Are people getting 'thicker' based on the worlds education system?

[babykeiff]

Recently, I seen a youtube video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLSv17iE_4Q&t=589s&ab_channel=Thoughty2 about how the worldwide education system is designed to create an automoton / a person to follow a set of rules and work as an employee in a factory etc. This was designed to remove individuallity, and any form of thinking outside of the normal.

It has got so bad that even the teachers / educators - the people that should be doing the job, do not see the error in their own actions.

Using the proven fact that man does not and cannot create, he reinterprets, one can realize that fiction is a persons view of what they have experienced or what they have been told. As a result, the film Idiocracy (2006) and its concepts of by generation, the world's inteligence level decreases may have some truth in it.

Compare the above plus the known level of comprehension of the 1700s - date of William Shakespear and the release of most Shakespearean plays, most of us today need time to understand the subtlety within each word, yet the generation of 1700s fully understood that similar to how we today understand modern comedy.

Today, we use the internet as an information source. That is not true - the internet is an information source, but a lot of people do not use it for same. Similar occured in previous generations with the introduction of digital calculators - as a way of checking calculations - but most used the calculator to do the calculations and forget the details - after all, there is a calculator to do the work - as opposed to prior generations who memorised the same calculations that their sonds/daughters relied on a calculator etc to do for them.

My own education history is different in that I am self thought due to issues I had all my life in relation to bowel/bladder control. In US, the concept of 'no child left behind' is unintentionally, dumbing down education methodology for the thickest and slowest learning student. This has long lasting consequenses in that the rest of the class get bored, and tend to learn at the level of the slowest person. These people are the teachers of tomorrow, which will even further dumb down education.

Is there a solution... or are we destined to follow the path of the film Idiocracy (2006) ?

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Go view METROPOLIS from about 1927, R.U.R from about 1919 and 1932's BRAVE NEW WORLD and see if this is anything new Read a few Robert A Heinlein stories and see what he says about the media and education. Some of the STARSHIP TROOPERS  characters were taught the Simon Bolivar went to the Moon

One of the legitimate functions of education is to teach how to navigate your society. A collectivist culture will teach conformity while an individualist culture will teach autonomy. Let us consider the implications of one aphorism that is a misquuote of the story of Cain and Abel. "Man is his brothers' keeper". My question; "Can a person be both kept and free?". Figure out the rest

As a sort of antidote to what was pictured in the first paragraph, finish up with THE FOUNTAINHEAD, paying close attention to Elsworth Toohey's lecture to Peter Keating

[babykeiff]

58 minutes ago, Little BabyDoll Christine said:

Go view METROPOLIS from about 1927, R.U.R from about 1919 and 1932's BRAVE NEW WORLD and see if this is anything new Read a few Robert A Heinlein stories and see what he says about the media and education. Some of the STARSHIP TROOPERS  characters were taught the Simon Bolivar went to the Moon

One of the legitimate functions of education is to teach how to navigate your society. A collectivist culture will teach conformity while an individualist culture will teach autonomy. Let us consider the implications of one aphorism that is a misquuote of the story of Cain and Abel. "Man is his brothers' keeper". My question; "Can a person be both kept and free?". Figure out the rest

As a sort of antidote to what was pictured in the first paragraph, finish up with THE FOUNTAINHEAD, paying close attention to Elsworth Toohey's lecture to Peter Keating

Metropolis, as you correctly point out, is where big business / corporate rule the working class. Similar concepts exist in The Hunger Games. Another example, but slightly hidden, is In Time where time living is currency, and the richer one is, the longer one can live!

I agree that education is supposed to teach one how to interact, but to navigate ones society - can that be taught and if it is, is it not a little biased and based on the teacher? In a society, one has to learn the rules in order to live in harmony, but as with every rule, humans tend to push / bend / and ultimitely brake same - which also leads to your question "Can a man be both kept and free?". Freedom itself is a compromise, as we ultimately compromise our own freedoms to ensure the freedoms of others. This is done as no man can live alone - although it has been tried. As a result, for harmony, we must learn compromise. Your example of Elsworth Toohey's intent is a prime example of certain peoples behaviour to manipulate others for their own self interests - Toohey's interest in power - using subdifuge.

It also begs the question - why? Why do people manipulate others? The quick answer is for self gain, but why does one need self gain. That is where the sublety exists - it is something that is taught. If one looks at babies / children in a creche playing together, they are sharing toys etc based on their own views and simplistic rules they have been taught. Rarely an argument will break out when one child thinks they deserve more time with a specific toy than another based on a self percieved view of superiority. That self superiority has been taught - as the child is mimicing an elder.

We all teach others this 'manipulitive' behaviour. A child does not know how to lie unless it has seen another do it, and will copy / mimic the other. It doesn't know about the faux gain it will get when the child begins to lie. Some children are taught not to lie, and keep that behaviour all their life. Others lie constantly to such an extent that their life is a lie. 

You state that education is supposed to teach one how to interact with the world. Education teachs one to lie / manipulate as well as other behaviour. It also teaches about incorrect behaviour, as a way of control  - and in my humble opinion, it is wrong.  The concept of comparing one to another by a number (marking systems / results) also teaches competition - person 1 is better than person 2 based on some number in some obscure test!

