Another article on college debts, the stagnant economy,

I'm betting you've never had to write up a performance evaluation, or an award. Those things are ALL fiction.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Nope. Only held low level jobs and I'm currently securing an engineering job.

Fight smart, not fair.

For me, English classes taught me a great deal, especially literature, so maybe its just how much we wanted to get out of it.

But I don't know, I like literature so maybe i'm an outcast here.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

I like literature. I hated everything english teachers required of me. It was even more annoying that they wouldn't let me just sit at the back of the room and read on my own, and then do the work. Fucking participation grade. And then they got whiney when I just answered all the questions instead of letting others have a chance so I could go back to reading.

Fight smart, not fair.

I'd agree with your teachers. Its not just reading literature, its the discussion of it that I find more interesting. I've never learned just by reading something, but I've learned a lot more by discussing it.

I

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

And yet there was at no point a discussion, it was a constant "explain why I'm right" conversation on the teachers part.

So, because you learn from discussion, I do too?

edited 27th Jan '11 8:54:11 AM by Deboss

Fight smart, not fair.

Yeah, because you have to be able to explain why you believe what you do in anything otherwise its just, "WELL BECAUSE I SAY SO NEENER NEENER"

So why can't you explain why you're right? Or its an even better skill to learn how to discuss or ague a point from a perspective you don't believe in or disagree with (which in the real world you will do often).

edited 27th Jan '11 9:08:31 AM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

I kind of agree with Deboss; if he knows everything about the book, why should he have to bother explaining it? Just have a friggin' test occasionally like every other class.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Because there is much more than just knowing the book?

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

"I kind of agree with Deboss; if he knows everything about the book, why should he have to bother explaining it? Just have a friggin' test occasionally like every other class."

What kind of class can he have in which he could even hope to 'know everything in the book'? It's not a maths equation, it's an interpretation of the themes and ideas present throughout.

People can, and have spent entire lives doing this to a single work. Let alone multiple (most of which should have an overaching theme anyway tremendously increasing the complexity of such).

"When you cut your finger, I do not bleed." Response of a man who lived on the outskirts of a concentration camp.

If it's not something with a definitive answer or solution, it doesn't belong on mandatory curriculum. Reading the book is all that is required to know what is in the book. Bullshit like the authors birthday is worthless crap that is tacked on to make it seem important.

If you're suggesting arguments, I would direct you to the fact that that's something you learn in a debate class (what with being called "debate" and all) rather than a literature class.

That's one of the biggest problems with english classes, they don't have enough solid components to justify their four year requirements. Just copy what colleges do and cram it down to one semester.

Fight smart, not fair.

Okay, if you don't want to learn how to defend your point don't take an English class.

That said, it seems like you were dominating the conversation by saying your points and then refusing to let other people comment. That seems pretty selfish to me, and pretty much your decision, not the fault of the class.

edited 27th Jan '11 9:33:45 AM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

I wasn't trying to dominate the class, I was trying to get the teacher to stop asking question since I wasn't allowed to read quietly while the questions were on the table. I would avoid taking the english class if it wasn't mandatory.

Fight smart, not fair.

Okay, so you refused to participate in a class and didn't want to be there so you blame the system rather than your own indifference?

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

I think it's fair to blame a system that puts me in a class I hate.

Fight smart, not fair.

It puts you in that class to broaden your learning whether you want to or not. The system, quite frankly, doesn't care what you want, its more focused on what you need. Over time the assumption is that you can choose what you need better.

If we were concerned on what you wanted, we wouldn't have mandatory education and even in the work-place you will find yourselves learning and doing things you don't like.

Just how life works.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Yeah, I'll just have to go vote to strip out all art in retaliation. Four years of english is more than anyone but somebody learning the language needs.

Fight smart, not fair.

I've heard anti-art sentiments but most of the legitimate ones tend to be Marxist in origin and I disagreed with most of those and I doubt that any new ground has been shed on anti-art since then.

That said, your decision to be uncultured is yours to make. And since you still don't understand why we have English classes, I'd say that its useless to argue this point further.

edited 27th Jan '11 10:08:27 AM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Let's not conflate teaching and curricula. Everyone has bad teachers and bad experiences in school. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, aptitudes and ineptitudes. I may have hated Spanish class, but that doesn't mean we should stop teaching Spanish to everyone.

And let's give students a voice in their schedules. If you don't want anything but math and science, then take physics and calculus, but at least take some English so you can write a research paper or a grant properly. There should be a mandatory class in critical thinking in high school, too, since (according to a recent study) nobody's learning it any more.

Under World. It rocks!

If it's a purely improved writing class, it wouldn't be amiss. Literature classes can still go die in a fire though. I think we should cut foreign language requirements from HS, not because it's useless, but because it's too short of a period to learn anything worthwhile in. Foreign language is a five year thing, not two.

