Opinion Shouldn't the education system produce young adults that are ideal for society?

[Swing]

Well I did go to a good high school and made it through calculus. Of course I could calculate an interest rate if someone told me what it was but never once did we learn the word interest rate. So if I were reading a contract and it said 6% interest, 12 years of the best public school education in the country would have failed me. Basic things like that, supply, demand, how to read a balance sheet, how to file your income taxes.. these are things that anyone with a good education could pick up very quickly; but they never took the 5 minutes in 12 years to explicitly teach it.

I mean, this is a very standard word problem that I just found:

Jackson and Vicky deposit $500.00 into a savings account which earns 14% interest compounded continuously. They want to use the money in the account to go on a trip in 1 year. How much will they be able to spend?
Use the formula A=Pe^(rt)

A is the balance (final amount),
P is the principal (starting amount), e is the base of natural logarithms (≈2.71828),
r is the interest rate expressed as a decimal, and
t is the time in years.

 

[superpunch]

I mean, this is a very standard word problem that I just found:

Looks like common core is doing some good then. I went to school before common core. Every high school (actually interest rates should be elementary school stuff) should cover basic stuff like that and it shouldn't be left to chance or not if it's in your school's or teacher's curriculum.

 

[panamaican]

Well, first you have to throw out the lie that we are teaching "our kids to hate our society, history, capitalism, democracy, and possibly even themselves. Also to encourage our young people not to be too patriotic as well." There are a handful of isolated examples that malcontents exaggerate as a pandemic. It's not happening.

Then you have to look at what's actually reflective of our society and decide if what's being taught actually goes against that. We live in a country that was built on personal freedom, religious freedom and believing that all people are equal. Now, when people say that the schools are indoctrinating the kids, the question is "Are they teaching kids that all people are equal? Are they teaching them not to respect religious freedom? Are they teaching them the opposite of personal freedom?"

And honest answer is that our schools are doing just fine. What's changed are that some adults no longer believe those tenets. They don't respect religious freedom - they're fine with religions like Islam being restricted. They don't want believe that all people are equal - they openly believe that some people are simply "less" than other people and so don't deserve protection from institutional abuses. They don't believe in personal freedom - they want to restrict the rights and choices of others.

The education system works to teach the principles. The parents raise bloody hell when those core principles end up contradicting the parents' personal biases. At that point, they start demanding that the school stay out of it and that the parents should do the teaching.

The long term consequence has been that the schools teach even less about morals and ethics than ever before and that's exactly what the parents have been pushing for. So put the blame where it belongs - on the parents, not the education system.

And by way of example - most the elite prep schools from which the "elites" and the economic upper crust arise still make morals and ethics a big part of their curricula while the middle class and the masses are insisting they don't want teachers pushing morals and ethics in the classroom. If you don't want the public schools to push a unified moral/ethical position then you're not going to get a unified moral/ethical position from your society.

 

[franklinstower]

you know what’s not interesting??? Made up fantasies about hypothetical Trump situations blah blah he’d fuck your wife and lie to you and defraud you....this is pure conjecture made up in your own mind. It’s hilarious, pathetic and wreaks of desperation mixed with TDS.

I was doing conjecture-- yes. That is what I was doing. I dont think its much of a stretch either. Trump is a liar, an adulterer and is known to not pay contractors who have done work for him and be involved in shady bussiness practices like his charity and college. He has also been known to slander people.

What I said is conjecture yes-- but it is in character too.

 

[nostradumbass]

I do not believe that is true of every president. Its not even close to true. Jimmy Carter would not do any of those things. FDR would not have done any of those things and honestly Obama would not have done any of those except lie to you-- he would lie to you.

I get you guys being disillusioned-- I don't get picking the worst of the worst to support though. Trump is a bridge WAY TOO FAR. He stands out among dirt bags, he is exceptional among narcissists and he lacks any of the refinement that might dull some of the edge.

I can genuinely say with full honesty that if Trump were a progressive I would not be supporting him just because he is on my team.

You don't have to look at it as a hypothetical. Donald Trump was a fairly progressive democrat for almost 70 years of his life, and he was seen as just a gaudy celebrity businessman. People watched his show, stayed at his hotels, there was a comedy central roast, people passed him on the street in NYC and said hi. Everyone knew him as just this sort of petty rich guy, but as soon as he switched parties and ran for president, suddenly he's a white supremacist Russian spy at age 70.