[~Brian~]

In a way I think that the world is dumbing down education. I will use an example that comes to mind. as a kid I used to watch programs such as sesame Street, Mr Rogers, Electric Company, Zoom, and 321 contact. these were awesome wholesome educational shows that came right off of PBS at that time period.

nowadays, sesame Street has been dumbed down so that younger kids will be able to understand what they're trying to get across. while I applaud Sesame Street for what they taught us when we're kids, they taught us to be respectful, and taught us to be kind gentle, to try to get along, to read, to understand our letters and our numbers, and just have fun, now it just seems as if what I would see 30 to 40 years ago, is a lot different than my nieces may see today. Sesame Street used to teach a lot of different things like letters numbers manners whole bunch of things, but now, dumbing down Sesame Street for example remove some of the educational value for the older kids, making it almost to show for newborns instead of kids that are two to five to seven years old.

Also I will give you an educational example: when we were kids, they used to give us our science books and our math textbooks and our social studies textbooks, our history textbooks are spelling and reading textbooks et cetera And everything was expected to roll based on what our books would say. they taught us mostly from our books, sometimes from field trips or real time experience, sometimes from personal experience of the instructors. That was fine, but you have to be able to be put in a situation where you can actually learn. most kids in my generation Learn from textbooks which is OK, but the way you learn today is a lot different. you have online experience, you have actual people to talk to, you actually get set up in a situation where you get to test your skills, and you learn different coping mechanisms and new ways to do things.

Education has changed very much: I remember in the 70s the best the best way to educate disabled people was to hurt them together in one classroom or one school, and then teach 'em all at once, and a bunch of different rooms, and they would take care of all of their needs, similar to my stay at the Vermont Achievement Center, which I call the Vermont hellhole. it was like staying in a mental hospital or a psych ward, because you never knew what the heck you were being asked to do sometimes, or what a staff member would do To you if you did not respond exactly the way they told you to.

Nowadays they cannot get away with treating people like that because there are laws against it. there are also oversight agencies to protect against abuse and neglect of people that are disabled or infirm.  I don't know what people think of schools nowadays other than to say When I was in school, I had to work extra hard to get where I wanted to go, three times harder than Joe blow to my right or Linda Blow to my left. people understand that I have to deal with things I have to deal with and that's fine, but when you are disabled and you are trying to make a goal of it, and you make your mark on the wall, it makes it hard when somebody wants to erase it from behind you. I don't know exactly what this system is expecting of kids nowadays, but it seems to me but maybe kids are being asked to do way too much, or in some cases not enough?

I mean you deal with people who are In school, you expect that you're going to get school work and you're gonna be doing work in class, and you might get homework. when I was in school homework was a nightly ritual and it was almost guaranteed Guaranteed that you had something they wanted you to do at home. they told us that the reason why they wanted us to do at home is because they wanted to see if we were able to complete an assignment without being in a classroom. while I understand homework has value, some kids don't need to have homework that young and life, and that's one of the things that has changed. i'm not sure exactly what they've done, but seems like school has changed so that the first thing that happens is the kids don't have hardly enough vacation, because they start earlier and early and earlier  I keep asking myself every year why the heck every time I turn around kids are starting earlier and earlier and then not getting out until later in June period isn't that a little bit counterproductive?

School is supposed to be something that is supposed to help you be better at things and be ready for life, it is supposed to be something where you are learning every day, not where somebody is shovel feeding you pages and pages and pages of documentation and then and asking me to Leguritate it back to them: school is supposed to teach you things so you remember them, so that you can have an idea of what to do in the life that you eat when you leave. Sometimes kids have a bad time in school because they can't make go of it because they don't understand something, or because of their disability or because of other problems. part of the problem that I can see is that kids may not have the best housing or they might not have the best home life or the best situation, so that makes it hard for a kid to attend school without having to worry about things. teachers have to step up and have And have been to help kids succeed even if it means they have to do a little extra here and there, and I've had teachers do that for me. if it wasn't for some of these teachers, I wouldn't be the man I am today, because somebody would have given up on me and thrown in the towel long ago.

I don't think people are getting thicker per se, I just think that maybe people are just being jammed full of school, and then expected to regurgitate it back to the teachers. most new programs that I see allow a student to actually have a hands on experience and learn in a different way in a different environment:  Some kids can't learn by sitting at a desk in front of a chalkboard talking to a teacher and taking notes: some people have to be in a situation where it's a vocational training program where they actually earn a trade and learn how to live and do things themselves. You also have to realize that there are many things that change in life and you just can't expect kids to be doing it the way they used to do it. in the pandemic for example, we ended up with about two years where no one could do anything because of the pandemic and no one could go anywhere for awhile, so everybody was doing remote learning. some students totally fell off the tracks and crashed because they can't learn that way. some people trouble learning in front of a teacher in a desk in a school situation, and others flourished when they did stuff with remote learning.

But I hope people learn from this experience that remote learning does have its advantages, and it does have its users.  my pastor used to say that the way that we did things in the past had to change in order to compete with what we had in front of us. schools have to find more intubative ways to be able to instruct who cannot learn in the Way, and there are good programs that teach kids how to learn and what they need to learn so they can be successful.

