I think the gullibility of so many Americans has multiple causes, but that they all are related, one way or another, to the class of folks who strive for absolute power, and I think school curricula have been impoverished by political forces that want to train, not educate the public.
I think the gullibility of so many Americans has multiple causes, but that they all are related, one way or another, to the class of folks who strive for absolute power, and I think school curricula have been impoverished by political forces that want to train, not educate the public.
Schools have a major role in preparing students for their working life, but there is more to life than a job, and instruction in perceptive observation, focused, disciplined thinking, and fruitful approaches to turn outside-the-box creative thoughts into useful applied ideas and products, in science and engineering or the arts; or just in navigating the varied, vicissitudes of life (adaptability and resilience) that can be usefully applied to virtually any aspect of life, and certainly the workplace.
J L, those political forces are real. So are the ones emanating from narrow minded bigots.
There is nothing wrong with training young people to become independent, successful and productive workers or entrepreneurs. Actually, too often, we have pushed kids along, sending them to college where they could "mature" and drink beer. But with no goal of employment. There are significant efforts beginning to gain steam as industries coordinate with Community Colleges - actually telling them what type of employees they are desperate for. But much more needs to be done to prepare kids for work that works for them.
If a young person is completing his/her education and has had no exposure to work environments, we have failed.
But we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Teaching civics, humanities and critical thinking skills should not be "minors". Teaching the real history of our country should be required. "Government" needs to be a required course. And I would add "World Religions" to every high school. Sociology and psychology (how politicians manipulate) would be on my list as well. Oh and how about a class on "Cultism"? And, no kid should have a diploma without a complete understanding of how the Holocaust came to be. Because some version of it just keeps happening. Field trip to Sudan, maybe?
Some schools are getting it right. Our grandson learned about the culture of Japan - last year in his first grade class. It tied in with the section on diversity - and all its benefits.
This are wonderful ideas. I am going to toot the horn of my Alma Mater, Keuka College. I graduated from there in 1969. Their curriculum includes, for many years, what is known as Field Period, a 5 week period for experiential learning, when students work in a community experience, a cultural one, and a work experience in their major field of study during their junior and senior years. Ask any student, alumni, or college staff how successful this time is or was.
I'm thinking junior year of high school could also be good for work experience.
I'd like to see several, say, six-week periods of field work. Each one of five or six hours of apprentice-style training tied to two or three hours in a work-related classroom.
Students could choose from among hospitals, restaurant kitchens, computer labs, forestry management, housing construction, auto shop, office management, and mental health clinics. All could have good classroom correlates, each with humanities reading and discussion assignments.
Slavery and holocaust, the pattern of one abusing another. One group dominating another convinced that it is their destiny and Devine right and obligation.
Gjay15, I would expand on your comment. I want to caution against looking for better methods or approaches to education that ultimately replicate an inadequate system. For example, our economy depends in large part on the extraction and consumption of finite natural resources. We should challenge the kids to look at our economic system through a moral-ethical lens with regard to future inhabitants of our world. When we have available to us multiple ways to accomplish the same task, or goal, is it morally defensible to choose to employ the method that consumes irreplaceable natural resources instead of the method that does not consume irreplaceable resources?
In the case of production of electricity, there are small quibbles about the materials that go into the production of photovoltaic solar panels, but those materials are embedded in the panels and are not actually consumed in the same sense that coal and oil are burned, with the combustion byproducts dumped into our natural environment.
Our children should be encouraged to look at the long view into the distant future, to ponder what their descendants will be left with after we, the living, have unconscionably used up irreplaceable resources unnecessarily, solely to make a few people needlessly wealthy in our lifetime.
Instead of teaching our children how to be better at doing what we have been doing, encourage them instead to think about how to build a better future that will sustain them, and their descendants, long into the distant future.
And тАЬexpand тАЬ you did. Thank you. The pursuit of comfort , convenience and certainty are like the pursuit of happiness when it leads to motivation, inspiration, creativity and active skepticism and criticism. But when it becomes the be all and end all and entitlement, it can be dangerous.
