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United States7483 Posts
On July 30 2012 10:36 xrapture wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 10:24 wherebugsgo wrote:
American educational standards have been really low ever since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. They've just been getting worse and worse because the primary motivation factor for the math and science education surges of the mid 1900s was the space race.
It's pretty simple, really. The problem is three-fold:
One, the American education system is full of underqualified, underpaid, and underappreciated teachers.
Two, American culture doesn't value education or intelligence as a virtue as highly as other cultures, in particular when compared to countries in Europe and Asia.
Three, the standards for public education are abysmally low, and they get lower every year.
Higher education, such as university education, is on par or better than the rest of the world. However, public high school is a really bad preparation in the United States for college. That's the problem. It's not like American students are dumber than their foreign counterparts. It's just that the culture (their parents) and the system don't work in their favor, and that's why you have so many students failing math, for example. (it's not just math, either; most American students have almost no global awareness and even poor writing and reading skills. They can't pin even well-known countries on a map in many cases.)
Anecdotal evidence: the valedictorian of the class the year before my graduating year in high school thought that New Zealand was a neighbor of Canada. Lol who gives a shit. Even though American education is "so bad", America is still by far the most influential country on the planet. Most millionaires, most fortune 500 companies, a military that would literally bulldoze any country in the world, at any given moment the US President is the most powerful person on Earth, plus so much more. Countries literally become "Americanized." America's culture itself is taking over the world. So no, Algebra is utterly superfluous. Most people in the world don't even use it for the rest of their lives after high school. So yea, if some tech- savy- sucking- the system's- dick job is for you go for it, but don't make the rest of us learn that useless shit. You know what makes America so powerful? It sure as fuck aint algebra-- it's so many people capable of buying shit. Iphones, cars, tv's, computers, clothes, food-- that's it. That's the formula.
I don't usually say things like this outright, but you're an idiot. Holy fuck, I have not read something this stupid in I don't know how long.
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"Explain further. I do not see how this is consistent. In order to earn a diploma, you need to pass algebra. You want to put in a standard where you can get a diploma without passing algebra. Hence, a person could fail algebra, and still receive a diploma."
What I advocate is allowing students to choose what math they take, a person would have to demonstrate competency but in which class they choose. If they failed the class they would still have to retake it or take another one. I didn't bring up graduation requirements or grades before this. Now you'll have to excuse me from responding any more since I am going to bed.
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Isn't algebra at highschool level just line equations, like y=mx+b stuff?
That stuff is relatively easy to grasp, and comprehending two-dimensional planes, negative and positive slopes (and in turn, graph comprehension/etc) seems pretty important under a general knowledge sort of deal. I'd say keep it, since High School is really supposed to be a general knowledge degree.
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On July 30 2012 10:36 xrapture wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 10:24 wherebugsgo wrote:
American educational standards have been really low ever since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. They've just been getting worse and worse because the primary motivation factor for the math and science education surges of the mid 1900s was the space race.
It's pretty simple, really. The problem is three-fold:
One, the American education system is full of underqualified, underpaid, and underappreciated teachers.
Two, American culture doesn't value education or intelligence as a virtue as highly as other cultures, in particular when compared to countries in Europe and Asia.
Three, the standards for public education are abysmally low, and they get lower every year.
Higher education, such as university education, is on par or better than the rest of the world. However, public high school is a really bad preparation in the United States for college. That's the problem. It's not like American students are dumber than their foreign counterparts. It's just that the culture (their parents) and the system don't work in their favor, and that's why you have so many students failing math, for example. (it's not just math, either; most American students have almost no global awareness and even poor writing and reading skills. They can't pin even well-known countries on a map in many cases.)
Anecdotal evidence: the valedictorian of the class the year before my graduating year in high school thought that New Zealand was a neighbor of Canada. Lol who gives a shit. Even though American education is "so bad", America is still by far the most influential country on the planet. Most millionaires, most fortune 500 companies, a military that would literally bulldoze any country in the world, at any given moment the US President is the most powerful person on Earth, plus so much more. Countries literally become "Americanized." America's culture itself is taking over the world. So no, Algebra is utterly superfluous. Most people in the world don't even use it for the rest of their lives after high school. So yea, if some tech- savy- sucking- the system's- dick job is for you go for it, but don't make the rest of us learn that useless shit. You know what makes America so powerful? It sure as fuck aint algebra-- it's so many people capable of buying shit. Iphones, cars, tv's, computers, clothes, food-- that's it. That's the formula.
You do realize that America as a power is slowly but steadily getting dethroned by countries who actually put effort into their education and economy? As it stands America is now asking the EU, China or even Russia if THEY are allowed to participate in their space projects. 30 years ago it would have been the other way around.