I worry about education nowadays because of people like the former education commissioner betsy de Vos colin if she had her way people like us would be ending up truck into special schools and then locked up like prisoners, and they privatize all special ed class classes and make us all dumb and stupid. that is not the way to teach kids and that is not the way to entice Kids to want to learn and enjoy school. school is supposed to be a learning experience, but it's also supposed to be a time when you're supposed to learn you're supposed to learn fair play you're supposed to learn the rules, you're supposed to make friends, and hopefully you'll make friends that you'll always have to this day. I have been pretty lucky that I have at least five or ten of my friends that I graduated with But I am in constant contact with: these people mean a lot to me because they were standing behind me and beside me when I was being thrown some of these knives and some of these things that make no sense. for example, when I was a high school senior and I was about ready to graduate, the special education team offered me the opportunity to do another year at the high school, and throw away all of the hard work that I had done so that I could get myself to Burlington VT to Champlain College to continue my education period these guys were stupid they were rude and they were very Mean in some cases. I looked him right in the face and without due respect I basically told them where they could stick that offer. kids like us don't have the ability to be able to learn somethings like others, but I have the opportunity and I had the opportunity to prove that I could do it, even if I was under the guns and had bad situations happen to me from the time I was six until about 10 years old period I told them that there are a lot of bad things that happened to me, and I want to be getting out of the special Ed system because all of them seem to be remembering that I have some sort of deficiency: but guess what: you're looking at a guy that had a cumulative great point average four years of 2.9985! that's pretty darn good and they could have given me a B, 3.00, But they would. so I had to take what they gave me. so I learned one thing you have to be able to break people's heads sometimes to be able to get them to understand that sometimes you can't learn the way they want you to. I was lucky I didn't have to do that very many times, but there were many times when I just couldn't understand it and I just lost it. As I said education is supposed to be something that you use in your daily life and it sets you up for success, and sometimes depending on this Set up with your education, you might end up failing. I am not a failure: no one's gonna tell me I failed unless I did it myself and I say that I did it! I worked hard I did what I was supposed to do I got that degree and I was able to tell everybody to take a piece of pie and hit themselves in the face with it! I could use words that were stronger but that would not be appropriate, but I can tell you that sometimes I think You have to be able to make changes to people's education so that they can learn in the way that they can learn best. that's why special Ed classes and special ed curriculum exists, that's why an IEP exists: so that they can set up a program that makes sense to the person that is being educated. far too many times they want everybody until the age of 21 to go through the Mickey Mouse World of what they call education, but then when you get there some of it is so dumb it doesn't make sense. Sometimes I think what I found when I was in high school and in college was that when I was in college I felt like my associates program was like going to preschool or kindergarten and my program was like being in 12th or 13th grade, which is basically about as hard as very difficult high school curriculum like honors curriculum. I was able to tell them that they needed to make changes when they wanted us to tell them about our new major which I was a member of: I said that they needed to make the associates program equally challenging instead of making the associates program seem like a kindergarten class compared to a bachelor's program which is equivalent to a master's degree: depends on what degree you're going for and it needs to be appropriate for what they need.

In a way i'm glad I'm done with that type of Education: education that I got was awesome the people that I have had helping me were awesome, I had a lot of problems when I was young, I don't know why it just makes me want to cringe sometimes, but I sometimes get nightmares because of some of the stuff that happened when I was at Vermont achievement center. that place was like a hell hole in a nightmare! I don't know how I survived but I had good people backing me and I had my parents behind me but! i'm just glad that I didn't have to endure some of the stuff that other friends told me happened it was pretty awful.

I don't think that people are getting thicker:  I think what's happening is that education is getting longer and longer and longer and longer and we're not getting Any better as far as making sure people understand what it is they're supposed to understand. I don't know why we have to keep extending the school year longer and longer and longer, making it almost year round, with hardly any break time, and then they wonder why kids have problems are they just don't wanna go to school anymore. it's just 175 to 180 days of ridiculousness, and unless you're really good at your schoolwork and you know what you're doing, you have a good social system and you have good friends You're stuck in a situation where you are just walking around in a soup in a fog!

I don't think we're getting thicker, but I think the educational goals are being downgraded and dumbed down! if you want somebody to get a bachelor's degree you don't end up dumbing down the requirements of every degree below it or some above it to make sure somebody gets it. you have to make sure that you set that goal and you try your best to hit it. most people don't understand but you have to work hard. When they might not be able to get to the end of the road and they run into problems, but at least they get the shot.

Brian

[ppdude]

I did not allow my kids to watch that garbage on PBS or any other channel. They were NOT wholesome but buried in propaganda. I had one that liked Barney, but it was about the toy, not the show.

 

[Elfy]

No.

[2sail2]

Higher education wants to make money.  Thus they dumb down so they can have more students yielding to more profits. 

The one thing that irks me is Rutgers with their sports program.  They built a huge stadium at $250 million years ago, yet professors are getting their salaries left behind.

The one big thing missing is discipline and starting early.  Now with the pandemic it seems like a lot of kids didn't go to preschool.  I think Asia like China and Japan education is far ahead, but I don't know the details.  Might be that they have better discipline.  But I feel sorry for those in the factories just running an electric screwdriver.

Kids feel a certain level of entitlement (my parents are well off, so I don't need to educate myself).  One of my friends taught chemistry and kids could do not basic math of 3 digits.  He ended up having to teach them: round up to 50 on both and then add.  