Fight smart, not fair.

Deboss, I think I gotta go with the American view of "It's your own damn fault". You get out of school what you put in. The system can be improved but not by axing shit you don't like. If you find it isn't teaching you better writing skills, I would completely disagree that removing literature would somehow help. You want to learn specifics, go do it on your own, school is about allowing you to learn better and expanding what you can learn. If I went to university solely to learn, "Okay engineers, this is how you specifically make a Vo IP app", I'd be pretty screwed right now because I'd have no concept of how to design systems in general. Sure you should include some practicality to anything but to only aim for the short-term in education goals is by definition short sighted.

The industrial era is over. The concept of factory-produced children is worthless. You think our schools can compete with Chinese and Indian graduates who come out in the bajillions when you're saying things like "Let's axe everything that is thought provoking" during the information age? Ideas are the basis of our economy, not vocational skills. Okay you learned how to build a car, the hell do I care? I can hire lots of others to do exactly the same thing, why don't I just go to China or India? But you learn the concept of how to come up with new cars, how to improve the building process, or you learned the theoretical understanding of building cars and took that to build cars better than a Chinese/Indian person. Then I'd have a reason to hire you.

In case you didn't notice, I'm specifically arguing against factory produced standardized educations. And teaching how to build a car is job training. Not "here's this part of the assembly line", I'm talking stuff like welding in general. That's a skill set that is still in quite a bit of use. I never suggested that it should only teach a specific set of technical skills to the detriment of general skills, I said it should teach a broad set of technical skills.

And when literature classes become thought provoking rather than rote "agreeing with the teachers interpretation" you let me know, and I'll switch from "dump it" to "maybe it should be added".

I'm comparing the learning I did in college english (which had no literature) vs the non-existent learning I did in HS (which was almost entirely literature) and saying "this part is inhibiting learning the valuable skill".

edited 27th Jan '11 11:43:29 AM by Deboss

Fight smart, not fair.

Deboss, when literacy in the U.S. population is at a frightening low, especially compared to other developed nations, I don't really care if it is factory-line education as long as it teaches kids the basic principles of reading, writing, grammar, literary analysis, etc. Maybe we need better teaching methods, but the necessity for the teaching itself is patent. I was past Rouge Angles of Satin by the time I was out of elementary school; there's no excuse for it in a first world country, yet it stubbornly persists.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I'm in favor of promoting reading, writing, and grammar. I think that exposing people to a variety of genres and writing styles will have a significantly greater effect on promoting literacy than "here's a list of books declared good by the board of education, if you don't like them, you fail" style. Or worse, "you have to have an english class, no matter how good you are at it", what's the incentive to try harder if there's no reward? Or the fact that students who don't need the class are still sucking up time.

There's a good excuse for Rouge Angles of Satin: english is a shitty language with too many homophones, country be-damned.

I just remembered, my little brother told me they split literature off from reading mechanics and writing skills, they're called "reading" and "ELA"  ^*

. I think it would behoove the schools to make "reading" an opt out course if the student can prove they read on their own.

edited 27th Jan '11 12:53:08 PM by Deboss

Fight smart, not fair.

Well, I just find that what you propose will achieve the exact opposite of what you want. You want students to earn better writing, reading and grammar skills by focusing on those but those are, in my book, the same as teaching vocational skills. The point of literature was to expose you to better reading and writing, at the same time as having you write essays and the like in response to them. Granted, a lot of high schools do a poor job of teaching, but that's a matter of improving quality of education (like for instance, have teachers police their own standards). Axing literature, I'm quite sure, will have the total opposite effect of improving writing. Teaching the rules of writing isn't going to help.

I think the question that is missing from your proposed reformation of the education system is "Why is a man educated in North America better than one in Asia?" Now, I thought you had an engineering education (I didn't remember incorrectly did I?), so I find it sorta funny your college mandates english as a required subject, but in any case, the question is what would make you superior to someone educated at say IIT in India? I feel the answer is that education at the university level (if not high school) pushes us toward thinking and a theoretical foundation upon which we create new ideas. We're not taught vocational skills and instead taught how to think. Then when people from our education system enter the workforce, they're able to become better workers.

The way I believe we should improve our education system is by focusing on "idea building" and that means that what we should do is focus on "literature", where you gain great reading/writing/grammar skills as a byproduct. You learn theoretical mathematics and proofs, which as a byproduct means you also must learn a great deal of algebra/finite/calculus. And so on and so forth.

Afterall, if I tell you to read ever more complicated literature, then produce ever higher quality essays based on those books, you are exposed to literature and you must improve your reading/writing/grammar in order to complete the assignments around it. I think that is far more helpful than a teacher ramming grammar rules into your face.