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What is the Point of School?

Torrent

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Just outside of the Middle of Nowhere
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What is the point of school?
I'm looking the reason we send "children" to schools at all.
Is it to give a basic understanding of life and the world around us?
Social indoctranation?
Prepare the child for work in the 'Real World'?
Just giving usefull information?
Or just a goverment babysitter?

And the follow up question.
Is the way we are doing it now working?
If not What would work better?
If so how so?
 
The point of school SHOULD BE to create individuals who are capable of surviving in our society on at least the most basic level. It should be a place where they are taught the language, work ethic, basic skills, morality and values necessary to exist in our society. Currently our public education system does none of the above and is little more than a daycare center in many cases.
 
Apparently a place where you're taught to accept the homosexual lifestyle, big government and man-made global warming without question.
 
It does make sense the Conservatives at some point had to turn against education.
Apparently a place where you're taught to accept the homosexual lifestyle, big government and man-made global warming without question.
 
A place where teachers go to become zombies.
 
The point of school SHOULD BE to create individuals who are capable of surviving in our society on at least the most basic level. It should be a place where they are taught the language, work ethic, basic skills, morality and values necessary to exist in our society. Currently our public education system does none of the above and is little more than a daycare center in many cases.

I wonder where all of our scientists, doctors, judges, bureaucrats, engineers, accountants etc. come from?
 
A place where teachers go to become zombies.

You're a good example of why school is important. If you had attended, or paid attention in class if you did attend, you wouldn't post this kind of ignorance.
 
Apparently a place where you're taught to accept the homosexual lifestyle, big government and man-made global warming without question.

If you had gone to school you wouldn't be posting this stuff -- either that or if you did go to school, you may be the best argument against school ...

but, yes, hopefully school will teach you not to be a bigot (homophobe), to understand the need for a government (but also its limits), and to understand the scientific evidence for global warming ...
 
I might be wrong but I thought he was trying to be funny.
You're a good example of why school is important. If you had attended, or paid attention in class if you did attend, you wouldn't post this kind of ignorance.
 
Apparently a place where you're taught to accept the homosexual lifestyle, big government and man-made global warming without question.

Apparently some of us didn't attend school.
 
It does make sense the Conservatives at some point had to turn against education.

I'm not against education just indoctrination. Especially when it's nothing but Leftist political correctness being taught.
 
The point of school SHOULD BE to create individuals who are capable of surviving in our society on at least the most basic level. It should be a place where they are taught the language, work ethic, basic skills, morality and values necessary to exist in our society. Currently our public education system does none of the above and is little more than a daycare center in many cases.

these are already taught in schools in the name of " perennialism and essentialism " which are based on idealist and realist philosophic movements .but of course it never works because the individual differences and needs of children are ignored .

what we need is helping the children develop their creative and independent thinking skills through progressive and humanistic student centered teaching strategies
 
I wonder where all of our scientists, doctors, judges, bureaucrats, engineers, accountants etc. come from?

What you are talking about is advanced education, which is a function of our College and University system, not our elementary education system. Elementary Education (through age 14 or so) should provide the basic building blocks. From there the track needs to diverge much more than it does now. Tracks should be available for College Prepatory, Trades/Apprenticeship, Service Work, and for the ladies - Home and Family Management. This allows people to focus on the skills and abilities relevant to them without wasting their time on unnecessary information.
 
these are already taught in schools in the name of " perennialism and essentialism " which are based on idealist and realist philosophic movements .but of course it never works because the individual differences and needs of children are ignored .

what we need is helping the children develop their creative and independent thinking skills through progressive and humanistic student centered teaching strategies

Medusa, as the child of two educators myself (my mom taught 2nd grade and my father was a high school shop teacher), I have to respectfully but totally disagree. At least here in the United States we spend way too much time on allowing students to think for themselves. These days it seems to be all we get in schools. There are no more rules, no more expectations, and not even a truly enforced baseline in many cases for allowing students to progress to the next grade level. We are constantly graduating kids I wouldn't hire to dig a ditch for me. People who are unable to read or write English, who can't make basic change behind the McDonald's counter, and who have no other marketable job skill. Their only meaningful ability cmes from being able to fill out welfare paperwork and manipulate that system.
 
You're a good example of why school is important. If you had attended, or paid attention in class if you did attend, you wouldn't post this kind of ignorance.

What? She was obviously joking.
 
Medusa, as the child of two educators myself (my mom taught 2nd grade and my father was a high school shop teacher), I have to respectfully but totally disagree. At least here in the United States we spend way too much time on allowing students to think for themselves. These days it seems to be all we get in schools. There are no more rules, no more expectations, and not even a truly enforced baseline in many cases for allowing students to progress to the next grade level. We are constantly graduating kids I wouldn't hire to dig a ditch for me. People who are unable to read or write English, who can't make basic change behind the McDonald's counter, and who have no other marketable job skill. Their only meaningful ability cmes from being able to fill out welfare paperwork and manipulate that system.

l see but giving them too much freedom doesnt mean encouraging and canalizing them to working their mind and their own preferences in life

no education system can achieve their goal without discipline .
 