My education did not prepare me enough. A lot of what I do I end up googling and finding on stackoverflow or server fault.  Plus reading man pages, trial and error through mini tests.

Sorry this was kind of a simpleton response.

 

[babykeiff]

21 hours ago, ~Brian~ said:

In a way I think that the world is dumbing down education. I will use an example that comes to mind. as a kid I used to watch programs such as sesame Street, Mr Rogers, Electric Company, Zoom, and 321 contact. these were awesome wholesome educational shows that came right off of PBS at that time period.

nowadays, sesame Street has been dumbed down so that younger kids will be able to understand what they're trying to get across. while I applaud Sesame Street for what they taught us when we're kids, they taught us to be respectful, and taught us to be kind gentle, to try to get along, to read, to understand our letters and our numbers, and just have fun, now it just seems as if what I would see 30 to 40 years ago, is a lot different than my nieces may see today. Sesame Street used to teach a lot of different things like letters numbers manners whole bunch of things, but now, dumbing down Sesame Street for example remove some of the educational value for the older kids, making it almost to show for newborns instead of kids that are two to five to seven years old.

Also I will give you an educational example: when we were kids, they used to give us our science books and our math textbooks and our social studies textbooks, our history textbooks are spelling and reading textbooks et cetera And everything was expected to roll based on what our books would say. they taught us mostly from our books, sometimes from field trips or real time experience, sometimes from personal experience of the instructors. That was fine, but you have to be able to be put in a situation where you can actually learn. most kids in my generation Learn from textbooks which is OK, but the way you learn today is a lot different. you have online experience, you have actual people to talk to, you actually get set up in a situation where you get to test your skills, and you learn different coping mechanisms and new ways to do things.

Education has changed very much: I remember in the 70s the best the best way to educate disabled people was to hurt them together in one classroom or one school, and then teach 'em all at once, and a bunch of different rooms, and they would take care of all of their needs, similar to my stay at the Vermont Achievement Center, which I call the Vermont hellhole. it was like staying in a mental hospital or a psych ward, because you never knew what the heck you were being asked to do sometimes, or what a staff member would do To you if you did not respond exactly the way they told you to.

Nowadays they cannot get away with treating people like that because there are laws against it. there are also oversight agencies to protect against abuse and neglect of people that are disabled or infirm.  I don't know what people think of schools nowadays other than to say When I was in school, I had to work extra hard to get where I wanted to go, three times harder than Joe blow to my right or Linda Blow to my left. people understand that I have to deal with things I have to deal with and that's fine, but when you are disabled and you are trying to make a goal of it, and you make your mark on the wall, it makes it hard when somebody wants to erase it from behind you. I don't know exactly what this system is expecting of kids nowadays, but it seems to me but maybe kids are being asked to do way too much, or in some cases not enough?

I mean you deal with people who are In school, you expect that you're going to get school work and you're gonna be doing work in class, and you might get homework. when I was in school homework was a nightly ritual and it was almost guaranteed Guaranteed that you had something they wanted you to do at home. they told us that the reason why they wanted us to do at home is because they wanted to see if we were able to complete an assignment without being in a classroom. while I understand homework has value, some kids don't need to have homework that young and life, and that's one of the things that has changed. i'm not sure exactly what they've done, but seems like school has changed so that the first thing that happens is the kids don't have hardly enough vacation, because they start earlier and early and earlier  I keep asking myself every year why the heck every time I turn around kids are starting earlier and earlier and then not getting out until later in June period isn't that a little bit counterproductive?

School is supposed to be something that is supposed to help you be better at things and be ready for life, it is supposed to be something where you are learning every day, not where somebody is shovel feeding you pages and pages and pages of documentation and then and asking me to Leguritate it back to them: school is supposed to teach you things so you remember them, so that you can have an idea of what to do in the life that you eat when you leave. Sometimes kids have a bad time in school because they can't make go of it because they don't understand something, or because of their disability or because of other problems. part of the problem that I can see is that kids may not have the best housing or they might not have the best home life or the best situation, so that makes it hard for a kid to attend school without having to worry about things. teachers have to step up and have And have been to help kids succeed even if it means they have to do a little extra here and there, and I've had teachers do that for me. if it wasn't for some of these teachers, I wouldn't be the man I am today, because somebody would have given up on me and thrown in the towel long ago.

I don't think people are getting thicker per se, I just think that maybe people are just being jammed full of school, and then expected to regurgitate it back to the teachers. most new programs that I see allow a student to actually have a hands on experience and learn in a different way in a different environment:  Some kids can't learn by sitting at a desk in front of a chalkboard talking to a teacher and taking notes: some people have to be in a situation where it's a vocational training program where they actually earn a trade and learn how to live and do things themselves. You also have to realize that there are many things that change in life and you just can't expect kids to be doing it the way they used to do it. in the pandemic for example, we ended up with about two years where no one could do anything because of the pandemic and no one could go anywhere for awhile, so everybody was doing remote learning. some students totally fell off the tracks and crashed because they can't learn that way. some people trouble learning in front of a teacher in a desk in a school situation, and others flourished when they did stuff with remote learning.