I don't like Donald Trump as a person, but I'm glad he's president because now we get to hear what pieces of shit everyone else is too. I don't trust the guy, certainly wouldn't invite him over for dinner or ask him to babysit my kids, but there's not 1 single thing that has gotten worse in my life and a shitload of stuff has been exposed that you would have never heard about if he wasn't president.

 

[nostradumbass]

Yeah those useless fuckers trying to improve their society instead of just accepting the past.




Probably largely due to people who didn't want to fit in and instead wanted to make the world a better place.

That theory falls apart under scrutiny. People's grandparents literally risked their lives to make the world a better place. You're supposed to work in order of taking care of yourself, your family, your friends, your city, your state, your country, then the world. You can't bypass all of that and make the world a better place if you can't even show up for work on time and have a bunch of dirty plates in your sink. The world functions best when people take care of themselves and their families and what energy is left over on broader things, which they would find requires very little energy if everyone is taking care of themselves. There are places throughout history where there is nothing you can do to improve your situation in life, the US has never been one of them.

 

[franklinstower]

You don't have to look at it as a hypothetical. Donald Trump was a fairly progressive democrat for almost 70 years of his life, and he was seen as just a gaudy celebrity businessman. People watched his show, stayed at his hotels, there was a comedy central roast, people passed him on the street in NYC and said hi. Everyone knew him as just this sort of petty rich guy, but as soon as he switched parties and ran for president, suddenly he's a white supremacist Russian spy at age 70.

I don't like Donald Trump as a person, but I'm glad he's president because now we get to hear what pieces of shit everyone else is too. I don't trust the guy, certainly wouldn't invite him over for dinner or ask him to babysit my kids, but there's not 1 single thing that has gotten worse in my life and a shitload of stuff has been exposed that you would have never heard about if he wasn't president.

I hear you man but "your life" sounds like a very self centered measure by which to gauge the qualifications of the leader of the free world. Selfish voting is one of the biggest problems we face today.

I don't vote for what will benefit me personally and never have. To the best of my ability I vote for what I think will benefit the majority of people, especially the weakest among us.

I see your point about Trump calling out corruption everywhere. It would be a good thing if it were not to cover up for his own. Nevertheless the dishonesty of politicians in general has certainly paved the way for this.

I've been telling my democratic allies all along that it is NOT enough to call out Trumps corruption even though it is worse than others. People are sick to death of it and unless we really clean house in both parities we have lost the peoples confidence.

 

[Trotsky]

You also don't seem to understand what a strawman is. And, yes, only right-wingers have interfered with science education, pushing nonsense like intelligent design.

And let's not forget right-wingers' contemporary attacks on history, wanting to curb history education to promote more "patriotic" narrative and marginalize "unpatriotic" truths....which is pretty obviously consistent with the TS's worries:

teach our kids to hate our society, history, capitalism, democracy, and possibly even themselves. Also to encourage our young people not to be too patriotic as well.

Of course, since Texas and its education board control most of our history textbooks, there has already been a longstanding conservative bias. But, for states like Kansas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, that's not enough.

It seems strange to organize an educational system around what can’t be taught to children.

But for large chunks of the country, that is exactly how public educational standards seem to be set: by demarcating and preserving blind spots rather than promoting enlightenment.

It started at least 90 years ago with evolution, when Tennessee banned the teaching of any theory that contradicted the biblical story of the divine creation of man, leading to the infamous Scopes monkey trial. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down such laws, but battles over teaching, or not teaching, evolution in public schools continue to this day. Many parts of the country that have relaxed their objections to teaching evolution have now pivoted to try to ban or sabotage teaching about climate change. Sex ed — at least the kind that actually educates kids about sex, rather than its absence — has come under similar attacks. Now, more recently, states have started trying to ban the teaching of U.S. history.

Yes, U.S. history. Specifically, the bits of our history that might be uncomfortable, unflattering or even shameful — or, as some politicians call it, “unpatriotic.”