I think the gullibility of so many Americans has multiple causes, but that they all are related, one way or another, to the class of folks who strive for absolute power, and I think school curricula have been impoverished by political forces that want to train, not educate the public.
Train versus educate. Keen perception, J.L. Thank you.
Yes!!! and to hear anyone say that the purpose of schools is to тАЬeducate a workforceтАЭ makes my skin crawl!
Schools have a major role in preparing students for their working life, but there is more to life than a job, and instruction in perceptive observation, focused, disciplined thinking, and fruitful approaches to turn outside-the-box creative thoughts into useful applied ideas and products, in science and engineering or the arts; or just in navigating the varied, vicissitudes of life (adaptability and resilience) that can be usefully applied to virtually any aspect of life, and certainly the workplace.
J L, those political forces are real. So are the ones emanating from narrow minded bigots.
There is nothing wrong with training young people to become independent, successful and productive workers or entrepreneurs. Actually, too often, we have pushed kids along, sending them to college where they could "mature" and drink beer. But with no goal of employment. There are significant efforts beginning to gain steam as industries coordinate with Community Colleges - actually telling them what type of employees they are desperate for. But much more needs to be done to prepare kids for work that works for them.
If a young person is completing his/her education and has had no exposure to work environments, we have failed.
But we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Teaching civics, humanities and critical thinking skills should not be "minors". Teaching the real history of our country should be required. "Government" needs to be a required course. And I would add "World Religions" to every high school. Sociology and psychology (how politicians manipulate) would be on my list as well. Oh and how about a class on "Cultism"? And, no kid should have a diploma without a complete understanding of how the Holocaust came to be. Because some version of it just keeps happening. Field trip to Sudan, maybe?
Some schools are getting it right. Our grandson learned about the culture of Japan - last year in his first grade class. It tied in with the section on diversity - and all its benefits.
This are wonderful ideas. I am going to toot the horn of my Alma Mater, Keuka College. I graduated from there in 1969. Their curriculum includes, for many years, what is known as Field Period, a 5 week period for experiential learning, when students work in a community experience, a cultural one, and a work experience in their major field of study during their junior and senior years. Ask any student, alumni, or college staff how successful this time is or was.
I'm thinking junior year of high school could also be good for work experience.
I'd like to see several, say, six-week periods of field work. Each one of five or six hours of apprentice-style training tied to two or three hours in a work-related classroom.
Students could choose from among hospitals, restaurant kitchens, computer labs, forestry management, housing construction, auto shop, office management, and mental health clinics. All could have good classroom correlates, each with humanities reading and discussion assignments.
Slavery and holocaust, the pattern of one abusing another. One group dominating another convinced that it is their destiny and Devine right and obligation.
Gjay15, I would expand on your comment. I want to caution against looking for better methods or approaches to education that ultimately replicate an inadequate system. For example, our economy depends in large part on the extraction and consumption of finite natural resources. We should challenge the kids to look at our economic system through a moral-ethical lens with regard to future inhabitants of our world. When we have available to us multiple ways to accomplish the same task, or goal, is it morally defensible to choose to employ the method that consumes irreplaceable natural resources instead of the method that does not consume irreplaceable resources?
In the case of production of electricity, there are small quibbles about the materials that go into the production of photovoltaic solar panels, but those materials are embedded in the panels and are not actually consumed in the same sense that coal and oil are burned, with the combustion byproducts dumped into our natural environment.
Our children should be encouraged to look at the long view into the distant future, to ponder what their descendants will be left with after we, the living, have unconscionably used up irreplaceable resources unnecessarily, solely to make a few people needlessly wealthy in our lifetime.
Instead of teaching our children how to be better at doing what we have been doing, encourage them instead to think about how to build a better future that will sustain them, and their descendants, long into the distant future.
And тАЬexpand тАЬ you did. Thank you. The pursuit of comfort , convenience and certainty are like the pursuit of happiness when it leads to motivation, inspiration, creativity and active skepticism and criticism. But when it becomes the be all and end all and entitlement, it can be dangerous.
Throw Rupert out would do more good than anything
Elon too.
Urgent.
Oh, indeed
agree completely
Well stated; an educated populace scares them, a trained one is easier to manipulate.