Solutions Thread: Education

Human beings are creative creatures that have solved many problems in their day. We've gone from being tribal hunter-gatherers who had no concept of the world as it is to being able to leave the world (if only for short periods). We've learned to control our baser natures, and hand down punishments as a people to those who cannot live in harmony. Surely the race that has achieved all that can solve the problems in society that we have today.

We've discussed many problems in these forums, and now I suggest we redirect (part of) our focus to discussing solutions. I don't know that we'll be able to solve world problems like poverty or war here in the TV Tropes forums, but the solutions come from somewhere. So let's hear them.

This thread focuses on one that I think is important - education in the United States. I've heard plenty of solutions, such as, "Throw money at the problem," or, "privatize our entire education system," or "vouchers are the only solution." Let's discuss what we think are valid solutions, and the problems with their implementation.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

Part of the problem is that we actually are dropping a decent amount of money into the education system. Unfortunately...

When someone says they'll give money to the education system (grants, lottery proceeds, tax dollars), specify right off the bat that it will go to primary schools that actually need it instead of watching it all get quietly funneled into overpriced colleges.

When it does go into primary schools, specify that the athletic department is of a lower priority than basic curriculum.

edited 5th Mar '12 5:52:27 PM by Pykrete

Vouchers are fucking stupid and would turn education into a privatized business. This is one thing that absolutely cannot go down that road.

As for funding; part of the problem is that funding is largely based on local property values. Evening it out across the board would do a great deal in helping the poorer inner city and country schools. Also, subject teachers to peer review. And make teacher pay worth a damn and give them good health insurance; part of getting good people into that career line is making it worth the time they spent on their own education.

To be fair. a lot of that hits colleges too. The departments that need funding dont get much. MY college's photography department getes a mere 1000 dollars for an entire fiscal year for supplies.

Teachers definitely need some form of peer-review. I mean No Child Left Behind was retarded in how it was designed, but teachers flat-out sucking and screwing kids in the long term is a thing. Much of the tutoring I did had to start by figuring out and cleaning up some jackass's mess that had been slowing the poor kid down for the last several years, then helping them to better understand what they'd struggled through on a metaphorical bum leg for said several years.

Still, it's considerably more complicated than just testing the kids and then defunding the school if they score low. Poor teaching materials, poorly-educated teachers, and, yes, kids being jackasses themselves can also cause disproportionately low test scores.

No argument whatsoever on upping their pay scale and benefits.

edited 5th Mar '12 6:40:15 PM by Pykrete

I'm actually more on board with this in secondary education than primary. PE isn't a terrible thing in primary education, though I agree that its priority shouldn't be anywhere near as high.

I just think that the area where a problem is developed is in secondary school, where a lot of money is completely wasted on athletics. I know at my school, you had to pay for your field trips that were extracurricular. So if you wanted to take part in Model UN, Youth Legislature, band, etc, you had to pay to go to events. Football players, on the other hand, got free transportation around the state for games. This demonstrates to me that academics (especially academic extracurriculars) are valued far less than athletics.

I would love to switch to a system where athletics were not a school thing, but managed by private entities. Kids should be able to find athletic outlets, but spending our education money on it is idiotic.

edited 5th Mar '12 6:59:31 PM by Vericrat

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

Well, we can't exactly create a reform that directly effects a student's reaction to their education or the parent's. The best we can do is raise the bar in an effective manner. Patience to accept the things we cannot change, and all that.

One thing we can do is find some sort of way to keep art and music programs. And find a way to fire/dismiss teachers who aren't doing such a good job.

But then, we also have to get some students motivated and get others to see the value in education (because some think, "Why bother, if it's not going to get me anywhere," and end up not trying).

Also, I'm not sure more standardized testing is a good idea. It doesn't seem to be working, and the teachers just end up teaching to the test, anyway (in my experience).

edited 5th Mar '12 10:32:29 PM by BlackElephant

I'm an elephant. Rurr.

I dunno, I personally think that keeping athletics is a good thing. I took a pretty stressful academic workload throughout high school and more and more, I always enjoyed having an hour to run or play basketball or something. In the right environment, I really feel that PE can be a good stress reliever regardless of your physical capabilities. That being said, I agree that it's unfair if the sports teams get privileges and preferential funding that the band and other academic clubs do not, however.

https://soundcloud.com/rich-justice-hinmen Too white for the black kids, too white for the white kids.