This week an Oklahoma legislative committee voted overwhelmingly to effectively ban the teaching of Advanced Placement U.S. history classes. The bill’s author, Rep. Dan Fisher (R), said that state funds shouldn’t be used to teach the course — which students can take to receive college credit — because he believes it emphasizes “what is bad about America” and characterizes the United States as a “nation of oppressors and exploiters.” Fisher’s proposal to replace the ready-made, nationally used, college-recognized AP curriculum — studied by hundreds of thousands of high school students each year — with a homegrown substitute would cost the state an estimated $3.8 million.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...e9cb0c-b878-11e4-a200-c008a01a6692_story.html​

Isn't that what China does?

The fact that right-wingers can say these things and not smell the notes of China and North Korea is astonishing.

The Making of a Chinese Patriot
What happens when you mix rage, shame and pride with years of nationalist education?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/28/opinion/sunday/chinese-nationalism.html

 

[nostradumbass]

I hear you man but "your life" sounds like a very self centered measure by which to gauge the qualifications of the leader of the free world. Selfish voting is one of the biggest problems we face today.

I don't vote for what will benefit me personally and never have. To the best of my ability I vote for what I think will benefit the majority of people, especially the weakest among us.

I see your point about Trump calling out corruption everywhere. It would be a good thing if it were not to cover up for his own. Nevertheless the dishonesty of politicians in general has certainly paved the way for this.

I've been telling my democratic allies all along that it is NOT enough to call out Trumps corruption even though it is worse than others. People are sick to death of it and unless we really clean house in both parities we have lost the peoples confidence.

Sure, but I'm sort of in the camp of prioritizing. It's not self-centered to use myself as a metric when I'm the only person for whom I know every circumstance and I'm not poor or a billionaire. If you live the US and are permanently poor, there are likely about 20 wrong turns you've taken that have nothing to do with government.

IMO, it gets really fuzzy when you rely on the government to fix people's lives that the government didn't break. What it should be is to make someone living a good life, as in getting an education, getting married, raising a family, as easy a possible and right now, people who do that spend more on taxes than on food, clothing and healthcare combined. It's been made clear throughout history that government can certainly ruin your life but they can't really improve it to any great extent. Interstate highways are helpful, some things in local government that everyone pretends is where your taxes go like schools and roads are helpful, but our federal budget is double the next highest country, which is a communist country with over a billion people and we still double it. I'm just of the opinion that people should fix their own lives and asking the government to fix it for them makes a lot more problems than it solves.

 

[franklinstower]

Sure, but I'm sort of in the camp of prioritizing. It's not self-centered to use myself as a metric when I'm the only person for whom I know every circumstance and I'm not poor or a billionaire. If you live the US and are permanently poor, there are likely about 20 wrong turns you've taken that have nothing to do with government.

IMO, it gets really fuzzy when you rely on the government to fix people's lives that the government didn't break. What it should be is to make someone living a good life, as in getting an education, getting married, raising a family, as easy a possible and right now, people who do that spend more on taxes than on food, clothing and healthcare combined. It's been made clear throughout history that government can certainly ruin your life but they can't really improve it. Interstate highways are helpful, some things in local government that everyone pretends is where your taxes go like schools and roads are helpful, but our federal budget is double the next highest country, which is a communist country with over a billion people and we still double it. I'm just of the opinion that people should fix their own lives and asking the government to fix it for them makes a lot more problems than it solves.

But none of this justifies the voting for the sickest person in the room though.......

Also. I suggest getting better news sources if you would have never known about corruption without Donald Trump as president. He has outed NOTHING I can think of that would not have been covered anyway by alternative media.

The fact that he is outing all of it so he can get away with corruption seems important here too.

I don't want to change your political views. I am just saying voting for Trump is supporting the worst elements of out political system and is something only drunk superman would do....... sober superman makes sure Trump is out of office.....

 

[nostradumbass]

But none of this justifies the voting for the sickest person in the room though.......

Also. I suggest getting better news sources if you would have never known about corruption without Donald Trump as president. He has outed NOTHING I can think of that would not have been covered anyway by alternative media.

The fact that he is outing all of it so he can get away with corruption seems important here too.

I don't want to change your political views. I am just saying voting for Trump is supporting the worst elements of out political system and is something only drunk superman would do....... sober superman makes sure Trump is out of office.....

