as I was able, and it proved to be hardly any break at all.
"birth-control glasses" -- I almost peed myself laughing with that one.
Though I've lost the citation, criticisms of standardized testing go back at least as far as the 19th C. So this shit is not new.
Some people like to blame contemporary educational ills on John Dewey, but that's akin to blaming neo-Fascist 'Christian' dominionists on Jesus: They never read a single damned thing he said or taught. To get some idea of just how far from Dewey's educational philosophy we -- well, we haven't "strayed," since we were never there in the first place -- a few of these key texts are well worth the reading.
Another excellent article Stacey. Everything you've noted is agonizingly accurate. I'd heard of how Finland does public education before, but never the details you've provided. It's my understanding that pretty much all the Scandinavian countries are similar to Finland and have similar outcomes. What we do here in the States is to use public schools, and students, as profit centers for connected legislators and companies who run the exams. But even this state of affairs isn't good enough for Right-Wingers. They want ALL schools to be privatized to wring even more money out of the public. It's a damn shame that what we're left with here is a choice between schools being used to profit lawmakers and the companies that administer tests, or schools fully privatized that would turn even more profits, cost you more out of pocket, and with the disadvantage of being able to turn away those that they don't like; Finland is a paradise to envy.
Excellent points all, but let's face facts. American schools are warehouse, babysitting factories masquerading as educational institutions. What little education is doled out has morphed into indoctrination over the past generation or so. It's not about learning what will help a student be competitive in an increasingly combative global economy. It's about learning what will create reliably compliant Republican Christian soldiers who will do what they're told without question. The oligarchy will need a constant supply of obedient workers who know their place, and that training starts in school. Independent, critical thinking is seen as a threat to the existing order.
I was good at school simply because I was good at memorizing all that shit. But I hated it, too! I loathed standardized testing, what a piece of crap. My SAT indicated I needed basic English in college, but then I aced the college course when I took it.
I pretty much loathed school...especially the getting up early part. Hah! Tenth grade was the only year I liked and respected the atmosphere. Out of all my school years (including university) there's only a handful of teachers I remember as being very good at what they did. I realize they can't all be stimulating AND instructive but, jeez, at least *try* to use some creativity and not just rote instruction........
In some respects, I was the ideal student: quiet, frankly catastrophically shy; the one others turned to for recreational humiliation. High school, at least, was not the daily horror show of Junior High. I graduated in June 1975 (for those uncertain of the history, Saigon fell in April of that year) and went into the army one week later. My intention was to make as absolute a break with my past as I was able. I succeeded and failed. It really was as absolute a break with my past as I was able, and it proved to be hardly any break at all.
"birth-control glasses" -- I almost peed myself laughing with that one.
Though I've lost the citation, criticisms of standardized testing go back at least as far as the 19th C. So this shit is not new.
Some people like to blame contemporary educational ills on John Dewey, but that's akin to blaming neo-Fascist 'Christian' dominionists on Jesus: They never read a single damned thing he said or taught. To get some idea of just how far from Dewey's educational philosophy we -- well, we haven't "strayed," since we were never there in the first place -- a few of these key texts are well worth the reading.
'Democracy and Education':
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/852
& the earlier 'The School and Society':
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53910
Since they are free for the download, none of y'all get to complain that you don't have the money for more books.
Another excellent article Stacey. Everything you've noted is agonizingly accurate. I'd heard of how Finland does public education before, but never the details you've provided. It's my understanding that pretty much all the Scandinavian countries are similar to Finland and have similar outcomes. What we do here in the States is to use public schools, and students, as profit centers for connected legislators and companies who run the exams. But even this state of affairs isn't good enough for Right-Wingers. They want ALL schools to be privatized to wring even more money out of the public. It's a damn shame that what we're left with here is a choice between schools being used to profit lawmakers and the companies that administer tests, or schools fully privatized that would turn even more profits, cost you more out of pocket, and with the disadvantage of being able to turn away those that they don't like; Finland is a paradise to envy.