Let me tell you what makes "so many people capable of buying shit": Money. Do you want to know where money comes from? From being able to offer something that others want a better price than the competition. From being more clever than the next person (or country) trying to sell their shit.
Education makes people more likely to achieve that goal. Whether it's Algebra, Languages, Physics or even History. By being able to build on the foundation that 2000 and more years of human culture built generation by generation. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the foundation for success.
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On July 30 2012 10:36 xrapture wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 10:24 wherebugsgo wrote:
American educational standards have been really low ever since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. They've just been getting worse and worse because the primary motivation factor for the math and science education surges of the mid 1900s was the space race.
It's pretty simple, really. The problem is three-fold:
One, the American education system is full of underqualified, underpaid, and underappreciated teachers.
Two, American culture doesn't value education or intelligence as a virtue as highly as other cultures, in particular when compared to countries in Europe and Asia.
Three, the standards for public education are abysmally low, and they get lower every year.
Higher education, such as university education, is on par or better than the rest of the world. However, public high school is a really bad preparation in the United States for college. That's the problem. It's not like American students are dumber than their foreign counterparts. It's just that the culture (their parents) and the system don't work in their favor, and that's why you have so many students failing math, for example. (it's not just math, either; most American students have almost no global awareness and even poor writing and reading skills. They can't pin even well-known countries on a map in many cases.)
Anecdotal evidence: the valedictorian of the class the year before my graduating year in high school thought that New Zealand was a neighbor of Canada. Lol who gives a shit. Even though American education is "so bad", America is still by far the most influential country on the planet. Most millionaires, most fortune 500 companies, a military that would literally bulldoze any country in the world, at any given moment the US President is the most powerful person on Earth, plus so much more. Countries literally become "Americanized." America's culture itself is taking over the world. So no, Algebra is utterly superfluous. Most people in the world don't even use it for the rest of their lives after high school. So yea, if some tech- savy- sucking- the system's- dick job is for you go for it, but don't make the rest of us learn that useless shit. You know what makes America so powerful? It sure as fuck aint algebra-- it's so many people capable of buying shit. Iphones, cars, tv's, computers, clothes, food-- that's it. That's the formula.
The Roman Empire died from overreliance on finance as well.
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United States7483 Posts
On July 30 2012 11:21 UrsusRex wrote:
"Explain further. I do not see how this is consistent. In order to earn a diploma, you need to pass algebra. You want to put in a standard where you can get a diploma without passing algebra. Hence, a person could fail algebra, and still receive a diploma."
What I advocate is allowing students to choose what math they take, a person would have to demonstrate competency but in which class they choose. If they failed the class they would still have to retake it or take another one. I didn't bring up graduation requirements or grades before this. Now you'll have to excuse me from responding since I am going to bed.
I'm gonna go the opposite direction on this: students should be required to take more difficult courses and have stricter standards for graduation, and be held back if they fail, no questions asked. People should be held to higher standards in order to improve the long run prospects of our nation's work force and economic survivability. Students who can't keep up shouldn't move on, they should be held back and asked to try again. Provide special help to students who need it, but make damn sure the parents know they have to actually give a shit.
Hell, I'd even add other courses to the required list if I had my way. Not using it as a part of your career is not a good reason not to learn something, you still vote and interact with other human beings. Maybe if people actually paid attention in history class we wouldn't be repeating the same mistakes over and over again (prohibition ring any bells with the drug war?) It's about damn time people started acting responsible and actually read a damn book.
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It's definitely not necessary for everyday life--otherwise people would be dying left and right--but if they ever take away the requirement, I'm forcing my kid to learn it so he'll have that massive advantage over idiots who didn't or couldn't learn algebra.
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On July 30 2012 11:15 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:07 UrsusRex wrote:
Doublereed just because I think algebra should be optional doesn't mean I think students who fail it should be given a pass. Explain further. I do not see how this is consistent. In order to earn a diploma, you need to pass algebra. You want to put in a standard where you can get a diploma without passing algebra. Hence, a person could fail algebra, and still receive a diploma. Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:12 Zahir wrote:I mean at some point you have to start respecting students decisions, and stop forcing them to take classes they will likely never use. A study quoted in the ops article suggests only 5% of the population will use algebra in their jobs. Not an impressive stat, compared with English, arithmetic, or even basic computer skills ( http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt04_429.asp ) ... Which is somehow not a requisite while algebra and even history are. Just because most people take a long time to decide what they want to do, does not mean we should force them to take classes that have decided they don't need, especially when they can easily go back and learn it when their career aspirations change. By that logic, college students should all have mostly identical course programs full of requisites too because most college kids start out undecided. No you do not. High school education is about getting a well rounded education. It is not about giving people classes that people will use on the job. The purpose of education is to have a educated populace. You do not need to give everyone a high school diploma. This is not required.
Could you go into more detail about what a well rounded education is, why things like history and algebra needs to requirement as part of it and not computer skills. Its a pretty vague term.
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On July 30 2012 11:03 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 09:02 UrsusRex wrote:
We also assign students too much homework. Studies have shown students actually learn less the more homework they are given and are less likely to continue learning later in life. Nothing kills a childs love of knowledge as fast as assigning tons of homework and making them learn what they can't relate to.
Also we don't use the metric system and that has a massive effect on understanding measurement and our math system. I was always under the impression that American students had considerably less homework than students in other developed countries? Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:02 DoubleReed wrote:On July 30 2012 10:50 UrsusRex wrote:
"And actually you are advocating that people should be passed who fail. You're saying that people who fail algebra should still be given a high school diploma..."
No I am not and I did not. I think you might have confused me for someone else you were talking with.
"You say that you passed with only the most superficial grasp. You're suggesting that we should lower it from "most superficial grasp" to "not at all."
I don't know what you're talking about anymore, but I know it doesn't anything to do with me. Sigh, are you kidding? You're really going to play this game? Bolded the parts I'm talking about: On July 30 2012 10:22 UrsusRex wrote:
"I agree with the guy you quoted. If I was never exposed to math, I would never have known if I liked it or not. Just because some people have decided what they wanted to do at an early age, doesn't mean they shouldn't still be exposed to other stuff to find out if they were wrong in what they wanted to do."
I DO NOT SUPPORT NOT TEACHING MATHEMATICS I SUPPORT NOT TEACHING ALGEBRA TO STUDENTS WHO DO NOT WISH TO LEARN IT.
I apologize for typing in all caps, but my position has been misrepresented several times now and its something that irratates me.
On July 30 2012 10:31 UrsusRex wrote:
"You say that you worked really hard and everything, but the fact is that you did not have the skills that a high school diploma implies. I don't see what the problem is."
I did have the skills. I did pass my classes and my exit exams. I still did not learn math though. I came out with only the most superficial grasp. I have the ability to pass any test given because I have good test taking skills.
To argue a bit here, I agree with his bolded point. I don't think that algebra should be taught to children who don't wish to teach it, under the caveat that they're also informed that it's unlikely they'll get a secure, well-paying job after high school. For those who are lucky and become good carpenters/plumbers/etc., good on them. They should just know that the proportion of burger flippers who don't know algebra is way higher than the proportion of white collar workers. If they're willing to take their chances, then I don't see why we should be protecting them from their mistakes.
American students barely have any homework -.- At the very least, I had shit for homework all through elementary and middle school. The vast majority of homework I got in high school was either minimal or purely for the IB program.
I understand the sentiment behind letting kids choose, but honestly, most high schoolers are very bad at making decisions. Not only that, but the choice of taking math is a false choice. How many of you, while you were in high school, can honestly say that you would opt to take a generally painful class if it's completely optional? Even if you tell high schoolers it's good for their future, most of them would just shrug it off. Like...seriously, how much did you listen to your parents/teachers in high school?
On July 30 2012 11:21 UrsusRex wrote:
"Explain further. I do not see how this is consistent. In order to earn a diploma, you need to pass algebra. You want to put in a standard where you can get a diploma without passing algebra. Hence, a person could fail algebra, and still receive a diploma."
What I advocate is allowing students to choose what math they take, a person would have to demonstrate competency but in which class they choose. If they failed the class they would still have to retake it or take another one. I didn't bring up graduation requirements or grades before this. Now you'll have to excuse me from responding any more since I am going to bed.
Choose what math they take? All of mathematics past simple arithmetic is based off of, or has some form, of algebra.
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In a sense, math is the programming language of our universe- a solid basic in mathematics and how it applies to the world may not be practical in everyday life, but if anything it is useful philosophically. As others have said, this is the same for topics such as history, literature analysis, and so on...
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On July 30 2012 11:21 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 10:36 xrapture wrote:On July 30 2012 10:24 wherebugsgo wrote:
American educational standards have been really low ever since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. They've just been getting worse and worse because the primary motivation factor for the math and science education surges of the mid 1900s was the space race.
It's pretty simple, really. The problem is three-fold:
One, the American education system is full of underqualified, underpaid, and underappreciated teachers.
Two, American culture doesn't value education or intelligence as a virtue as highly as other cultures, in particular when compared to countries in Europe and Asia.
Three, the standards for public education are abysmally low, and they get lower every year.
Higher education, such as university education, is on par or better than the rest of the world. However, public high school is a really bad preparation in the United States for college. That's the problem. It's not like American students are dumber than their foreign counterparts. It's just that the culture (their parents) and the system don't work in their favor, and that's why you have so many students failing math, for example. (it's not just math, either; most American students have almost no global awareness and even poor writing and reading skills. They can't pin even well-known countries on a map in many cases.)
Anecdotal evidence: the valedictorian of the class the year before my graduating year in high school thought that New Zealand was a neighbor of Canada. Lol who gives a shit. Even though American education is "so bad", America is still by far the most influential country on the planet. Most millionaires, most fortune 500 companies, a military that would literally bulldoze any country in the world, at any given moment the US President is the most powerful person on Earth, plus so much more. Countries literally become "Americanized." America's culture itself is taking over the world. So no, Algebra is utterly superfluous. Most people in the world don't even use it for the rest of their lives after high school. So yea, if some tech- savy- sucking- the system's- dick job is for you go for it, but don't make the rest of us learn that useless shit. You know what makes America so powerful? It sure as fuck aint algebra-- it's so many people capable of buying shit. Iphones, cars, tv's, computers, clothes, food-- that's it. That's the formula. You do realize that America as a power is slowly but steadily getting dethroned by countries who actually put effort into their education and economy? As it stands America is now asking the EU, China or even Russia if THEY are allowed to participate in their space projects. 30 years ago it would have been the other way around.Let me tell you what makes "so many people capable of buying shit": Money. Do you want to know where money comes from? From being able to offer something that others want a better price than the competition. From being more clever than the next person (or country) trying to sell their shit. Education makes people more likely to achieve that goal. Whether it's Algebra, Languages, Physics or even History. By being able to build on the foundation that 2000 and more years of human culture built generation by generation. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the foundation for success.
Ho yeah which country is dethroning america by putting effort into their education ? China ?
"Education" is overrated in our society, the economy, and as a so called way for people to get "critical". Most of what you learn through school are sets of useless things that only exist in order to gives you the opportunity to distinguish yourself from others. Those tools or whatever will not makes your more "productiv" in the economical sense, period.
I'm not saying knowledge is useless, but education and knowledge are two completly different things.
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On July 30 2012 10:18 corpuscle wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 10:17 Xiphos wrote:
Is Algebra just the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponents, logarithmic, trig, PEMDAS, the employment of variables X, Y, and Z?
Someone type up what am I missing here. They also usually teach some solving systems of equations, polynomials, factoring, stuff like that. It's basically all the stuff leading up to calculus that isn't trig.
Are you serious? That's it?
I thought I missed a huge portion of it.
The factoring part must be the most arduous constituent of the list. Grouping, completing the square, the quadratic equation and all that jazz.
But honestly Algebra is very imperative in the first step of learning fundamental polynomial/rational functions and to some extent the trig functions too (yes I do believe that there is a such entity known as trig factoring). Knowing functions itself is required in basic computer programming, to formulate graphs for the big science 3 (Phy, Bio, and Chem). There are so many application of these functions that I can't list them all on the top of my head. But I know one thing for sure is that all of them are based upon the knowledge settled by algebra.
So yes to the topic, not knowing algebra is detrimental to anyone interested in any form of science and yes even political science needs a fair amount of calculations.
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On July 30 2012 11:29 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:21 r.Evo wrote:On July 30 2012 10:36 xrapture wrote:On July 30 2012 10:24 wherebugsgo wrote:
American educational standards have been really low ever since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. They've just been getting worse and worse because the primary motivation factor for the math and science education surges of the mid 1900s was the space race.
It's pretty simple, really. The problem is three-fold:
One, the American education system is full of underqualified, underpaid, and underappreciated teachers.
Two, American culture doesn't value education or intelligence as a virtue as highly as other cultures, in particular when compared to countries in Europe and Asia.
Three, the standards for public education are abysmally low, and they get lower every year.
Higher education, such as university education, is on par or better than the rest of the world. However, public high school is a really bad preparation in the United States for college. That's the problem. It's not like American students are dumber than their foreign counterparts. It's just that the culture (their parents) and the system don't work in their favor, and that's why you have so many students failing math, for example. (it's not just math, either; most American students have almost no global awareness and even poor writing and reading skills. They can't pin even well-known countries on a map in many cases.)
Anecdotal evidence: the valedictorian of the class the year before my graduating year in high school thought that New Zealand was a neighbor of Canada. Lol who gives a shit. Even though American education is "so bad", America is still by far the most influential country on the planet. Most millionaires, most fortune 500 companies, a military that would literally bulldoze any country in the world, at any given moment the US President is the most powerful person on Earth, plus so much more. Countries literally become "Americanized." America's culture itself is taking over the world. So no, Algebra is utterly superfluous. Most people in the world don't even use it for the rest of their lives after high school. So yea, if some tech- savy- sucking- the system's- dick job is for you go for it, but don't make the rest of us learn that useless shit. You know what makes America so powerful? It sure as fuck aint algebra-- it's so many people capable of buying shit. Iphones, cars, tv's, computers, clothes, food-- that's it. That's the formula. You do realize that America as a power is slowly but steadily getting dethroned by countries who actually put effort into their education and economy? As it stands America is now asking the EU, China or even Russia if THEY are allowed to participate in their space projects. 30 years ago it would have been the other way around.Let me tell you what makes "so many people capable of buying shit": Money. Do you want to know where money comes from? From being able to offer something that others want a better price than the competition. From being more clever than the next person (or country) trying to sell their shit. Education makes people more likely to achieve that goal. Whether it's Algebra, Languages, Physics or even History. By being able to build on the foundation that 2000 and more years of human culture built generation by generation. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the foundation for success. Ho yeah which country is dethroning america by putting effort into their education ? China ? "Education" is overrated in our society, the economy, and as a so called way for people to get "critical". Most of what you learn through school are sets of useless things that only exist in order to gives you the opportunity to distinguish yourself from others. Those tools or whatever will not makes your more "productiv" in the economical sense, period. I'm not saying knowledge is useless, but education and knowledge are two completly different things.
To address your first point: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2011/10/worlds-leading-nations-innovation-and-technology/224/#
How exactly is education overrated? Sure, some of what you learn is worthless, but are you honestly trying to tell me that what you learn in school is useless? While yes, nothing you learn in school will make you more "productive" in the economic sense that everyone can do manual labor. But if your country wants to innovate and improve you need education.
Knowledge and education are two different things, sure, but you can't get knowledge without education.
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On July 30 2012 11:28 Zahir wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:15 DoubleReed wrote:On July 30 2012 11:07 UrsusRex wrote:
Doublereed just because I think algebra should be optional doesn't mean I think students who fail it should be given a pass. Explain further. I do not see how this is consistent. In order to earn a diploma, you need to pass algebra. You want to put in a standard where you can get a diploma without passing algebra. Hence, a person could fail algebra, and still receive a diploma. On July 30 2012 11:12 Zahir wrote:I mean at some point you have to start respecting students decisions, and stop forcing them to take classes they will likely never use. A study quoted in the ops article suggests only 5% of the population will use algebra in their jobs. Not an impressive stat, compared with English, arithmetic, or even basic computer skills ( http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt04_429.asp ) ... Which is somehow not a requisite while algebra and even history are. Just because most people take a long time to decide what they want to do, does not mean we should force them to take classes that have decided they don't need, especially when they can easily go back and learn it when their career aspirations change. By that logic, college students should all have mostly identical course programs full of requisites too because most college kids start out undecided. No you do not. High school education is about getting a well rounded education. It is not about giving people classes that people will use on the job. The purpose of education is to have a educated populace. You do not need to give everyone a high school diploma. This is not required. Could you go into more detail about what a well rounded education is, why things like history and algebra needs to requirement as part of it and not computer skills. Its a pretty vague term.
I don't really understand the question. Education is a standard. High school is generally considered the time where you get a basic education in all fields and when/if you want to specialize you go into college. Everything in high school is completely basic. You don't really go into any depth into any field, even with AP/IB stuff (although those are much closer to college courses).
I'm not exactly what you mean by "computer skills." Computer programming is all algebra, although you'll need some more than just basic algebra as well.
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On July 30 2012 11:29 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:21 r.Evo wrote:On July 30 2012 10:36 xrapture wrote:On July 30 2012 10:24 wherebugsgo wrote:
American educational standards have been really low ever since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. They've just been getting worse and worse because the primary motivation factor for the math and science education surges of the mid 1900s was the space race.
It's pretty simple, really. The problem is three-fold:
One, the American education system is full of underqualified, underpaid, and underappreciated teachers.
Two, American culture doesn't value education or intelligence as a virtue as highly as other cultures, in particular when compared to countries in Europe and Asia.
Three, the standards for public education are abysmally low, and they get lower every year.
Higher education, such as university education, is on par or better than the rest of the world. However, public high school is a really bad preparation in the United States for college. That's the problem. It's not like American students are dumber than their foreign counterparts. It's just that the culture (their parents) and the system don't work in their favor, and that's why you have so many students failing math, for example. (it's not just math, either; most American students have almost no global awareness and even poor writing and reading skills. They can't pin even well-known countries on a map in many cases.)
Anecdotal evidence: the valedictorian of the class the year before my graduating year in high school thought that New Zealand was a neighbor of Canada. Lol who gives a shit. Even though American education is "so bad", America is still by far the most influential country on the planet. Most millionaires, most fortune 500 companies, a military that would literally bulldoze any country in the world, at any given moment the US President is the most powerful person on Earth, plus so much more. Countries literally become "Americanized." America's culture itself is taking over the world. So no, Algebra is utterly superfluous. Most people in the world don't even use it for the rest of their lives after high school. So yea, if some tech- savy- sucking- the system's- dick job is for you go for it, but don't make the rest of us learn that useless shit. You know what makes America so powerful? It sure as fuck aint algebra-- it's so many people capable of buying shit. Iphones, cars, tv's, computers, clothes, food-- that's it. That's the formula. You do realize that America as a power is slowly but steadily getting dethroned by countries who actually put effort into their education and economy? As it stands America is now asking the EU, China or even Russia if THEY are allowed to participate in their space projects. 30 years ago it would have been the other way around.Let me tell you what makes "so many people capable of buying shit": Money. Do you want to know where money comes from? From being able to offer something that others want a better price than the competition. From being more clever than the next person (or country) trying to sell their shit. Education makes people more likely to achieve that goal. Whether it's Algebra, Languages, Physics or even History. By being able to build on the foundation that 2000 and more years of human culture built generation by generation. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the foundation for success. Ho yeah which country is dethroning america by putting effort into their education ? China ? "Education" is overrated in our society, the economy, and as a so called way for people to get "critical". Most of what you learn through school are sets of useless things that only exist in order to gives you the opportunity to distinguish yourself from others. Those tools or whatever will not makes your more "productiv" in the economical sense, period. I'm not saying knowledge is useless, but education and knowledge are two completly different things.
If you believe tests like PISA or similar ones the average american student is on a similar level as one in the educational weaker countries in the EU, outperformed by Canada, Western/Northern Europe and Australia.
But welp, you just claimed that education doesn't make you more economically valuable. Go try and tell that to your future boss who's asking you what you can and can't do. =P
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Like I am I the only one who sees the flawed reasoning here? I pointed out that history, algebra, etc are much less likely to be used in a career than say, comp sci or Spanish, and even pointed to studies...
I ask why algebra should be a requirement for education and ppl say "because it's part of a well rounded education".. You can't just say a term and then not Define or justify it.
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16987 Posts
On July 30 2012 11:37 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:28 Zahir wrote:On July 30 2012 11:15 DoubleReed wrote:On July 30 2012 11:07 UrsusRex wrote:
Doublereed just because I think algebra should be optional doesn't mean I think students who fail it should be given a pass. Explain further. I do not see how this is consistent. In order to earn a diploma, you need to pass algebra. You want to put in a standard where you can get a diploma without passing algebra. Hence, a person could fail algebra, and still receive a diploma. On July 30 2012 11:12 Zahir wrote:I mean at some point you have to start respecting students decisions, and stop forcing them to take classes they will likely never use. A study quoted in the ops article suggests only 5% of the population will use algebra in their jobs. Not an impressive stat, compared with English, arithmetic, or even basic computer skills ( http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt04_429.asp ) ... Which is somehow not a requisite while algebra and even history are. Just because most people take a long time to decide what they want to do, does not mean we should force them to take classes that have decided they don't need, especially when they can easily go back and learn it when their career aspirations change. By that logic, college students should all have mostly identical course programs full of requisites too because most college kids start out undecided. No you do not. High school education is about getting a well rounded education. It is not about giving people classes that people will use on the job. The purpose of education is to have a educated populace. You do not need to give everyone a high school diploma. This is not required. Could you go into more detail about what a well rounded education is, why things like history and algebra needs to requirement as part of it and not computer skills. Its a pretty vague term. I don't really understand the question. Education is a standard. High school is generally considered the time where you get a basic education in all fields and when/if you want to specialize you go into college. Everything in high school is completely basic. You don't really go into any depth into any field, even with AP/IB stuff (although those are much closer to college courses). I'm not exactly what you mean by "computer skills." Computer programming is all algebra, although you'll need some more than just basic algebra as well.
Ehh...computer programming is more like manipulating language, syntax, and logic to arrive at what you want. Computer science is pretty much all math though.
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On July 30 2012 11:42 Empyrean wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 30 2012 11:28 Zahir wrote:On July 30 2012 11:15 DoubleReed wrote:On July 30 2012 11:07 UrsusRex wrote:
Doublereed just because I think algebra should be optional doesn't mean I think students who fail it should be given a pass. Explain further. I do not see how this is consistent. In order to earn a diploma, you need to pass algebra. You want to put in a standard where you can get a diploma without passing algebra. Hence, a person could fail algebra, and still receive a diploma. On July 30 2012 11:12 Zahir wrote:I mean at some point you have to start respecting students decisions, and stop forcing them to take classes they will likely never use. A study quoted in the ops article suggests only 5% of the population will use algebra in their jobs. Not an impressive stat, compared with English, arithmetic, or even basic computer skills ( http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt04_429.asp ) ... Which is somehow not a requisite while algebra and even history are. Just because most people take a long time to decide what they want to do, does not mean we should force them to take classes that have decided they don't need, especially when they can easily go back and learn it when their career aspirations change. By that logic, college students should all have mostly identical course programs full of requisites too because most college kids start out undecided. No you do not. High school education is about getting a well rounded education. It is not about giving people classes that people will use on the job. The purpose of education is to have a educated populace. You do not need to give everyone a high school diploma. This is not required. Could you go into more detail about what a well rounded education is, why things like history and algebra needs to requirement as part of it and not computer skills. Its a pretty vague term. I don't really understand the question. Education is a standard. High school is generally considered the time where you get a basic education in all fields and when/if you want to specialize you go into college. Everything in high school is completely basic. You don't really go into any depth into any field, even with AP/IB stuff (although those are much closer to college courses). I'm not exactly what you mean by "computer skills." Computer programming is all algebra, although you'll need some more than just basic algebra as well. Ehh...computer programming is more like manipulating language, syntax, and logic to arrive at what you want. Computer science is pretty much all math though.
Well you have variables, expressions and algorithms based on increasing/decreasing functions. I don't know what you could achieve in computer programming while being bad in elementary algebra...
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I do Computer Science and although I don't use algebra at a practical level much, I do find that what I learnt back at school through algebra helped me enter the dimension of logic rather than having a thought process that revolved around thinking the world worked through magic. Physics also helped me very much understand this.
It's not always about what you learn that you can use later in life... It's about giving you the mind set so that you can apply it other facets of life.
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On July 30 2012 11:36 Ryuu314 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:29 WhiteDog wrote:On July 30 2012 11:21 r.Evo wrote:On July 30 2012 10:36 xrapture wrote:On July 30 2012 10:24 wherebugsgo wrote:
American educational standards have been really low ever since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. They've just been getting worse and worse because the primary motivation factor for the math and science education surges of the mid 1900s was the space race.
It's pretty simple, really. The problem is three-fold:
One, the American education system is full of underqualified, underpaid, and underappreciated teachers.
Two, American culture doesn't value education or intelligence as a virtue as highly as other cultures, in particular when compared to countries in Europe and Asia.
Three, the standards for public education are abysmally low, and they get lower every year.
Higher education, such as university education, is on par or better than the rest of the world. However, public high school is a really bad preparation in the United States for college. That's the problem. It's not like American students are dumber than their foreign counterparts. It's just that the culture (their parents) and the system don't work in their favor, and that's why you have so many students failing math, for example. (it's not just math, either; most American students have almost no global awareness and even poor writing and reading skills. They can't pin even well-known countries on a map in many cases.)
Anecdotal evidence: the valedictorian of the class the year before my graduating year in high school thought that New Zealand was a neighbor of Canada. Lol who gives a shit. Even though American education is "so bad", America is still by far the most influential country on the planet. Most millionaires, most fortune 500 companies, a military that would literally bulldoze any country in the world, at any given moment the US President is the most powerful person on Earth, plus so much more. Countries literally become "Americanized." America's culture itself is taking over the world. So no, Algebra is utterly superfluous. Most people in the world don't even use it for the rest of their lives after high school. So yea, if some tech- savy- sucking- the system's- dick job is for you go for it, but don't make the rest of us learn that useless shit. You know what makes America so powerful? It sure as fuck aint algebra-- it's so many people capable of buying shit. Iphones, cars, tv's, computers, clothes, food-- that's it. That's the formula. You do realize that America as a power is slowly but steadily getting dethroned by countries who actually put effort into their education and economy? As it stands America is now asking the EU, China or even Russia if THEY are allowed to participate in their space projects. 30 years ago it would have been the other way around.Let me tell you what makes "so many people capable of buying shit": Money. Do you want to know where money comes from? From being able to offer something that others want a better price than the competition. From being more clever than the next person (or country) trying to sell their shit. Education makes people more likely to achieve that goal. Whether it's Algebra, Languages, Physics or even History. By being able to build on the foundation that 2000 and more years of human culture built generation by generation. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the foundation for success. Ho yeah which country is dethroning america by putting effort into their education ? China ? "Education" is overrated in our society, the economy, and as a so called way for people to get "critical". Most of what you learn through school are sets of useless things that only exist in order to gives you the opportunity to distinguish yourself from others. Those tools or whatever will not makes your more "productiv" in the economical sense, period. I'm not saying knowledge is useless, but education and knowledge are two completly different things. To address your first point: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2011/10/worlds-leading-nations-innovation-and-technology/224/#How exactly is education overrated? Sure, some of what you learn is worthless, but are you honestly trying to tell me that what you learn in school is useless? While yes, nothing you learn in school will make you more "productive" in the economic sense that everyone can do manual labor. But if your country wants to innovate and improve you need education. Knowledge and education are two different things, sure, but you can't get knowledge without education.