Learned everything I really needed to know at about the 5th grade.
Everything else was worthless chatter.
That said, we had alot of teachers that were not engaged in what they were doing. I was actually told by one that he didnt care if we passed, failed, lived or died.
 
What is the point of school?
I'm looking the reason we send "children" to schools at all.
Is it to give a basic understanding of life and the world around us?
Social indoctranation?
Prepare the child for work in the 'Real World'?
Just giving usefull information?
Or just a goverment babysitter?

And the follow up question.
Is the way we are doing it now working?
If not What would work better?
If so how so?

I presume you are asking about what we Americans call “Grade School,” i.e. grades 1 -12, and not vocational or higher education (colleges and universities)? Grade School is divided into “Primary” and “Secondary” levels.

Primary level consists of grades 1 – 6, and here children are taught basic social and knowledge skills. This includes how to interact with peers, develop physical skills, and the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, history, and science.

Secondary level consists of grades 7 – 12, and here juveniles are given more advanced lessons in specific areas of each basic course , i.e. algebra, trigonometry, biology, physics, government, world history, poetry, creative writing, literature, music, art, team sports, etc. This educational diversity helps each student to chose what direction they wish to go when they graduate. Being thrown together also continues to engage students in how to deal with each other.

The purpose of Grade School is to give each citizen a foundational education in order to level the playing field a little while trying to function in a complex society. If we didn’t have it, citizens would have little basis for informed consent in the workings of their society. While it doesn’t guarantee citizens won’t act stupidly, it at least gives them tools to try not to.

Whether it has been working as effectively as it once did is another matter entirely.
 
l see but giving them too much freedom doesnt mean encouraging and canalizing them to working their mind and their own preferences in life

no education system can achieve their goal without discipline .

The problem is that the US Education system has no form of discipline or expectation for its students at this point. It's nothing more than a daycare center run by the government. The whole idea that one's personal preferences supercede societal concepts of right and wrong is one of the things that gt the US into this mess to begin with.
 
A place where teachers go to become zombies.

Not true, they more become cookie-cutter style robots, and as time progresses more and more basically the same, bland, as the system squeezes and sucks every single ounce of passion and enthusiasm out of them as individuals that were originally excited about their subject area. Besides, zombies would only come into play in the early grades, by the time the kids get to high school, the teachers couldn't eat their students brains, kinda slim pickings at that point.

Schools should, at minimum, teach the basics, our founding, constitution and our history, the ability to critically think for themselves and should not be imposing social agendas that have no business in the school environment, that should be solely left up to their parents.
 
The problem is that the US Education system has no form of discipline or expectation for its students at this point. It's nothing more than a daycare center run by the government. The whole idea that one's personal preferences supercede societal concepts of right and wrong is one of the things that gt the US into this mess to begin with.
The problem is they stopped teaching American exceptionalism, true American history, civics, the Constitution, life skills and skill you can make a living with.
I cringe everytime I listen to our highschool and recent highschool grads in our family talk. What they talk about, how shallow and disengaged from real life they are.
But amazingly they graduate with very high GPAs, usually get right into college, but cant hold a conversation above a third grade level on anything other than the latest video game, or football score.
 
I really dont understand why you way they cannot hold a conversation above a third grade level. Is it sentence structure or lact of pertitent facts or waht?
The problem is they stopped teaching American exceptionalism, true American history, civics, the Constitution, life skills and skill you can make a living with.
I cringe everytime I listen to our highschool and recent highschool grads in our family talk. What they talk about, how shallow and disengaged from real life they are.
But amazingly they graduate with very high GPAs, usually get right into college, but cant hold a conversation above a third grade level on anything other than the latest video game, or football score.
 
School post-5th grade has been an utter waste of time for me. I already had a strong enough grasp on language, study, mathematics, scientific method, etc, to educate myself further in an autodidact manner. A senior in high school now, the last seven years of my education have done nothing but obstruct my self-erudition,pursuit of interests, contributions to proximinal society and cultivation of talents, for nine hours a day, 180 days a year. If I felt calculus was consequential to my future life, I would spend a few weeks going through textbooks to learn it. Instead, it takes 180 hours of horribly choreographed and often convoluted curriculum to achieve a rudimentary grasp.
 
I really dont understand why you way they cannot hold a conversation above a third grade level. Is it sentence structure or lact of pertitent facts or waht?
Pertinent facts. Disinterest in consequential things in life, while a thriving enthrallment with the drudgery that is small-talk.
 
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