school system discussion

[I Luv Roo]

Originally posted by Santa Claus

school up until about 8th or 9th grade is ok.

it DOES provide you with general knowledge about shit, and makes you well rounded.

 

however, highschool=the bullshit.

 

high school should be a prep for college. it basically already is, but instead of being forced to go(whether it be by yr parents or society), it should be an option for the kids who want to go to college, and it should revolve around what kids want to do.

 

.

 

What kids want to do? Don't you know that would amount to pretty much eating, drinking, smoking and fucking? How many kids after eigth grade would actually try to educate themselves? Read important literature or history? Learn logic, math and science? If we left kids to their own devices at age 13 or 14, we would have an even dumber country than we have now.

 

There are problems with our schooling system - the main problem being that our government skimps funding for it because they are too busy building weapons of mass destruction. So they are failing our kids day by day by not focusing on expanding their minds, but just getting them through the system.

 

But education is important, which ever way you choose it for your kid or for yourself - it doesn't even have to be part of the 'system'. But I'm sorry, the average kid does not have the mental capacity or stamina to power his or her own education.

[Fuxus]

It's a communities job to invest in their children. That is why wealthy areas have better schools and poor areas are neglected. In reality poor schools get more funding, but it is frequently squandered or directed to specific parts of their budgets. Basically, if you don't like school then do everything in your power to make it better. Most schools are desperate for volunteers, and all you need to do is prove that you aren't a pedophile for them to let you help on a daily basis. It really does take "a whole village" to raise a child, or we can keep letting them raise themselves.

For anyone complaining about high school, the answer is to just not go. After the age of 14 it's possible to stop going and to take the GED. It will not affect your future if you are a motivated and intelligent person. A person with a GED can attend any state funded college and probably most others. The downside is that you will have to probabaly get a job instead of goofing around with your friends at school.

My philosophy is to always try to make the best of the bad situation, and to learn something even if it isn't what is being taught.

[Guest imported_El Mamerro]

Dope post...

 

You know, I agree with most of what you said. I do believe that the school system is designed to encourage students to join the campaign of strengthening the nation by getting jobs that aid the economy. It's pretty damn logical that the government would want to strengthen the nation, don't you think? Nations engineer themselves to become stronger; it's the whole purpose of being a nation in the first place.

 

As for the more specific ideals that you say school brainwashes you into believeing, I honestly have to say I think parents and outside media have much more to do with it than school itself. Not once was I told in school that I should be a doctor or engineer. Not once was I told in school that I had to get a job and be wealthy in order to be happy. And even if school did implicitly suggest this to you, my point is that you don't have to listen to it in order to do well. The only time I paid attention to the "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question has been when it came from my own family.

 

All of the things you listed as having learned on your own, school helped me with (and I'm sure it also helped you, even though you don't recognize it). Dealing with relationships? I read tons of great literature in Spanish class that provided knowledge on love and respect. Being a good friend? Where else do you come into contact with hundreds of people your age? School!! Detecting bullshit? Effective-presentation seminars and the evils of plagiarizing helped a lot. Morals? I had a lot of ethics courses in high school... the fact that it was a Jesuit institution helped. Same with racism and homphobia... topics discussed exntesively every year in several classes, from english to biology. It's true most of these you learn largely on your own, but look back, analyze your experiences in school, and tell me if a lot of these things you learned in school helped you or not. The rewards of hard work, patience, priorital hierarchies, avoiding procrastination, READING...

 

In a more specific sense, school is logically structured so that it teaches you general knowledge. How to handle a relationship is mostly an individual and subjective concept, and can't be compiled into a class for thousands of people. There's always counselors, whose advice you can take for what you want. I had a great counselor, may he rest in peace, who helped me a fucking lot with personal advice.

 

About the MIT guys... fuck yeah I'd rather kick it with oddballs. I smoked herb and drank whiskey out of one proffessor's pegleg. But odd/weird doesn't necesarilly mean good, and more often than it reflects instability. There really is a fine line between genius and idiocy... where this line lays is up to you to decide. I think that being barefoot and not showering, due to the obvious hygienical consequences, is fucking idiotic no matter what.

 

 

From what I've seen, most people are perfectly content assuming the direction they've been basically engineered for through their years of American schooling and typically don't even go so far as to ever SERIOUSLY question or even consider the personal necessity of that direction (beyond the whole "school sucks, I don't need it" shit most kids spit out at one time or another), which is fucking wack.

 

 

This is damn true. I wholeheartedly agree that school is engineered to funnel you into the nation's working society, and people don't notice. My point is that almost everyone who jumps on the Noam point-of-view does so because it seems to justify their hate for having work to do, which is perfectly normal in a young person full of promise. Furthermore, what I'm trying to say is not that I'm happy with the current school system, but that staying and working hard through school will both consciously and unconsciously prepare you better for whatever you decide to do with your life, whether that is being a CEO or a fisherman in the Bahamas. So to quote the single most important thing that has been said in this thread (which happens to be your quote too), stick with school, take what you need from it and leave a middle finger as your imprint. Beer,

 

El Mamerro

[Guest Ted Wakowski]

Re: Dope post...

 

Originally posted by El Mamerro

As for the more specific ideals that you say school brainwashes you into believeing, I honestly have to say I think parents and outside media have much more to do with it than school itself.

 

I actually agree, and failed to consider that end of the issue when typing all that shit before (you clever bastard), although I think it ends up as a sort of unintentional joint effort among all parties involved with school still playing a pivotal role that would be nice to see reformed.

 

Not once was I told in school that I should be a doctor or engineer. Not once was I told in school that I had to get a job and be wealthy in order to be happy. And even if school did implicitly suggest this to you, my point is that you don't have to listen to it in order to do well. The only time I paid attention to the "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question has been when it came from my own family.

 

"You dont have to listen to it in order to do well" -- this is exactly the mentality that I wish schools had a shitload more of. Not a slacker mentality, but a much more open-ended one aimed at autonomy and independence from restrictions, explicit or implied.

 

But yo, the "implicit suggestiveness" of it all is what really irks me. And I personally think it goes further than that. The sheer fact that schools are so hungry for children to define a career direction for themselves from as early on as middle school seems to plant a pretty serious, although not exactly obvious, seed of direction in the minds of American students. That, to me, is unfortunate.

 

Dealing with relationships? I read tons of great literature in Spanish class that provided knowledge on love and respect.

 

All I can say is that's dope. If only more kids were independently learning from the things they were forced to read in school beyond what's required of them. Maybe we'd have less assholes roaming the streets (I know, I'm so positive all the time).

 

Where else do you come into contact with hundreds of people your age? School!!

 

There's definitely much to be learned from just going to school and interacting with everyone else there. However, I still believe kids would GREATLY benefit from a curriculum administered by adults who've sampled all different aspects of life in the areas of human interaction. You'll run into teachers and general people in school who'll be glad to share with you life-lessons and advice but only when there's enough time away from most of the supposedly "essential" educational bullshit they sift through on a daily basis.

There's also a lot of corrupt ideals engrained in student's minds from that social interaction found in schools. Picking on people is often rewarded by peers, alienation of kids through social "cliques" and groups is prolific (I think this is an early formation of the ideas of class seperation found later in life), "coolness" is presented as superior to goodness (which I think is also formative in the development of negative ideals carried into adulthood), etc... And yes, exposure to a lot of these "bad" things serve as preparation for the "real world," but would that very abrasive world be the same if we started breaking down and altering the system itself?

 

Detecting bullshit? Effective-presentation seminars and the evils of plagiarizing helped a lot.

 

I totally disagree. Learning about how bad plagiarizing is honestly didn't teach me shit about shit. If it did for you then that's good, but i think it's unrealistic to think that such a thing is even barely effective in really preparing kids for the high-reaching mountains of advantage-taking that goes on out there (I've never heard of an "effective presentation seminar." Maybe that's something my school didn't do? sounds cool though).

The need for classes in bullshit radar might actually be the paramount among my concerns in the need for school reform. Virtually all of the modern American business world is engineered in a way that preys upon people's naivete and willingness to accept current conditions without much valid protest. This is also why I think we'll never see any positive educational change in this area -- it's an aspect of schools that serves the greater corporate interest entirely. If people started becoming too slick and conscious of their purchasing decisions then corporate America might be totally fucked -- or forced to regroup on some next-level shit, which is entirely bad for business (and politics as well).

 

Morals? I had a lot of ethics courses in high school... the fact that it was a Jesuit institution helped.

 

Dude, I had a totally different experience consisting of ZERO ethics courses (I went to high school in a Republican state). American fucking history class made Christopher Columbus out to be a hero. illustrated the "triumphs of war" repeatedly, omitted virtually all of the fine points of slavery's inception, brushed the Annihilation of Native American culture under a rug of unimportance, etc... Then in English we'd read stories immersed with virtues of passion, love and honor. Hypocrisy I learned from schools, not moral rightousness.

 

Same with racism and homphobia... topics discussed exntesively every year in several classes, from english to biology.

 

Hypocrisy again. Schools TELL kids one thing about inustices then deny the importance or impact of what is mentioned by totally overlooking the real effects and history of those injustices as they actually happened. It's fucking pathetic.

 

It's true most of these you learn largely on your own, but look back, analyze your experiences in school, and tell me if a lot of these things you learned in school helped you or not. The rewards of hard work, patience, priorital hierarchies, avoiding procrastination, READING...

 

What I primarily learned most from school, beyond some of the other things mentioned, is that it's easy to finish with a minimal of effort -- and my grades were good which is even worse. Hardly the dominant lesson I wish I could've come away with. But that's just me. Everyone exits with something slightly different based on that person's personality (even though the end results are largely similar).

 

How to handle a relationship is mostly an individual and subjective concept, and can't be compiled into a class for thousands of people. There's always counselors, whose advice you can take for what you want. I had a great counselor, may he rest in peace, who helped me a fucking lot with personal advice.

 

Again I disagree. There are broad fundamentals of relationships that could be fully incorporated into a structured class setting. Things like the ramifications and psychological effects of cheating, the characteristic differences of men and women and the basic compromises that must be made as a result, the blatant moral bankruptcy of domestic abuse, the ills and dangers of premeditated marriage, the cycle of both typical male and female tendencies, etc. I truly belive that solid, well thought-out classes on things like this could make a positive difference in society. I'm certainly not for telling anyone how to live their life but it seems possible that such could be entirely avioded if the curriculum was set up responsibly.

Oh and all the counselors at the schools I went to were either barely mentioned or seen as a joke (not that they weren't great counselors, which I guess they might have been, but hardly anyone even knew the people existed).

 

That pegleg thing is dope though. He made a pipe out of it? Hahaha...

 

Good discussion and some really solid points made by you as always. Now for further focus on rampant proprietary vandalism...

[Remi Martin]

Public schools.....

 

Im enjoying this thread.

 

I am a drop out, stopped going fulltime in 8th grade, went to a little bit of 9th 10th and 11th then took a ged test and passed, high at that, i mean I was high when i took the test. Also managed to get the boot from every school in the district. But hey, my bitch step sister is still in school, getting some other bullshit degree cause I guess her first one wasn't enough, from a prestigous west coast UC at that. Anyway, I make good money, have good experience and make more than her. Also I went to school over seas, last year attended was sixth grade, all A kid right. Moved to cali and its ridiculous how SUBSTANDARD the schools are. I lived in a area with supposedly better schools than any other district, and out right learned more in sixth grade than I did in what I went to of 9th. My gpa got jacked up because I kept failing pe. Fuck pe and that shit was outright boring and the teacher was a dyke with a beard. So I make decent money and have spent the last, shit 8 years now, thinking about what I want to invest my time and hard earned money in to learning. The shit sonic talks about, mister ivy leager himself bores me shitless. I want to study ghettos and get paid for it. Be a urban anaylist to figure to most effective way to restructure and repair the innercity.

College is good stuff.

Highschool, unless your into it or in accelerated classes is pretty much substandard in my areas and a waste of time. I had way more fun getting high and writing graffiti with those years when your spared adult convictions than I would of going to highschool. But its on all the person.

ramble ramble.

schools good stuff, but schools need to be hooked up with a few more billion dollars to keep up with the kids they are supposed to teach.

 

And what I think should be offered in addition to highschool is effective trade school training, shit, teach kids how to be contractors, welders, masons, (and i know i need to stop using shit as the swiss army word) all that stuff. Carpentry, Industrial Painting. High school was a very negative experience for me. I was supposed to go to highschol in a rich white suburb. Dropped out, got high, moved to the innercity and have been living as a full fledged adult while most of my 'classmates' are just learning how to live without their allowances they get for rent and bills.

[Guest uncle-boy]

we should expect to learn more about morals and stuff from our parents than from our schools.

 

and i still dont agree with dirty hippies.:king: