What is the best way to overhaul the education system

[kayanat]

What is the best way to overhaul the education system? In a world where technology has created a fast paced global world, we seem to have forgotten to bring the education system up to date. We are teaching 21st century generations, with a 19th/20th century system. I pose we create a whole new state of the art 21st century system to teach on a global nature. Teaching all cultures and language, the business world is now global so should the education be. I strongly believe if we teach culture, it will also bring world peace. As it will be teaching understanding, tolorance, and communication. If we want to give our kids half a chance as well as keep our country strong, we have to build a strong foundation, the way you do that is create a state of the art education system, to educate the next generation, the generation that will be responsible for our nation. Every child needs a safe clean place to learn. I am working on an out line and welcome input. I am calling it education for world peace. I also hope it will fix the homeless problem.

[magi13]

What is the best way to overhaul the education system? In a world where technology has created a fast paced global world, we seem to have forgotten to bring the education system up to date. We are teaching 21st century generations, with a 19th/20th century system. I pose we create a whole new state of the art 21st century system to teach on a global nature. Teaching all cultures and language, the business world is now global so should the education be. I strongly believe if we teach culture, it will also bring world peace. As it will be teaching understanding, tolorance, and communication. If we want to give our kids half a chance as well as keep our country strong, we have to build a strong foundation, the way you do that is create a state of the art education system, to educate the next generation, the generation that will be responsible for our nation. Every child needs a safe clean place to learn. I am working on an out line and welcome input. I am calling it education for world peace. I also hope it will fix the homeless problem.

 

My generation has very short attention span. <-- Not a good thing. You need something to grab that attention. I remember a time when some group invited my peers and I during college, we'd listen to artists and after a break, a guy would speak for 5 minutes, then we'll have more music and parties. <-- that's their innovative idea of getting our attention. Well it worked, because every I'd hear the local song, I'd remember the topic.

 

Make education enjoyable. :3 If it's fun we remember it more. Even though it's logical or reasonable, we'll forget those.

 

I for one love to watch animation. <-- if you make learning in the form of animation, you'll catch a lot of audience. (funding problem ^^)

 

Make learning like a game. :3

 

Teach how the memory works <-- basic knowledge about how to memorize and understanding how data is remembered will help lots of kids. Spaced repetition / mnemonics.

[Mokele]

Before we overhaul education, we need to overhaul our social expectations. Japan has a great educational system, largely because their society values education. In the US, education is not valued, and frequently is actively scorned. Until it is, we won't see the willingness to spend the time, money, and effort to reform it. People simply don't care enough.

[tvp45]

Last evening I attended a meeting that was held in a classroom of an Orthodox Jewish education center. I noted there were no powerpoint projectors, no internet, no tv, no electronics at all. There were a ton of books on algebra, calculus, statistics, history, chemistry, etc. There were a number of posters with (seemingly) student-written math questions on the wall. What do these parents know?

[magi13]

What do you mean by "what do they know?"

[vosh]

What is the best way to overhaul the education system? In a world where technology has created a fast paced global world, we seem to have forgotten to bring the education system up to date. We are teaching 21st century generations, with a 19th/20th century system. I pose we create a whole new state of the art 21st century system to teach on a global nature. Teaching all cultures and language, the business world is now global so should the education be. I strongly believe if we teach culture, it will also bring world peace. As it will be teaching understanding, tolorance, and communication. If we want to give our kids half a chance as well as keep our country strong, we have to build a strong foundation, the way you do that is create a state of the art education system, to educate the next generation, the generation that will be responsible for our nation. Every child needs a safe clean place to learn. I am working on an out line and welcome input. I am calling it education for world peace. I also hope it will fix the homeless problem.

 

Change is already happening because people have the liberty to do things differently without first getting permission from a King. Since the late 80s, the home schooling population has increased every year. They are now raising their own kids. College admissions officers actually seek them out. There are Sudbury Model schools. How can all this be if an education is something someone has to do to you? Mass compulsory schooling rests entirely on a false assumption about how people work, and it is slowly and surely on its way out. And good riddance to the most radical social experiment of the 20th century next to the Russian revolution.

[Mokele]

I think you greatly overestimate the value of homeschooling.

 

Sure, it works great if you're one of the less than 5% of the population who can afford to take the time to do it. What about the remaining 95% who don't have the time or money to allow that? The single moms working two jobs? The kids in foster care?

 

Public education exists because prior to it, for most people, the alternative was no education, not homeschooling. And that's still true to a very large segment of the population.

[Severian]

Its a simple case of money. If you increased the eductaion budget by a factor of 10, you would see no real noticable difference in the state's finances, but would increase the prestige of being a teacher tremendously. Once being a teacher is regarded as a worthwhile life choice again, standards would improve.

[vosh]

I think you greatly overestimate the value of homeschooling.

 

Sure, it works great if you're one of the less than 5% of the population who can afford to take the time to do it. What about the remaining 95% who don't have the time or money to allow that? The single moms working two jobs? The kids in foster care?

 

Public education exists because prior to it, for most people, the alternative was no education, not homeschooling. And that's still true to a very large segment of the population.

 

I'm not advocating imposing it on everyone today. I'm just saying that there are more people every year who do not send their kids to school. So, one day, there will be this paradigm shift away from mass compulsory schools (there could be schools, but not as we have them). I can say this because I know that what is happening today is not confined to the rich and the phds. I know there are plenty who can't, or don't think they can, and that's fine. Change doesn't, shouldn't, happen by forcing people to do anything, but by people choosing to do things differently. And I know that it will happen because an education is not something that someone has to do to you, and I know that therefore schools are just day care centers.

[Mokele]

I think you're extrapolating too far from a small trend. Yes, homeschooling is increasing, but at what percentage? From 1% to 3% of kids is a three-fold increase, but you cannot extrapolate from there to 30%, because the system probably isn't linear, and you'll hit some sort of limit or carrying capacity.

 

I honestly think the biggest limit is going to be effort and willingness. People who homeschool do so for a variety of reasons, but all boil down to that the schools suck and they want their kids to have a better education. Most people, however, don't want their kids to have a better education, not really. Oh, they say they do, and pay lip service to the idea, but time and time again we've been shown that people won't even sacrifice a 0.25% tax hike or 1 hour after school to achieve better education. If they won't make such minimal effort, why would they make the much greater effort to homeschool?

 

You're absolutely right that it's not just the rich or the PhDs, but it is just the motivated. And you'd be surprised just how unmotivated and uncaring the vast majority of this society really is about education.