But that's the major point. I'm sure my school would have funded those trips itself if it had the money to. It did not. It had money to fund one but not the other, and the question is which should be valued more highly. Since the institution of school is about teaching and preparing our youth for being productive citizens, I would argue that academics should be valued more highly.

Again, I think that kids should have that exact kind of outlet you're talking about. I just don't think we should be diverting our school funds from academics into athletics until we have enough money to adequately fund education proper. I think privately maintained clubs are suited just fine for athletic competition - I played soccer in a community organization, not at my school.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

One thing to keep in mind when looking at how much money is spent on athletics versus other extracurriculars is the flipside of it: how much money do those extracurriculars bring into the school? A popular football or basketball team can make a school a metric shitton of money. How much does the debate team or the concert orchestra bring in?

I'm not saying that this is perfect, or even right, but it is a consideration.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Overall, there's a variety of things that are wrong. Most of the cost problem is related to organization and distribution rather than lack of raw money. I've also found that the way things are taught as a fixed one method, one speed education for the early part is bad. You get crappy elementary and middle (which is the one that gets looked over the most in my experience, but that might be my specific education) school, a good high school is not going to make up for that in four years. You're supposed to learn the curriculum over twelve years, not four.

Fight smart, not fair.

One serious problem is that, as things stand now, teachers in higher education are valued more and paid more than teachers in lower education. This is pure distilled madness. A mediocre college teacher will not that much damage, all things considered; but a mediocre primary school teacher can literally ruin people.

We (well, I'm not from the U.S., but I think that this concept is applicable to the U.S. too) need to have the best of the best as primary school teachers or middle school teachers. It should be a high-ranking, extremely prestigious position.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Nah, teachers in college are paid more because they also do research, not because they're supposed to be better teachers. You can generally tell when you've gotten a "research" professor over a "teaching" professor in their class because a lot of research professors simply cannot teach worth a damn.

I also think you're overestimating the damage a mediocre teacher will do. The vast majority of any job holders are going to be mediocre at their job.

Fight smart, not fair.

A better general solution is make it so that the worst of them get fired real quick. Again, peer review would help with this. Also, teaching very young children already requires (I think) specific techniques and courses for the people who intend to teach things like kindergarteners.

A mediocre teacher simply makes you uninterested. A bad teacher can ruin your passion for whatever hobby you have forever and also teach you you're pretty much stupid forever. Especially at the younger stages.

I have had some of these "research" professors. And it was pointless. I can agree on the value of research; but if someone is an excellent researcher but an awful teacher, they should not be hired as teachers.

A mediocre primary school teacher can do quite a lot of damage, of this I am convinced. She or he is going to be one of the primary influences on the student, in a moment in which their outlook is still pretty much unformed. How many potential geniuses have we lost because primary school taught them that school is dumb and studying is for brown-nosers?

edited 6th Mar '12 12:05:08 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

One, I think we're going to have to define mediocre. Two, we're going to have to realize that teachers are human and cannot split their attention to every student ever. Especially considering the classes are filled with like forty students in some places. I don't know how it is in Italy, but schools in America can get ridiculously crowded and some students just naturally require more attention, so it's not usually out of malice that other students get ignored.

All right, let us use "bad" instead of "mediocre" if we want to focus on the worst cases.

This highlights another problem. One teacher per 40 students is insane. Ideally, I think that we'd need classes of ten people or so; twenty is less than ideal, but it might still be manageable.

But what I meant is that teaching at the lower levels tends to be seen as a lower-prestige position, and hence attracts less motivated people. For example, in my college course, most of the "bright kids" were among the ones who planned to continue and do research. The ones who wanted to get a math qualification in order to become teachers... well, there were exceptions, but many of them just did not put all that much effort in their studies. Because "really, how much math do you need to know in order to teach arithmetics to kids?"

And this attitude, of course, is the primary reason why there still are "is 0.99999.... equal to 1?" debates around. Or why most people don't really understand probability. Or so on.

edited 6th Mar '12 12:16:48 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Are you using mediocre as "anything that isn't good" as opposed to "neither very good nor very bad"? Because I'm using the second one. The worst a mediocre teacher will usually do is bore someone who could be interested in a subject but won't because of this teacher. As long as they still learn the subject, primary criteria is still met.

I agree on the researcher vs teacher thing. I also believe in separating our researchers fro our teachers if they can't do both jobs.

School is dumb and studying is for brown nosers is an attitude perpetuated by curriculum and parents for the most part. Also: studying is for people who can't learn it the first time.

Fight smart, not fair.

You all seem to neglect a category of things very relevant to education : after school actions

What have we learned or did as children? Are the younger generations doing the same things or making the same mistakes? What do they do after school?

A good form of education is one that lets the young actively try to obtain more interest in learning, instead of just INFO DUMPING into their craniums and expect it to work. I know what's going on in my land : I don't know what's the name for the educational model but in here the schools' teachers are just info dumping and can take no questions and wrong answers whatsoever. What makes and breaks kids is the grades, nothing more. It continued on to high school and everyone acted like soap drama chatters and delinquents. Everyone wanted out of classroom all came to school just for the sake of status. Been seeing this until I dropped out

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

The most common teaching method for primary schooling is the lecture method. Hands on methods, where applicable, would probably benefit the younger kids a lot.

But hey, my school had clubs like Decathlon (which was also an elective class for the really advanced kids that helped with their credits) and things like the Libertas club or the Yearbook club which could help with literary analysis and publishing for those interested in those kinds of things. I'm also pretty sure that there was some kind of math club, but that was never my favorite subject. Basically... extracurriculars are a good way to focus what they're learning in whatever class. Part of my deal about taking money away from sports is to parcel it out to these other clubs so they can attract more students and they can also get out and do stuff that they enjoy and would learn from.

I'm not gonna lie, I've never thought about this. The solution, I think, is to reinvest as much money as is necessary to continue getting the extra money that should then be spent on academic extracurriculars. For instance, if the school's total budget is $1000, and it spends $800 on academics, $150 on football, and $50 on other extracurriculars should take whatever excess over $150 that is earned from their football team and invest it in other areas. Not back into the football team.

Overall, the athletic teams should receive the funding that results in the most amount of money being available for other things. So if your football team can bring in more for the rest of the school than is put into it, then fund it. If not, then hell no.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

For a subject as sequentially dependent as math, a mediocre teacher can put them in a rut for the rest of their education if not fixed quickly. I've been tutoring since high school, and I've yet to meet a single kid who was actually "bad at math" — but plenty of kids who got screwed out of a decent foundation and were expected to continue nonetheless.

As for income, when your athletic department is spending more than a sold-out game will bring in and aggressively trying to shut down the other programs, there's a problem.

edited 6th Mar '12 3:00:47 PM by Pykrete

or when the school can barely give enough money to the photo, engineering, and art schools combined to afford a decent amount of professional grade equipment but has brand spanking new sports gear for the football team.

Which happens at a lot of high schools and colleges.

The concept of a school having a professional team and even making money through it sounds incredibly alien to me...

On the topic of money, one serious issue is textbooks. They are stupidly expensive, they are generally of pretty bad quality, and they get replaced every year for no good reason (except, of course, for making it impossible to buy used books). I would require all textbooks to be freely available in perpetuity under a Creative Commons license. Then I would require the Ministry of Education to prepare some high-quality material: of course, teachers and schools would be perfectly free to pick something else, or to mix and match as they will, as long as it is free and with no copyrights.

Also, on the topic of the math curriculum, I would remove the teaching of calculus from High School altogether. It's a waste of time: generally, it's done so badly that people who are going to study it at the university have to start from the beginning anyway and try to forget all they "learned" about the topic in HS, and people who don't do something sciency-related are not really going to need it anyway.

I would use the available time to go a bit more in-depth on basic probability (seriously, that's probably the most useful part of math for non-mathematicians ever), basic financial mathematics, Euclidean geometry, trigonometry and, if time permits, even a touch of axiomatic non-Euclidean geometry (that's easy and funny, and a good way to understand the notion of "proof" better) and complex arithmetics (also pretty easy and interesting, and knowing it makes trigonometry a lot easier.)

edited 6th Mar '12 3:32:14 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.