But I hope people learn from this experience that remote learning does have its advantages, and it does have its users.  my pastor used to say that the way that we did things in the past had to change in order to compete with what we had in front of us. schools have to find more intubative ways to be able to instruct who cannot learn in the Way, and there are good programs that teach kids how to learn and what they need to learn so they can be successful.

I worry about education nowadays because of people like the former education commissioner betsy de Vos colin if she had her way people like us would be ending up truck into special schools and then locked up like prisoners, and they privatize all special ed class classes and make us all dumb and stupid. that is not the way to teach kids and that is not the way to entice Kids to want to learn and enjoy school. school is supposed to be a learning experience, but it's also supposed to be a time when you're supposed to learn you're supposed to learn fair play you're supposed to learn the rules, you're supposed to make friends, and hopefully you'll make friends that you'll always have to this day. I have been pretty lucky that I have at least five or ten of my friends that I graduated with But I am in constant contact with: these people mean a lot to me because they were standing behind me and beside me when I was being thrown some of these knives and some of these things that make no sense. for example, when I was a high school senior and I was about ready to graduate, the special education team offered me the opportunity to do another year at the high school, and throw away all of the hard work that I had done so that I could get myself to Burlington VT to Champlain College to continue my education period these guys were stupid they were rude and they were very Mean in some cases. I looked him right in the face and without due respect I basically told them where they could stick that offer. kids like us don't have the ability to be able to learn somethings like others, but I have the opportunity and I had the opportunity to prove that I could do it, even if I was under the guns and had bad situations happen to me from the time I was six until about 10 years old period I told them that there are a lot of bad things that happened to me, and I want to be getting out of the special Ed system because all of them seem to be remembering that I have some sort of deficiency: but guess what: you're looking at a guy that had a cumulative great point average four years of 2.9985! that's pretty darn good and they could have given me a B, 3.00, But they would. so I had to take what they gave me. so I learned one thing you have to be able to break people's heads sometimes to be able to get them to understand that sometimes you can't learn the way they want you to. I was lucky I didn't have to do that very many times, but there were many times when I just couldn't understand it and I just lost it. As I said education is supposed to be something that you use in your daily life and it sets you up for success, and sometimes depending on this Set up with your education, you might end up failing. I am not a failure: no one's gonna tell me I failed unless I did it myself and I say that I did it! I worked hard I did what I was supposed to do I got that degree and I was able to tell everybody to take a piece of pie and hit themselves in the face with it! I could use words that were stronger but that would not be appropriate, but I can tell you that sometimes I think You have to be able to make changes to people's education so that they can learn in the way that they can learn best. that's why special Ed classes and special ed curriculum exists, that's why an IEP exists: so that they can set up a program that makes sense to the person that is being educated. far too many times they want everybody until the age of 21 to go through the Mickey Mouse World of what they call education, but then when you get there some of it is so dumb it doesn't make sense. Sometimes I think what I found when I was in high school and in college was that when I was in college I felt like my associates program was like going to preschool or kindergarten and my program was like being in 12th or 13th grade, which is basically about as hard as very difficult high school curriculum like honors curriculum. I was able to tell them that they needed to make changes when they wanted us to tell them about our new major which I was a member of: I said that they needed to make the associates program equally challenging instead of making the associates program seem like a kindergarten class compared to a bachelor's program which is equivalent to a master's degree: depends on what degree you're going for and it needs to be appropriate for what they need.

In a way i'm glad I'm done with that type of Education: education that I got was awesome the people that I have had helping me were awesome, I had a lot of problems when I was young, I don't know why it just makes me want to cringe sometimes, but I sometimes get nightmares because of some of the stuff that happened when I was at Vermont achievement center. that place was like a hell hole in a nightmare! I don't know how I survived but I had good people backing me and I had my parents behind me but! i'm just glad that I didn't have to endure some of the stuff that other friends told me happened it was pretty awful.

I don't think that people are getting thicker:  I think what's happening is that education is getting longer and longer and longer and longer and we're not getting Any better as far as making sure people understand what it is they're supposed to understand. I don't know why we have to keep extending the school year longer and longer and longer, making it almost year round, with hardly any break time, and then they wonder why kids have problems are they just don't wanna go to school anymore. it's just 175 to 180 days of ridiculousness, and unless you're really good at your schoolwork and you know what you're doing, you have a good social system and you have good friends You're stuck in a situation where you are just walking around in a soup in a fog!

I don't think we're getting thicker, but I think the educational goals are being downgraded and dumbed down! if you want somebody to get a bachelor's degree you don't end up dumbing down the requirements of every degree below it or some above it to make sure somebody gets it. you have to make sure that you set that goal and you try your best to hit it. most people don't understand but you have to work hard. When they might not be able to get to the end of the road and they run into problems, but at least they get the shot.

Brian

@~Brian~,

very valid points made.

In relation to Sesame Street, they now follow the concept of Barney & Friends - which defeats what Jim Henson - Muppet Inventor / Creator wanted to do - create Television / Entertainment / Education for the 3+ year olds as opposed to what was being broadcast at the time like Bill & Ben, The Flowerpot Men - BBC: UK , Watch with Mother : BBC UK and similar. His idea was to talk to & educate children rather than talk down at them.

Your point of learning by doing is also appreciated - which is confirmed by many child pschycologist. This is also identified in the original link - where the child will absorb information like a sponge once it is happy in what it is doing.

The point of adding routine and learning by rote has been proven to fail. The way a human mind works is all about self preservation - and always keeps a bit in reserve just incase. It is also extremely lazy - i.e. will not store anything that it believes is going to be repeated and/or has another source for same. As a result, repeating the same phrase over and over tends to switch the mind off. Writing it down, and the mind almost instantly forgets it. Repeating phrases is a methodology of brain washing / hypnosis - i.e. to switch the brain off and create people that will blindly follow instruction without question - the ideal pawn.

Increasing time spent in a learning environment is also counterproductive. It has been identified years ago, that the mind can only concentrate for periods of 45 minutes or less, and if we push it to 52 minutes, the mind can't store what it has been told in the past hour.

The idea of homework was so the child, in a relaxed / different environment, can go over what they did in class, and thus either make the mistakes where questions can be asked the next day, and/or fine tune the detail.

In relation to third level / degree courses being dumbed down or not, logically it must be for the same children to be able to cope with that level. The habit of taking notes / recording notes in class and then cramming to pass an exam is destined to fail. You may pass that exam, but you do not know the subject, only the detail that was tested, and that one forgets in a few days. The link in the original post states 3-4 hours.

 

[babykeiff]

17 hours ago, Elfy said:

No.

The previous generations, did not have the benefit of computers, and had to use dictionaries (actual books) etc. to check spelling and grammar. Most of today's generation has the advantage of word processing packages with functions like 'F7' to automate the spelling and grammer checking*, yet do not use same. They use, what is classed as NetSpeak* and T.L.A.s* in communication. Is that generation unaware of what they are doing - and would that be due to lack of knowledge or lack of ability?

It is surprising that, so far, the over 40's generation, those who have spent at least half their life not in education, seem to see the error in education, and those who are in / recently left education, still don't see it.

Would this be a case of wisdom comes with age, or more like, with work experience, some learn and/or teaches one, over time, where the education system fails? 

 

*F7 Microsoft Word Text & Grammar Checking

That is if the package and the relevant localisation is installed correctly -  a task that some still do not do, but if they use a search engine, the instructions on how to do that task is available. - another example of the internet as an information source that is not being used as such. This package was designed with the same shortcut keys as previous word processing packages all the way back to the 1960s, and further on, Word Perfect. Even the Ctrl + Z / X  / C / V /B came from the bottom row of the mechanical typewriter - as it was easier, mechanically, to create functions on these keys rather than the relevant initial letter for function keys - i.e. using V as paste instead of P.

NetSpeak

A concept of removing vowels from words, substituting letters for words to decrease the letter count in data transmissions. This was originally used in 1962 in the first computerised data transmissions as a way of increasing data speed. Samuel Morse did not use that type of deliberate errors with Morse Code (1837) transmissions, yet it might have increased the transmission rates on sending / recieving telegrams. Today, some people use this within S.M.S. (short message service) commonly referred to as 'text messaging', and even worse, within e-mails and message board posts.

T.L.A.

This is a Two Letter OR Three Letter Acronym or Abbreviation, a common concept started by advertisers in an attempt to sell an item based on the illusion X item was better than the competition. Most customers were unaware of the meaning of the Acronym or Abbreviation. Similar is used in presentations to co-workers in a methodology to restrict the level of understanding of the audience. The presenter makes the presumption that it makes them sound 'more intelligent' / 'smarter'. However, it has been proven to reduce the number of people in the audience that can understand the presenter - and therefore, is directly responsible for breaking the communication process - and of the core reasons for running a presentation! The art of communication involves ensuring the largest amount of people understand your message. The art of deception involves ensuring the least amount of people can understand your message. As a result, using T.L.A.'s is deception. Even animals with their limited vocabulary, communicate better than that.

[Cute_Kitten]

I never procreated so I don't pay too much attention to what goes on in schools. I will say, I've noticed an increasing number of parents pulling their kids out of public schools and homeschooling or going to private schools where the parents know and approve of the curriculum. I also see numerous headlines in my newsfeeds across various social media platforms about various problematic agendas or problematic teachers. 

[babykeiff]

11 hours ago, 2sail2 said:

Higher education wants to make money.  Thus they dumb down so they can have more students yielding to more profits. 

The one thing that irks me is Rutgers with their sports program.  They built a huge stadium at $250 million years ago, yet professors are getting their salaries left behind.

The one big thing missing is discipline and starting early.  Now with the pandemic it seems like a lot of kids didn't go to preschool.  I think Asia like China and Japan education is far ahead, but I don't know the details.  Might be that they have better discipline.  But I feel sorry for those in the factories just running an electric screwdriver.

Kids feel a certain level of entitlement (my parents are well off, so I don't need to educate myself).  One of my friends taught chemistry and kids could do not basic math of 3 digits.  He ended up having to teach them: round up to 50 on both and then add.  

My education did not prepare me enough. A lot of what I do I end up googling and finding on stackoverflow or server fault.  Plus reading man pages, trial and error through mini tests.

Sorry this was kind of a simpleton response.

 

@2sail2,

Good points well made.

This is where the church of the almighty Yuan / dollar / pound / Euro / Yen trumps everything. This, in my opinion, is the core issue with capitalism - the inate greed it breeds. Greed is another concept that is taught in schools. A baby is, by default, not greedy. It will eat until sated, but will chose to stop eating when it is full. Capitalism eats until there is nothing left for anyone else, and still wants more.

