West Virginia moves in the Right Direction on Schools

[Bear Ribs]

Why all this hemming and hawing over new ways to learn. We can look at other nations that score well on tests like Japan and just copy that it will be cheaper and faster than making some new unconventional method.

Actually schools probably aren't the place to start, but culture and home. The single most important factor in a student's success is parental involvement. Having the parents actively involved and participating in their child's development will outshine any income discrepancy, budget, quality of school, all of it. A campaign to get parents involved in education would do more than any amount of pouring extra cash into the firepit that is the educational system bureaucracy. Unfortunately it tends to be politically unpalatable and sometimes infeasible.

Part of the reason Japan does so well is because as soon as she's married, any woman is fired/quits. It's expected that all women with children are home-makers and this allows for a higher level of parent involvement in their child's education. Unfortunately this custom also has some pretty nasty knock-on effects and is linked directly to Japan's super-low birthrate, turns out women don't want to lose all possibility of a career permanently as soon as they start a family, so they don't start families.

 

[Captain X]

Also they are even worse workoholics than we are, and that starts pretty early in their schooling even. Apparently they have to start planning out their careers in middle school in order to make sure they get the right education for it, and they have entrance exams for high school the way we have them for universities here. Also, education there seems to be more focused on factoid-based learning, kind of like how we worry about "teaching for the test" here when it comes to all those standardized tests that are only meant for evaluation anyway.

 

[Arlos]

Japanese schooling is pure cramming, very little is about how to think critically/methodology, that’s why they sucks at english, it’s hard to learn a languages trough pure cramming.

Part of the reason Japan does so well is because as soon as she's married, any woman is fired/quits. It's expected that all women with children are home-makers and this allows for a higher level of parent involvement in their child's education. Unfortunately this custom also has some pretty nasty knock-on effects and is linked directly to Japan's super-low birthrate, turns out women don't want to lose all possibility of a career permanently as soon as they start a family, so they don't start families.

Do you have any sources on this?
I actually heard that it was the opposite while in Tokyo, most women don’t actually want to work if they can avoid it, since they got to manage the household finance anyways even if they don’t work and working in Japan nowadays pretty much mean you’ll work yourself to death somewhere along the way, the government has been pushing them into the workplace in recent years to make up for the fact that their workforce is shrinking, but it was in no way an organic movement.

Sorry for the derail in advance.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Homeschool is best school.

 

[ATP]

Public school is old prussian heritage,made not to learn anything except obeing state and being good cannonfodder or other tool.It never served children or families,only state.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Why all this hemming and hawing over new ways to learn. We can look at other nations that score well on tests like Japan and just copy that it will be cheaper and faster than making some new unconventional method.

One, because being overly focused on standardized test scores is a big part of what built the mess in the first place.

Two, because the Japanese system is built around Japanese culture, whose values are in many important ways *antithetical* to American values and thus should not be emulated regardless of results.

Three, because the Japanese system produces a significant *schoolchild suicide rate*, which is an even worse failure state than academic underperformance. As such, Japan should be considered a huge example of what NOT to do.

 

[King Arts]

Also they are even worse workoholics than we are, and that starts pretty early in their schooling even. Apparently they have to start planning out their careers in middle school in order to make sure they get the right education for it, and they have entrance exams for high school the way we have them for universities here. Also, education there seems to be more focused on factoid-based learning, kind of like how we worry about "teaching for the test" here when it comes to all those standardized tests that are only meant for evaluation anyway.

There is nothing wrong with teaching for the test. Most of schooling is unnecessary for most jobs, the test is to show that a person can learn the material if they forget it after it's ok, as long as it's not something important that they actually need for their job.

Japanese schooling is pure cramming, very little is about how to think critically/methodology, that’s why they sucks at english, it’s hard to learn a languages trough pure cramming.


Do you have any sources on this?
I actually heard that it was the opposite while in Tokyo, most women don’t actually want to work if they can avoid it, since they got to manage the household finance anyways even if they don’t work and working in Japan nowadays pretty much mean you’ll work yourself to death somewhere along the way, the government has been pushing them into the workplace in recent years to make up for the fact that their workforce is shrinking, but it was in no way an organic movement.

Sorry for the derail in advance.

Fuck no, this right here is pure wrong. Trying to teach "critical thinking" is a big reason our school campuses are getting fucked with critical theory and other SJW woke nonesense. Just teach children facts, about math, about history. Stop trying to inject ideology when American conservatives are idiots at passing their values to the next generation.

Public school is old prussian heritage,made not to learn anything except obeing state and being good cannonfodder or other tool.It never served children or families,only state.

This is the kind of mindset that will lead to failure. Unless you are an accelerationist and think that America should be nuked to hell, and we should all just have small homesteads and villages then a public school system is neccesary.

One, because being overly focused on standardized test scores is a big part of what built the mess in the first place.

Two, because the Japanese system is built around Japanese culture, whose values are in many important ways *antithetical* to American values and thus should not be emulated regardless of results.

Three, because the Japanese system produces a significant *schoolchild suicide rate*, which is an even worse failure state than academic underperformance. As such, Japan should be considered a huge example of what NOT to do.

One I disagree standardized test scores aren't what caused the mess, they simply show that American kids suck compared to other nations.

Two there can be adjustments to complement local culture such as not having ridiculous cramming and such. But if the values are retarded then throw those values away.

Three Japanese society has a higher suicide rate than other nations for a host of reasons including not seeing suicide as a sin, the overwork, and alienation. Can you prove that traditional teaching methods and focusing on tests is what causes a huge increase in suicides?

 

[Abhishekm]

Still don't get peoples obsession with the idea schools are supposed to teach 'moral values' or 'social ideals'. I mean I get the whole institutions interested in instilling national/institutional doctrine thing.

But is it just that most here aren't parents from what I know or would you guys honestly be fine with a independently selected third party having more of a say in what morals your kid grows up with than you do?

Like are parents in the west really that laise fair about not explaining to their kids not to take their teachers drivel too seriously when its not about actual school work or learning hard facts?

I get the whole 'Teach them how to Learn' thing sounds nice and in an ideal world it would be. But do people honestly trust the fuckups that makeup the teaching staff now to control that?

If they fail when all they control is 'what they learn at school' do you really want to hand over the 'how' they understanding going about learning itself?

Edit: Off topic for this thread now I think so bringing it back on point.
The actual effectiveness of charter schools as a whole and the merits of individual ones aside. Is instilling atleast the added potential for parents being able to choose the best choice fo their child that bad?

All this in the end does is link state funding to the child instead of just whatever family is closest geographically at some arbitrary point in time right? Nothing says they can't stay in public school if theirs is decent or the best option for them. Parents just have more control of the funding tagged to their child now as opposed to it going to a certain body by default regardless of their wishes right?

 

[Captain X]

There is nothing wrong with teaching for the test. Most of schooling is unnecessary for most jobs, the test is to show that a person can learn the material if they forget it after it's ok, as long as it's not something important that they actually need for their job.

The ones I'm talking about are just attempts at tracking how well the schools and teachers are doing.

Fuck no, this right here is pure wrong. Trying to teach "critical thinking" is a big reason our school campuses are getting fucked with critical theory and other SJW woke nonesense. Just teach children facts, about math, about history. Stop trying to inject ideology when American conservatives are idiots at passing their values to the next generation.

Actually I'd say our problem is the opposite of that, as leftist indoctrination is based on what the Soviets were about, which was having your students just look up the "correct" answer and regurgitate it. The closest SJWs get to critical thinking is Marxist-based "critical race theory." They are taught to not think for themselves.

 

[King Arts]

The ones I'm talking about are just attempts at tracking how well the schools and teachers are doing.

How do you measure how good a school is? The way it's usually done, and the cheapest and fastest method is looking at test scores, schools that are considered "good" usually have more students getting higher numbers on the tests. While bad schools usually have low test scores.

Actually I'd say our problem is the opposite of that, as leftist indoctrination is based on what the Soviets were about, which was having your students just look up the "correct" answer and regurgitate it. The closest SJWs get to critical thinking is Marxist-based "critical race theory." They are taught to not think for themselves.

There is a very fine line between education and indoctrination. You do know that. The best way to avoid indoctrination and bias is by sticking merely to facts 2+2=4, George Washington was the first president of the U.S. as opposed to The British EMPIRE were oppressing the colonies and our heroic founding fathers had to fight for liberty against tyranny.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Fuck no, this right here is pure wrong. Trying to teach "critical thinking" is a big reason our school campuses are getting fucked with critical theory and other SJW woke nonesense. Just teach children facts, about math, about history. Stop trying to inject ideology when American conservatives are idiots at passing their values to the next generation.

Actually kids aren't being taught real critical thinking at all. They are being taught "What to think" not "how to think" not to be one of those "dirty white supremacist" but Archimedes was able to create his famous screw when he observed the pattern in which water naturally flowed downward and realized that if you can find a way to reverse it it's possible to transfer water just about anywhere Trial and error later and you end up with the Archimedes' screw and this was before any of these so called formulas. Compare and contrast that to these kids who are having formula's stuffed into their heads from the age of five and yet they can't remotely count change. lot a good that cramming has done.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Japanese schooling is pure cramming, very little is about how to think critically/methodology, that’s why they sucks at english, it’s hard to learn a languages trough pure cramming.


Do you have any sources on this?
I actually heard that it was the opposite while in Tokyo, most women don’t actually want to work if they can avoid it, since they got to manage the household finance anyways even if they don’t work and working in Japan nowadays pretty much mean you’ll work yourself to death somewhere along the way, the government has been pushing them into the workplace in recent years to make up for the fact that their workforce is shrinking, but it was in no way an organic movement.

Sorry for the derail in advance.

Get married, quit work: Similarities between Japanese and Indian women

People tend to be surprised when I mention how many similarities I find between the Indian and the Japanese woman. Namely, what strikes me is the parallel between Japanese and Indian culture where it is...

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

33% of Japanese think marriage is pointless: survey

Go to college, get a job, meet a guy or girl, and…don’t get married? A recent survey suggests that almost one-third of Japanese people just can’t see the point in tying the knot and settling down. And after you see what some of them have to say about marriage, you…

japantoday.com

Japan: The worst developed country for working mothers?

In Japan, for a range of reasons, a woman who has had children has a hard time getting a good job.

www.bbc.com

One, because being overly focused on standardized test scores is a big part of what built the mess in the first place.

On the one hand I'm not fond of standardized tests as they're used now, on the other hand I do feel there needs to be a way to compare students across the board and tell how well a district/school/teacher is doing. If kids are getting 4.0 grades while unable to spell the word potato or do basic arithmetic there needs to be a way for other people to know, and fix it.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Why all this hemming and hawing over new ways to learn. We can look at other nations that score well on tests like Japan and just copy that it will be cheaper and faster than making some new unconventional method.

There's an element of reinventing the wheel with a lot of education stuff, but I don't think just copying what someone else does will work either (or at least, it won't be that easy). What works in one country and culture might not work elsewhere, or will need adaptions to make it work better elsewhere.

 

[ParadiseLost]

Homeschool is best school.

Unironically, homeschoolers perform substantially better in college.

Fuck no, this right here is pure wrong. Trying to teach "critical thinking" is a big reason our school campuses are getting fucked with critical theory and other SJW woke nonesense. Just teach children facts, about math, about history. Stop trying to inject ideology when American conservatives are idiots at passing their values to the next generation.

Critical thinking is what people actually do for a living. Critical theory has utterly nothing to do with critical thinking and you're revealing an incredible amount of ignorance by thinking they are linked at all.

*

Japan is a failing state due to abysmal birthrates and child suicide issues and shouldn't be copied.

*

Anyway, if you're really concerned about your kids learning and intelligence, just don't let them watch much TV until their like 10-12 and give them lots of books, especially difficult books. The best thing you could probably do for a kids mental development is have them reading the KJV Bible, the LOTR, 18th century literature, et cetera by the time they are 10, whether they like it or not.

They still might not do well academically due to laziness, but I don't know anyone who was reading Charles Dickens at 10 who isn't significantly brighter than average.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Still don't get peoples obsession with the idea schools are supposed to teach 'moral values' or 'social ideals'. I mean I get the whole institutions interested in instilling national/institutional doctrine thing.

But is it just that most here aren't parents from what I know or would you guys honestly be fine with a independently selected third party having more of a say in what morals your kid grows up with than you do?

Like are parents in the west really that laise fair about not explaining to their kids not to take their teachers drivel too seriously when its not about actual school work or learning hard facts?

I get the whole 'Teach them how to Learn' thing sounds nice and in an ideal world it would be. But do people honestly trust the fuckups that makeup the teaching staff now to control that?

If they fail when all they control is 'what they learn at school' do you really want to hand over the 'how' they understanding going about learning itself?

Schools should teach some of that social moral stuff, just because you can't assume all parents will do so and it's important to know. Schools are there to supplement parents, not replace them, but for some people they will end up being the only source of information.

Is having a school system with it's own entrenched biases as the only source of education about civics and how government works a good thing? Not really, no. But they're probably a better source than Jon Stewart and twitter, which is were a lot of kids were taught in the absence of a school program and caring parents.

There is a very fine line between education and indoctrination. You do know that. The best way to avoid indoctrination and bias is by sticking merely to facts 2+2=4, George Washington was the first president of the U.S. as opposed to The British EMPIRE were oppressing the colonies and our heroic founding fathers had to fight for liberty against tyranny.

You can use pure facts to teach math, and related stem fields like biology, chemistry, etc. The problem is, most of what you learn in school from those classes is useless once you gradate, at best you might have retained some understanding of the scientific method. Things like history, writing, civics, etc, cannot just be taught as a dry series of facts divorced from any sort of interpretive context (both in the sense of "some things can't just be boiled down The Facts" and in the sense that just cramming facts into people's heads doesn't really work, people don't retain that information).

 

[LordSunhawk]

OK, I'm going to speak of my own experiences here, back in the late 80's (so dated, but still interesting)

When I was in 8th grade my family moved from New Jersey (which then and now has one of the best public school systems in the country) to Arizona (where public schools, to put it bluntly, suck donkey balls).

In New Jersey, in 8th Grade, every single student was expected to be taking pre-algebra, with advanced students taking full up algebra mixed with geometry. Calculators were banned, all work had to be done by hand and we had been required since 5th grade to show all of our work by hand.

In Arizona in 8th grade, in the advanced math class, they were just then (second semester of 8th grade) starting on... adding and subtracting fractions. And students were required to use calculators to do this. We had been doing this in NJ in *5th* Grade, by hand, and when I proceeded to breeze through the in-class assignment without touching the calculator the teacher pointedly placed on my desk I was yelled at by the teacher for not using the calculator, she wouldn't even look at the answers because I 'did it wrong' by not using the calculator.

In New Jersey, in 8th Grade, every single student was required for our English class to turn in a 5 page paper on the book we were reading *that week* every week, the paper had to be typed, and we were expected to properly reference the book in question in MLA format. And these were *not* young adult books. The weekly readings were from an anthology of short stories that included works from multiple famous and influential authors. For each quarter we were assigned a 'major work', in the first semester of 8th grade we read Moby Dick and The Red Badge of Courage. I'll note that 7th grade we did Shakespeare's plays.

In Arizona, in 8th Grade, the *advanced* English class was... reading a young adult book I've completely forgotten about for the entire semester, with a single 8 page paper due at the end of the semester. In between we spent most of our time watching movies in class (mostly movie versions of Broadway plays) and 'discussing' them, with no written work required.

In New Jersey, in 8th Grade, the History class I was in was engaged in an in-depth study of the causes, battles, and consequences of the Civil War during the first semester. If I'd stayed there the 2nd semester would have been an equally in depth study of the labor movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 7th grade we'd studied the Revolutionary War, including field trips to the historical monument in Morristown and an extended field trip to Valley Forge.

In Arizona, in 8th Grade, the instructor had us reading from a woefully inadequate history text that had been published in the 1960s, was riddled with blatant errors, and was utterly boring and inadequate. In my first class there, the 'teacher' noticed me shaking my head at some of the inanities and decided to 'put the new kid in his place' and sneered that if I thought I knew better that I should stand up and give the lecture. Considering that in NJ that was a regular thing for all students, being required to study a topic and give in-class presentations for entire periods, I stood up and gave the same one I'd given just a few months before. He was *not* amused and I got detention for that one.

In short, in New Jersey, students were challenged to rise to the expectations given them and pushed into doing so, in Arizona the expectations were lowest-common-denominator and the teachers couldn't be bothered to actually, you know, teach. In New Jersey they started with the assumption that the kids would learn and were perfectly capable of doing the work. In Arizona they started with the assumption that the kids were dumbshits who couldn't be bothered to learn and just had to be kept entertained.

Lately in AZ we've had campaign after campaign for ballot propositions to raise funding for schools. Tax increase after tax increase, to increase the amount of money spent in the classrooms to improve our schools.

After 5 rounds of this farce? The raw 'per student' numbers are way up, but almost none of the money is in the classroom, 90%+ of it is diverted to administrators, infrastructure, and 'programs', generally 'diversity' programs. None of it is spent on actual teachers or students, and they keep on coming back for more.

And they still bring students into school with the expectation that they don't want to learn and can't learn and must never be challenged to learn.

And thus generation after generation fails.

 

[ParadiseLost]

In New Jersey, in 8th Grade, every single student was expected to be taking pre-algebra, with advanced students taking full up algebra mixed with geometry. Calculators were banned, all work had to be done by hand and we had been required since 5th grade to show all of our work by hand.

In New Jersey, in 8th Grade, every single student was required for our English class to turn in a 5 page paper on the book we were reading *that week* every week, the paper had to be typed, and we were expected to properly reference the book in question in MLA format. And these were *not* young adult books. The weekly readings were from an anthology of short stories that included works from multiple famous and influential authors. For each quarter we were assigned a 'major work', in the first semester of 8th grade we read Moby Dick and The Red Badge of Courage. I'll note that 7th grade we did Shakespeare's plays.

In New Jersey, in 8th Grade, the History class I was in was engaged in an in-depth study of the causes, battles, and consequences of the Civil War during the first semester. If I'd stayed there the 2nd semester would have been an equally in depth study of the labor movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 7th grade we'd studied the Revolutionary War, including field trips to the historical monument in Morristown and an extended field trip to Valley Forge.

In short, in New Jersey, students were challenged to rise to the expectations given them and pushed into doing so, in Arizona the expectations were lowest-common-denominator and the teachers couldn't be bothered to actually, you know, teach. In New Jersey they started with the assumption that the kids would learn and were perfectly capable of doing the work. In Arizona they started with the assumption that the kids were dumbshits who couldn't be bothered to learn and just had to be kept entertained.

I can absolutely 100% guarantee you that your experiences in NJ were extremely abnormal.

Also, banning calculators doesn't make people better learners; its just inefficient. There's no reason to waste students time on performing calculations beyond what is necessary. After you've done 1,000 large division problems, do you really need to spend the time doing 598643/335 again?

Sure, students should absolutely do problems they aren't familiar with by hand, but banning calculators is just ridiculous.

Similar thing with writing a 5 page paper every week. Goodness gracious, what a waste of time.

They only do a single part of history each year? How do they make sure you know all the knowledge you should know if the history classes are so topical? Having a broad understanding of history is more important to the average person than having significant depth in a single section.



I would consider both of those schools bad. The habit of schools adapting a busywork philosophy (which your NJ school definitely did) is just as bad as schools adapting a daycare philosophy in my opinion.

 

[Yinko]

Why all this hemming and hawing over new ways to learn. We can look at other nations that score well on tests like Japan and just copy that it will be cheaper and faster than making some new unconventional method.

Mainly, because non-western countries either cheat or teach to the test. The surprisingly good scores of developing countries is because they generally only allow their very best students to have their scores published. In the cases of places with a bit more honesty, like Korea and Japan, they are aiming for cramming in a huge amount of rote information. If the function of education is to provide a basis for understanding so that you can think independently, they fail. Not that we do such a great job either, but the effects are often pretty noticeable when you look at the rate and quality of research literature that gets published from these places.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Also, banning calculators doesn't make people better learners; its just inefficient. There's no reason to waste students time on performing calculations beyond what is necessary. After you've done 1,000 large division problems, do you really need to spend the time doing 598643/335 again?

The role of calculators in elementary school mathematics remains pretty bitterly controversial among both teachers and people with Ideas(tm) about education.

The anti-calculator camp argues that students internalize the elementary principles of mathematics better when they are required to memorize times tables and carry out computations by hand, especially long division.

The pro-calculator camp argues that rote memorization does not actually promote actual understanding of mathematics and that hand computation is wasteful and inefficient.

My own opinion, based on my experience as a student, a private tutor, and a teacher's aide, is that hand computation is worthwhile at the early elementary school level but that calculator usage should be phased in *no later than* middle school. Once long division has been mastered, there is no sense in hand computations. However, full-fledged computer algebra systems like the Ti-89 should not be permitted until calculus, following the same principle of "learn by hand, calculate afterwards".

 

[lordmcdeath]

The problems I have always had with school choice are logistical.

1) How do we get the children to schools? (Public Schools generally support busing)
2) If we are going to have competition we need some sort of standards for objective comparison.
3) Plans/requirements to avoid mid-term failure, and making sure that there are backup plans for any school that looks shaky.
4) Special Needs, how do we handle them?

I personally wish we could handle schooling like the JQS, you master skills and demonstrate knowledge and you get access to more information and training until you hit year twelve.