I didn't vote for him, but I also didn't vote against him and can't imagine I would have stopped corruption by voting for Hillary Clinton. I don't trust any of those motherfuckers and Trump was the only one running who didn't want to expand government, and getting the hell away from me is all I ever ask of anybody running for office.

 

[Bob Arctor]

I’ll be voting for Trump....again.

 

[HeffDoesWant]

That theory falls apart under scrutiny. People's grandparents literally risked their lives to make the world a better place. You're supposed to work in order of taking care of yourself, your family, your friends, your city, your state, your country, then the world. You can't bypass all of that and make the world a better place if you can't even show up for work on time and have a bunch of dirty plates in your sink. The world functions best when people take care of themselves and their families and what energy is left over on broader things, which they would find requires very little energy if everyone is taking care of themselves. There are places throughout history where there is nothing you can do to improve your situation in life, the US has never been one of them.

In what way does that refute my point?
Things don't change for the better without people trying for it. And you seem to have a lot of respect for those union loving, strike joining generations that created better conditions for all of us.

Also the first part of the last sentence is laughable. Everyone has the ability to improve their lot it's just a question of how much.

 

[HeffDoesWant]

I didn't vote for him, but I also didn't vote against him and can't imagine I would have stopped corruption by voting for Hillary Clinton. I don't trust any of those motherfuckers and Trump was the only one running who didn't want to expand government, and getting the hell away from me is all I ever ask of anybody running for office.

At least government expansion provides stimulus. Upper class tax concessions do the exact opposite.

 

[nostradumbass]

In what way does that refute my point?
Things don't change for the better without people trying for it. And you seem to have a lot of respect for those union loving, strike joining generations that created better conditions for all of us.

Also the first part of the last sentence is laughable. Everyone has the ability to improve their lot it's just a question of how much.

Well no, they really don't, and that you think they do says quite a lot about your sense of the world. People from communist countries are not legally allowed to improve their situation. They can join the mafia or flee the country or break the law in some way, but it's not simply a matter of getting a better job or getting a better education. Decent paying jobs don't exist in a lot of countries. Yes, I do have a lot respect for people who want actual problems fixed, and far less for people who invesnt things to complain about.

 

[Wingslaught]

Your last sentence seems to (rightly) suggest continual improvement rather than a cycle of improvement and decline, which your first sentence suggests.

Anyway, yeah, a finance or economics course added to the curriculum would be good, as long as it didn't get politicized. But it would be like geology, biology, and other sciences, where just telling the truth would put you against right-wing orthodoxy and thus get called "bias," which would lead to efforts to insert bullshit (the way creationists have fucked with biology education).

I like how you slyly inverted the common complaint of Conservatives against the liberal orthodoxy that if you cite basic scientific facts about the differences between men and women, for example, liberals freak out. They can't handle it.

 

[Wingslaught]

And there you go again. This thread was pretty apolitical, as was my response,but you decided to insert that "right wing orthodoxy" has fucked with biology education, and not the flat out denial of biology and claims that women can have dicks.

He's very clever in a deceptive way. He constantly projects the left's own flaws and failings onto the right, it's annoying AF, but apparently it's a good way to garner power.

 

[HeffDoesWant]

Well no, they really don't, and that you think they do says quite a lot about your sense of the world. People from communist countries are not legally allowed to improve their situation. They can join the mafia or flee the country or break the law in some way, but it's not simply a matter of getting a better job or getting a better education. Decent paying jobs don't exist in a lot of countries. Yes, I do have a lot respect for people who want actual problems fixed, and far less for people who invesnt things to complain about.

Wtf are you talking about?

Are you under the impression job promotions don't exist in communist countries?

I willing to bet you have never discussed these views with anyone who actually experienced communism.

In short, your ideas are laughable.

 

[7437]

Our current milltary might is derived from our millennials?

Yes? Who do you think is in the military?

Who develops modern technology?

 

[7437]

Well no, they really don't, and that you think they do says quite a lot about your sense of the world. People from communist countries are not legally allowed to improve their situation. They can join the mafia or flee the country or break the law in some way, but it's not simply a matter of getting a better job or getting a better education. Decent paying jobs don't exist in a lot of countries. Yes, I do have a lot respect for people who want actual problems fixed, and far less for people who invesnt things to complain about.

What the fuck are you talking about? You dont think communist countries have have businesses? Surprise, they do