According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, the world's richest 1 percent, those with more than $1 million, own 45.8 percent of the world's wealth.

These same 1% have been pressuring worldwide governments in relation to education for centuries so that they can increase their wealth.

In relation to disipline, there is the military type disipline that creates automotons, and there is the opposite that creates 'free thinkers'. Neither is ideal as humans need to learn where boundaries are without being brain washed. In Switzerland and Finland, traffic fines are calculated proportional to a persons net worth. Adapting that principle worldwide would truly make justice blind. Justice should be impartial, but when enforced, should effect each person equally. Since wealth is the division, fines etc., should be based on the guity persons wealth, not on the lowest common denominator. As a result, it should equally hurt reguardless of wealth. Legal representation should only be state supplied - to even the playing field. This would remove the ability to buy freedom / results and re-establish true justice. Certain people in history have allegedly bought their innocence.

This type of thinking, of forcing equality, would be more costly the more one has... as a result, it is difficult to establish, but not impossible.

If one follows Gene Rodenberry's thinking as he expresed in the fiction, Star Trek, and as quoted by Jean-Luc Picard "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.", it would remove the imbalance that capitalism and the acquisition of wealth has created.

Education does not teach this type of thinking. Instead it teachs one that the acquisition of wealth is a goal, and if one follows this or that process, you could be the next X or Y... as if that is a good thing. Matthew 19:24 "I'll say it again-it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!" contradicts that view.

History has shown us that everyone dies - and we never know the time of death. It also does not matter the wealth one has acquired at that time, as nothing one does  can make a difference. Since all wealth is made at the cost of others, why should we be taught to aquire wealth where there is no real gain. The richer one is, the more one needs to spend on security in order to protect it. The more one has, the more one does not trust others around them, incase they steal ones wealth. Lennon / McCartney wrote "Money Cant Buy Me Love", and without love, what use is money? It is more of a cost and a hassle than a benifit. It is only made on the sweat and the cost of others.

Logically, I can't see the reason or drive for increased financial gain. We all would wish to win the lottery at some time, but none of us - history has proven it - would be able to handle that amount of money. Evey lottery winner in history is in a worse financial situation now than before they won the relevant jackpot. We have to earn that type of money to be able to manage it - but it is always a problem as there is always someone else after it. How can one fall in love without thinking that that person is only in love with me for my money! How can one have a friend. A family member calls in, and the question on your mind is 'how much money do they want from me'. Money is the bain and the curse of society - but are we intelligent enough to realise this, and are we couragous enough to do something about it?

In relation to the entitled - those who inherit money - they did not earn it, usually don't know how to manage it, and either keep it by corruption OR loose it.

@2sail2, your response was welcome, and not simpleton. You have spent time educating yourself via the internet and other sources. I can't say that you built on your education as I personally feel that the education system worldwide is junk. What i can say is that you. like everyone in the world, are partially education but still had more to learn.

In some countries, all education systems do is give 5-18 year olds some place to be supervised while their parents are out 'Workin' for the Man' - to quote Roy Orbison.

 

[babykeiff]

On 12/17/2022 at 10:13 PM, Cute_Kitten said:

I never procreated so I don't pay too much attention to what goes on in schools. I will say, I've noticed an increasing number of parents pulling their kids out of public schools and homeschooling or going to private schools where the parents know and approve of the curriculum. I also see numerous headlines in my newsfeeds across various social media platforms about various problematic agendas or problematic teachers. 

@Cute_Kitten

For some, homeschooling works and sometimes creates a smarter / more intelligent offspring, but as others have stated here, these children are facing the same exams which have been dumbed down to suit the general populus / weakest member in the group - part of the 'no child left behind' concept.

Across the world, there will always be teachers etc., that do not meet the grade. The issue is that these people do not know that they are failing the grade, and usually rebel / become agressive in a way and this becomes newsworthy (according to local media*). Once an issue is of political capital - and really, anything where one can extract the sympathy vote like child education issues, it has political might and is used, normally with an alternative agenda, to drive public opinion into the line of this or that polititian. At that stage, these stories are picked up by large media outlets as they do not want to seem 'out of touch'.

What has happened is that a local teacher / disagreement / termination etc., is now worldwide news and people see it as a big issue. In reality, the 'big issue' concept has been sold to us, and due to either lack of reference / knowledge, we tend to form an opinion which is definitaly biased towards x media or y media.

An exmple of this:-

In the UK over the past 90 days, five snooker professional players have been temporarily banned from playing in touraments of World Snooker Tour. Why? Digging in to this, it seems that it is for financial gain of WST. Stephen Lee was banned as he was the 'rebel' in 1992. Alex Higgins baned for similar reasons. Is what the class of 92 said true - that these Chinese players will dominate the sport as there is no talent at that level with any UK player - and all WST is trying to do is keep control of a dying sport? - on a best of 33 matches, flukes etc all balanced out and the skill of players was on show, but on the best of 5 matches, the player doesn't even get warmed up before the match is over. This is ideal for WST and the venue as they can turnaround more seats. - but what is the media saying > match fixing and corruption, guilty guilty guilty. This is WST selling an agenda for profit, and most people believing the lie.

*I am not trying to dis local media, but most 'local' media outlets would report on the opening of an envelope.

[FretaBWet]

Everything works cyclical, our planet over eons has had ice ages and warm periods. We ourselves have easily identifiable cycles over time. We think of ourselves as vastly superior in intelligence because we have technology, devices and machinery not available to previous generations but in truth most of the world's population are dumber than a box of rocks.

We are discussing whether people are getting dumber when it's already history. People have been getting dumber for generations. We're just going into the dark ages the same as during the Middle Ages only this time the kings have the means to destroy the planet. There are still some highly intelligent people. During the middle ages they became priests, now they are working feverishly on space travel. The smart ones are going to get off the boat before it sinks and the idiots are going to pay for it.

Hugs,

Freta

[babykeiff]

On 12/21/2022 at 3:40 AM, FretaBWet said:

Everything works cyclical, our planet over eons has had ice ages and warm periods. We ourselves have easily identifiable cycles over time. We think of ourselves as vastly superior in intelligence because we have technology, devices and machinery not available to previous generations but in truth most of the world's population are dumber than a box of rocks.

We are discussing whether people are getting dumber when it's already history. People have been getting dumber for generations. We're just going into the dark ages the same as during the Middle Ages only this time the kings have the means to destroy the planet. There are still some highly intelligent people. During the middle ages they became priests, now they are working feverishly on space travel. The smart ones are going to get off the boat before it sinks and the idiots are going to pay for it.

Hugs,

Freta

@FretaBWet,

you are correct in that everything is cyclical... which gives a very good reason to study history, not just our own, but worldwide - as a way to avoid future mistakes. However, a lot of people can't see that and are, to use a phrase of yours, are 'dumber than a box of rocks'  I really like that phrase. As a result, we are destined to repeat the same mistakes of the past.

In relation to getting of this 3rd rock from the sun, (lets see who doesn't realise how accurate the sitcom title is), I doubt that will save humanity. It has been argued that an impact to earth created the ice age that eliminated the dinosaurs from this planet, and it took a few thousand years for nature to rebalance. We, in our own unique human way, have created the same imbalance (global warming etc) and it looks like that will eventually repeat the relevant ice age. Today, it is still not know how the previous ice age effected the planets orbit within the solar system - and without that knowledge, it may not even be safe for humans on other planets - so the concept of relocating to another planet, I personally don't think that is logical. Also, not enough of the population will escape to create enough diversity for the human race to survive. As a result, it will only be a mater of time before the 'off-worlders' self eliminate.

I think that humanity is doomed whether you believe or not in the 'end of the world'. I would suspect that the information is staring most of us in the face, but we are too thick to understand / accept it, where most of us spend our time praying to the church of money - as if money can get us out of this! Think of how both the rich and the poor fell, and are still falling to COVID! A microscopic virus can easily eliminate us - and more are being discovered in the melting ice caps of the Artic and Antartic. We are only alive today cause our parents, grandparents etc recovered / were immune to previous virii!

In relation to 'smart ones' vs 'idiots' where one survive and others don't... foolish die foolishly, just the same as the smart. The only diference is that the smart person learns from his/her mistakes... but there is no recovery from death.

Today, our immune systems are weaker than prior generations, our food source is contaminated with micro-particals of plastics, and the air we breath is choked with exaust fumes. Just because we don't see it, doesn't mean that it is not there. Within 6 months of world lockdown, fish were discovered in the canals of Venice and in the drains of China. Prior to that, and today, no-one can see those fish due to the polution in the air / waters.

Human attitude means that people fight over a difference of opinion - even as little as a difference of religious belief. We will destroy ourselves over some square foot of land / difference of what fictional / factual person we chose to worship / diference in opinion based on whatever.... or will our greed for more and more destroy the entire solar system.... only time will tell. 

[Lavellan]

This is a very interesting concept. 

As far as the education system goes, I think it's a mix of both schools dumbing down their curriculum and advancing it too far too soon. For instance, my JH was separated large between advanced courses and regular curriculum. In 6th grade as soon as I showed an advanced understanding in a concept, they put me into that advanced course. That of course was around the time they started to put more technology into schooling and were experimenting with teaching concepts. 

I was taking calculus in 7th grade being taught by videos of my teacher performing the practice concepts while she sat at her desk checking emails all day. Meanwhile the regular class was still learning long division. 

This continued into high school. My final year in JH they had record breaking high test scores for my class. Immediately the following year, they had record number failures. 

It got to the point in my high school, my trigonometry teacher told me I should have learned a concept in algebra 1. It blew her mind to know I never took algebra 1. My academic counselor (and all the other advanced curriculum kids) had us skip it in favor of algebra 2. 

By my senior year in high school, I was cheating on almost all of my core classes just to keep up. There was a distinct lack of tutoring available to the point where it wasn't learn or scrape by. It was recognize pattern reconstruction well enough to pass or cheat on every assignment to keep your gpa. 

We had kids graduating HS with associates degrees while the other half (the ones who couldn't adapt or were considered collateral damage) failed until they were given enough mandatory summer school to pass too. 

Earlier this year, I found they were teaching long division to my 3rd grade cousin. There's no telling what information they're skipping over to accelerate the curriculum. And then there's this: