Poll: 80% of what you learn in school is useless?

[Lyx]

I find some responses in this thread amusingly ignorant. For example, a lot of people use that word "learning" when school ratings by 90% depend on plain stupid memorization - in place of a schoolar, you could place a scanner, printer and a voice recorder, and it would get top marks.

Which brings me to the next complete failure: People have repeatedly stated that school is there to teach general things that one can use everywhere in life. They fail to mention that schools not only not do that, but actually DISCOURAGE exactly that.

An intuitive understanding of how stuff works is neither taught, nor does it get you any benefits in ratings - in fact, you'll actually often get punished for an intuitive understanding, because "unwanted" but actually valid answers are treated as errors, and in general tests expect that you output specific memorized data - you can come up all day with your own description, as long as you do not also output exactly "what was told in classes", you answer will be treated as false.

Actual communication and dialogue in classes too isn't much better.... teachers and zombie-classmates are annoyed if you ask questions and are interested in aspects which aren't "on the plan for today". Oh, and did i mention already that the most generic and everywhere-applicable thing of all - basic logics - isn't taught AT ALL? Seriously, that people are taught maths, but not logics, in school, pretty much tells you what school is about.

Schools are there to input practically mostly useless blueprints into work-robots, so that they may later output it when needed, and to introduce you to everything that is wrong with how society works. Perhaps the most useful thing that schools do, is to make you better at trivial pursuit >.>

 

[Lyx]

Oh wow, so now algebra plus perhaps writing and reading justifies what schools are? 8 or more years just for that? And besides: More advanced algebra isn't even needed on most areas of life - a good understanding about the basics will get your everywhere except of math-heavy jobs.

 

[rokkolpo]

most will be forgotton or never used. so yeah sounds about right.

 

[Ken Sapp]

Why do people insist that the public school system is broken? I see no problem with it.

Because it is. When a significant portion of the students graduating from High school are functionally illiterate and unable to do basic math without the aid of a calculator then we can surmise that the education system has failed to achieve it's primary goal and is therefore broken.

Right now, your argument is fallacious. What about the system is broken? Where does if fail?

Let us start with the most basic goals of the education system. At the most basic level the purpose of the public schools is to ensure that any student that graduates shall be able to perform arithmetic and be functionally literate (able to read and write the language of the land). On that basis there are are far too many people walking around with High School Diplomas who are functionally illiterate (unable to spell correctly or write grammatically correct sentences and paragraphs) in addition to the ones who are actually illiterate. Also there are far too many people walking around who are unable to perform basic arithmetic without the aid of a calculator.

 

[Ken Sapp]

snip

I agree with alot of your ideas except for compulsory education. It should be compulsory through Middle school/Jr High otherwise there are far too many children who would not receive even a basic education. However by the time they are entering High school most have reached a point where they are either going to learn or not and compulsory education for those who don't want to be there only serves to harm the ones who do want to learn.

 

[Girl With One Eye]

I don't think they teach enough of other stuff we need to learn, like how to manage our personal finances, how to make friendships, body confidence and other issues that we only really learn ourselves.

 

[AlexMitu]

The thing is what you actually use and what you don't that you learn in school varies from person to person because of interests and whatnot. The guy on my left might be fascinated with science and want to be taught everything the teacher knows about it, while the guy on my right might be wishing that every science class could be canceled, because he finds it a big waste of time.

So because of this, they have to teach you everything, regardless of what YOU will actually use.

 

[Escape_Artist]

I would say that alot of what you learn in earlier levels of school such as high school would be useless. Sometimes teachers finish teaching a method to solve a problem and then say "ok, now I'm going to teach you a much faster and overall better method to do this" so I'm left thinking "wtf was the point of that first method then". In that situation it is kinda stupid however some stuff you learn that's essentially useless can just be plain awsome. Nothing comes to mind at the moment but I'm sure you get the point. In the end, unless you somehow manage to only learn what you exactly need for your future career, alot of the stuff you learn is unnecessary. Once you go to post-secondary school, chances are that what you are learning is useful because you're taking those specific courses in that area of study in order to make a career out of it but that's beside the point. Ooh, I just thought of one. The doppler effect. No? Oh well.

 

[Bocaj2000]

Why do people insist that the public school system is broken? I see no problem with it.

Because it is. When a significant portion of the students graduating from High school are functionally illiterate and unable to do basic math without the aid of a calculator then we can surmise that the education system has failed to achieve it's primary goal and is therefore broken.

Right now, your argument is fallacious. What about the system is broken? Where does if fail?

It's failed in that the teachers aren't doing enough to make sure you can, say multiply 6 and 13 in your head. That's really basic, and easy to test (no calculators on a concept test). However, teachers don't appear to actually care, as these things aren't being strengthened.

Besides, he was only saying that your statement was false and gave a reason. That's valid.

If the teacher doesn't care, then that's an issue with the teacher. My teachers were approachable and helped me when I asked for it.

Also, he gave an argument by generalization which made his argument fallacious.

Why do people insist that the public school system is broken? I see no problem with it.

Because it is. When a significant portion of the students graduating from High school are functionally illiterate and unable to do basic math without the aid of a calculator then we can surmise that the education system has failed to achieve it's primary goal and is therefore broken.

Right now, your argument is fallacious. What about the system is broken? Where does if fail?

snipo

Maybe the problem isn't the system, but the people in it. If a child doesn't give a shit if he or she can do math, is that the teacher's fault? If a child doesn't want to read, is that the fault of the system? I believe that it's the fault of their environment. In this case, it is socially acceptable to use a calculator on simple algebra; it was heavily frowned upon in the '90s and was considered cheating but a lot of that changed.

 

[CrazyMedic]

we need to do that thing that school in Oklahoma(I think) where they give a student a cheap bottom of the line labtop(if person in the us gave 2 dollars more every school could afford it) and they learn with video games I don't know exactly how it works but I know their gpa is higher then average and most of the kids said the worst part was having to stop for the summer.

 

[Dastardly]

3) People have a tendency to overemphasize the perceived "failings" of public schools, while underemphasizing the overall impact those schools had on them. Basically, it's the classic "self-serving bias"--take credit for all of the good things as though you just always had those skills, while blasting the school system for all the things you feel were mistakes.

I disagree. While I do think most of what I "got" out of school were the abstract and practical things you mentioned, I only got them because I was fortunate enough to win the good teachers with my test scores, or more often because I determinedly went off on my own to gain them, sometimes against the active discouragement of my teachers. But I've had classes with the... proletariat as it were. It's a zoo. The teachers might as well be baby sitters. The students are either completely disinterested or insist everything be handed straight to them on a plate. No one in the room is interested in thinking. About anything. It's not always like that all the time, but it is the case far, far too often.

I don't disagree with what you're saying about students. This is not evidence of a "failed public school system," however. It's evidence of a miraculously effective school system that is still at least PARTIALLY able to serve a failed PUBLIC.

By the time a kid is 18, he has spent around 12% of his life in school. That's it. And it's not like all 12% is with the same teacher, either. It includes time at lunch, recess, bathroom, and locker, even. Each teacher is getting a fraction of a percent of the kid's life... and yet as teachers, they are somehow held responsible for 100% of the child's learning.

The fact that even SOME of these kids move on to be functional adults is a sign that our public schools are doing WONDROUSLY because of the teachers on the front lines doing the job. That is to say, doing their own job AND making up for the by-and-large failure of a great many parents to actually DO any parenting.

People love to talk about how America's schools are so far behind Country X or Nation Y. They fail to realize that even a perfect engine can't run on bad fuel. Other countries don't have to put up with the same stuff--they can just put the kid out, and now his low performance doesn't show up on the composite. They handpick who they will and won't test, whereas we have to test EVERY kid---even that 13-year-old boy who can't put his pants on right, but is still somehow in the 7th grade taking a test on persuasive writing. We're not allowed to tell him he can't be an astronaut ninja quarterback, so his test scores get to pull down the average.

(Note, I'm not necessarily saying we should cut the kid. I'm just saying it means that comparisons to other nations' scores are disingenuous, as we know full well they're not collected in remotely similar ways.)

Public SCHOOL SYSTEM? Doing the best it damn well can.
Public AT LARGE? Complete failure to parent.

 

[Shivarage]

I kinda meant an actual cone in the context of reality =P

Ah, that's even easier. How much icecream can I shovel into a cone before it leaks over the side.

yes, cause you totally measure your ice cream down to the mm squared xD

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

I think that the majority of stuff is, but not quite that number.
This year I'm taking a lot of useful classes, with the exception of geology, so I can't say this about 'em.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I kinda meant an actual cone in the context of reality =P

Ah, that's even easier. How much icecream can I shovel into a cone before it leaks over the side.

yes, cause you totally measure your ice cream down to the mm squared xD

If it's my good icecream, it'd be down to the nm cubed.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Well, the useless stuff is probably to improve the way your brain works and to teach you how to remember big bulks of information.

 

[Shivarage]

I kinda meant an actual cone in the context of reality =P

Ah, that's even easier. How much icecream can I shovel into a cone before it leaks over the side.

yes, cause you totally measure your ice cream down to the mm squared xD

If it's my good icecream, it'd be down to the nm cubed.

You mean the mm cubed =P

 

[Shivarage]

I kinda meant an actual cone in the context of reality =P

Ah, that's even easier. How much icecream can I shovel into a cone before it leaks over the side.

yes, cause you totally measure your ice cream down to the mm squared xD

If it's my good icecream, it'd be down to the nm cubed.

You mean the mm cubed =P

 

[Jfswift]

Honestly, I don't feel that the subject matter was useless. Every class taught me something that can be applied to modern life. If anything though I'd want to change the way in which the subjects are taught, not so much the choice of subject matter itself.