R&D and education are two completly different things. R&D investment are usually made either by facilitating loan to industries who have project in R&D or giving tax cut for companies who do R&D. Yeah, there is R&D and China, but no not at the level of America or Europe. What's your point ? This has nothing to do with education, and the impact of R&D on economy is not as clear as endogene growth theory might make it seems.
It's overrated because of many reasons : giving opportunities to only people who have an education is not a good idea, most of the thing you learn are useless. What you learn in school is not entirely useless at all (I have two master degree in economy and sociology), but the idea that education is the everything of economical growth is just wrong. China is getting his money from producing cheap goods for a cheap price, not because they are well educated.
On July 30 2012 11:37 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2012 11:29 WhiteDog wrote:On July 30 2012 11:21 r.Evo wrote:On July 30 2012 10:36 xrapture wrote:On July 30 2012 10:24 wherebugsgo wrote:
American educational standards have been really low ever since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. They've just been getting worse and worse because the primary motivation factor for the math and science education surges of the mid 1900s was the space race.
It's pretty simple, really. The problem is three-fold:
One, the American education system is full of underqualified, underpaid, and underappreciated teachers.
Two, American culture doesn't value education or intelligence as a virtue as highly as other cultures, in particular when compared to countries in Europe and Asia.
Three, the standards for public education are abysmally low, and they get lower every year.
Higher education, such as university education, is on par or better than the rest of the world. However, public high school is a really bad preparation in the United States for college. That's the problem. It's not like American students are dumber than their foreign counterparts. It's just that the culture (their parents) and the system don't work in their favor, and that's why you have so many students failing math, for example. (it's not just math, either; most American students have almost no global awareness and even poor writing and reading skills. They can't pin even well-known countries on a map in many cases.)
Anecdotal evidence: the valedictorian of the class the year before my graduating year in high school thought that New Zealand was a neighbor of Canada. Lol who gives a shit. Even though American education is "so bad", America is still by far the most influential country on the planet. Most millionaires, most fortune 500 companies, a military that would literally bulldoze any country in the world, at any given moment the US President is the most powerful person on Earth, plus so much more. Countries literally become "Americanized." America's culture itself is taking over the world. So no, Algebra is utterly superfluous. Most people in the world don't even use it for the rest of their lives after high school. So yea, if some tech- savy- sucking- the system's- dick job is for you go for it, but don't make the rest of us learn that useless shit. You know what makes America so powerful? It sure as fuck aint algebra-- it's so many people capable of buying shit. Iphones, cars, tv's, computers, clothes, food-- that's it. That's the formula. You do realize that America as a power is slowly but steadily getting dethroned by countries who actually put effort into their education and economy? As it stands America is now asking the EU, China or even Russia if THEY are allowed to participate in their space projects. 30 years ago it would have been the other way around.Let me tell you what makes "so many people capable of buying shit": Money. Do you want to know where money comes from? From being able to offer something that others want a better price than the competition. From being more clever than the next person (or country) trying to sell their shit. Education makes people more likely to achieve that goal. Whether it's Algebra, Languages, Physics or even History. By being able to build on the foundation that 2000 and more years of human culture built generation by generation. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the foundation for success. Ho yeah which country is dethroning america by putting effort into their education ? China ? "Education" is overrated in our society, the economy, and as a so called way for people to get "critical". Most of what you learn through school are sets of useless things that only exist in order to gives you the opportunity to distinguish yourself from others. Those tools or whatever will not makes your more "productiv" in the economical sense, period. I'm not saying knowledge is useless, but education and knowledge are two completly different things. If you believe tests like PISA or similar ones the average american student is on a similar level as one in the educational weaker countries in the EU, outperformed by Canada, Western/Northern Europe and Australia. But welp, you just claimed that education doesn't make you more economically valuable. Go try and tell that to your future boss who's asking you what you can and can't do. =P
We are in one of the least profitable time since a long time for european economies and still the "education" is the highest ever. So, yes education makes someone valuable, that's what I was saying : it is made in order to let you distinguish yourself from other. But it doesn't makes you more productive. Maybe if bosses gave more chances to young people with no experience, instead of always asking the same type of student, who all did the same courses, our economy would be brighter.
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EPT
